Unique resources created by an experienced Secondary English and History teacher. These are academically rigorous resources that target children between 13 and 18 years of age.
Unique resources created by an experienced Secondary English and History teacher. These are academically rigorous resources that target children between 13 and 18 years of age.
An assessment piece designed for a Social and Community Studies unit focusing on Street Art. it is an eExtended response to stimulus – multimodal response. The stimulus (examples of street art) are provided to students each year and students select 2 to discuss in their speech.
This resource includes:
A copy of the task sheet for the unit which includes a suggested structure for the speech and PowerPoint students are required to produce
A copy of the stimulus (artworks) provided to students
‘I can’ statements which which break down the criteria into simple terms for students to understand (also assists teachers to mark the assessment with ease)
A QCIA cover sheet recommending adjustments to be made and individual learning goals to be assessed for students on a modified program (called QCIA students in QLD)
Part of a set of resources created for a senior Social & Community studies class in Australia (QCAA syllabus). The other resources are also available in my store - Aussie_Resources.
A scaffolded lesson for use in a Social and Community Studies unit focusing on Street Art. The assessment at the end of the unit is an Extended response to stimulus – multimodal response.
This resource includes:
A PowerPoint which shows the students how to complete one part of their Inquiry booklet (the analysis of the Street Art).
NB: I have selected an example that students are not allowed to use to demonstrate how to complete the table to an appropriate standard.
Part of a set of resources created for a senior Social & Community studies class in Australia (QCAA syllabus). The other resources are also available in my store - Aussie_Resources.
A writing booklet which I made to scaffolding the writing portion of the assessment. Tip: I keep these in the classroom so that I have evidence of student work for if they are absent on the due date. I also share this booklet to students electronically on the class One Note for if they would prefer to type into it.
A PowerPoint to take students through the first writing session – developing their thesis statement and writing body paragraph 1.
Item 1: Key points from each chapter plus quotes related to moral dilemmas. This is a useful resource for teachers to save you from re reading the novel each year.
Item 2: A booklet to give students as they work through the novel. It includes key questions, some artistic activities (e.g. drawing a map from what they have read, creating a comic strip summary of a key chapter etc). Activities can be assigned for homework or completed in class.
Item 3: A word document containing quotes showcasing moral dilemmas from the novel. Can be used as a poster in the classroom.
Two PowerPoints for a 9 English Unit.
The first PowerPoint includes a synopsis of the film and the film trailer is embedded. This is followed by a range of clips and viewing questions. It also includes information about how Indigenous Australians are portrayed in the film. Additionally, there is a section on exploring key quotes. Students have to pick out the slang and the beliefs of the protagonist which are indicated in the quote.
The second PowerPoint is a paragraph writing lesson. It takes students through the various stereotypes in the film and includes some pre-writing (planning) steps. It reviews the PEEEL paragraph structure. It includes some scaffolding (suggested sentence starters) along with an example paragraph (which is colour coded to indicate which section it addresses). After this activity, there is information about modality and some examples of high and low modality words. There is also some information about linking words.
Part of a set of resources created for a year 10 English class in Australia (ACARA syllabus). The other resources are also available in my store – Aussie_Resources. A PowerPoint designed for use in a 70 minute lesson.
The lesson begins with a brainstorming activity where students reflect on the news they have seen recently and make a list of people, issues and events. This is a good prompt for a discussion about topical stories.
This is followed by a survey of what category of news e.g. sports, entertainment news, political news etc. It also talks about the frequency of accessing the news and the ways that they engage with the news.
Once students are settled introduce the major focus of the lesson: How do journalists / media companies shape our beliefs about / attitudes towards different people?
The lesson introduces a key term ‘target audience’ and how this determines what specific news organisations report.
Pose the question: Is the news a trustworthy source of information?
Introduce terms for students to add to glossary: bias, empowerment, disempowerment
Learn some ways that bias is omission, exaggeration, selective statistics, evaluative language and biased language choices
Look at some famous people who have been shown positively and negatively in the media (images juxtaposed side by side). Great for discussion
Look at an article (about Britney Spears) and how it creates a certain representation of a her through language choices, who is quoted, the balance between facts and opinions, whose views are silenced (omitted)
After discussing what they have learned, the lesson ends with a definition of ‘hard news’ and ‘soft news’ and a list of news stories for them to classify into these two categories.
Part of a set of resources created for a year 10 English class in Australia (ACARA syllabus). The other resources are also available in my store – Aussie_Resources. A PowerPoint designed for use in a 70 minute lesson.
This unit teaches students to be media literate and prepares them to do a speech where they analyse 1 x print news item and 1 x audio visual news item.
The lesson begins with explicitly explaining the cognitive verb analyse and the process of analysing. There is an outline of some things that students will need to address when analysing in their upcoming assessment. This is followed by an exploration of some visual features which students can look out for in print and online news stories e.g. illustrations, colour, font choices, layout of text and graphics, positioning (within the newspaper/magazine), body language and facial expressions within photographs and shot sizes. After this there is a front cover of a magazine for students to view and identify the features in. the next slides include the remainder of the magazine story for students to analyse.
Part of a set of resources created for a year 10 English class in Australia (ACARA syllabus). The other resources are also available in my store – Aussie_Resources. A PowerPoint designed for use in a 70 minute lesson.
This lesson begins by defining what a representation is and why they are so powerful. The variance in portrayals of Meghan Markle and Princess Kate are used to prompt discussion.
This is followed by a series of slides about the language features that students can look for when analysing news stories. The slides include definitions and examples.
Language features include: similes, metaphors, appeal to authority, appeal to emotion, connotations, emotive language, hyperbole, repetition, inclusive language, omission, groups of three, rhetorical questions, alliteration, idioms and hashtags.
The lesson concludes with reading an example article about Novak Djokovic and considering whether it paints him in a positive / negative light. There are a series of questions to help students to analyse this text.
A lesson designed to teach students content that they need to know for their upcoming Hospitality exam. This lesson begins with a list of definitions students have to copy (a settling activity). These definitions are: bacteria, potentially hazardous foods, cross-contamination, food-contact surface and food poisoning. There is an informative poster about cross contamination used to generate class discussion and establish prior knowledge.
The remainder of the lesson has slides about
• Hazards that can contaminate food
• How bacteria can enter a hospitality premises
• Types of food poisoning
• Symptoms of food poisoning
• 5 causes of food poisoning
• Evaluating hazards in kitchens (an exam skill)
There are lots of visual prompts within the slides. Notes students are expected to copy have been underlined. Slides 19-21 are activities designed to help students apply what they have learned (similar format to exam questions).
Resources designed for use in an 11 Hospitality Practices class in Australia (2019 curriculum). Unit 1: Introduction to Hospitality, Topic 1: Beverage operations and services. My school has 70-minute lessons. The assessment at the end of this unit was an examination (short response).
Two resources: A PowerPoint and Worksheet. The worksheet is designed to step students through the lesson. It includes copies of the sources on the PPT slide and questions for them to answer. It also includes space for them to copy the notes that have been underlined in the PPT presentation.
The PPT begins with a viewing activity from YouTube (Simple History’s summary of the Russian Revolution.) This is followed by information about the short- and long-term causes of the Russian Revolution. (Linking back to what students have learned about WW1). Students are reminded of the term ideology and are given information about ‘revolutionary ideologies’ and strategies used by revolutionary leaders. There is information about obstacles to the revolution which students need to copy some of onto their worksheets. There are some warnings that the Tsar received about the revolutionary situation which students must read and summarise the key ideas (implicit/explicit meanings) on their worksheet. Following this a summary of each day of the February revolution is provided. Students have to write catchy headlines to summarise each day. Finally there is a visual source for students to practice analysing for homework.
Designed to meet the requirements of the senior Modern History syllabus (implemented in QLD in 2019), this unit falls under the category of ‘Ideas in the Modern World.’
A resource designed for use with Year 12 Essential English students (Australian curriculum). Students are preparing to sit a response to stimulus exam with one seen source and one unseen source (1 x written and 1 x visual).
The document includes a list of language features and text structures commonly found in visual stimulus texts (along with definitions and examples).
How I used this in my teaching: I printed a class set of the LF on one colour and the TS on another colour and had them laminated. I hand them out in each lesson when students are analysing texts. I also printed one set in A3 and put them up as posters in the classroom.
A PowerPoint which provides an image and summary for the following characters from Deadly Unna? (pictures taken from the film Aussie Rules).
Bob Black aka The Old Man
Gwen Black (Blacky’s mum)
Gary Black
Dumby Red
Pickles
Coach Robertson aka Arks
Tim Black aka Best Team-Man
Darcy
I printed these up and used them as posters in the classroom.
A PowerPoint designed to explain the rules of articulate and a slide which displays an articulate style board with Modern History categories (People, Geography, Historical concepts/skills, Events, Random, Groups)
A series of cards designed for units taught in Senior Modern History
Frontier Wars
Russian Revolution
Vietnam Independence Movement
Waves of Feminism
World War Two (the Holocaust)
Communist China (Mao)
The Cold War
Australian experiences in the Vietnam War
Scramble for Africa
Apartheid in South Africa
A PowerPoint explaining the assessment task (students are to write a monologue from the perspective of a character of their choosing). This resource includes: planning steps, the structure of a monologue, the language features that should go in a monologue, a list of character choices and example monologues written by year 10 students in Australia.
This also includes a word document version of the planning booklet which can be printed for students or shared electronically.
Part of a set of resources created for a year 10 English class in Australia (ACARA syllabus). The other resources are also available in my store - lrigb4. Designed for use in 50 minute lessons (with extra activities as a back up if the class is advanced).
Two assessment tasks written for a Macbeth Unit and the unit plan showing the lesson outlines for an 8 week unit.
This English unit has been developed for a year twelve class (in Australia) studying William Shakespeare’s tragedy, Macbeth. The focus for this eight week unit has been taken from the Queensland Studies Authorities suggested work program “The human condition – Shakespeare.” Within this unit, the student’s engagement with Macbeth will emphasise “the aspects of the human condition evident in the play through the representations of central characters and their relationships and motivations.” As part of this focus, “students will consider such aspects as the impact or role of power, fear and violence in the play and their relevance to contemporary times.”
Included are two summative assessment pieces – a spoken ‘persuasive text’ (summation speech) and a written ‘reflective text’ (feature article) and marking rubrics.
A PowerPoint that goes through an acronym which can be used to analyse sources (with specific examples from WW2).
This is followed by content knowledge: Japanese Imperialism and the lead-up to Pearl Harbor, The source of US conflict with Japan & Japan's strategy.
PowerPoint 1: Unit introduction including classroom expectations (rules), an explanation of the unit, key questions for the unit, explaining the 2 assessment tasks, looking at famous quotes about teens and seeing if they agree, a list of teen issues and themes, common settings and characters for teen films.
PowerPoint 2: exploring teenage stereotypes. This lesson defines stereotypes and gives examples of what stereotypes are, explores why we stereotype people, looks at common stereotypes about teenagers. The PPT includes excerpts from 2 Hollywood films (10 Things I Hate About You & Mean Girls) and questions to encourage students to identify the stereotypes in them.
This PowerPoint is designed to last for a few lessons and contains 54 slides with tips for photo composition. It teaches students about the effects of lines (straight and curved) and activities to check whether students can identify horizontal, vertical and diagonal lines within images. It also has activities and information for shapes and silhouettes, patterns and colours. Additionally, there is information about shot sizes and angles (no activities just discussion) and other general composition tips.
These resources are for the beginning of a crime fiction unit taught to senior English students. This unit provides many opportunities for students to develop an enjoyment and appreciation of language and literature. Students will be exposed to canonical and popular culture texts that explore crime fiction. Great value for money, see the explanation of the six resources included below.
Resource 1: A Brief Introduction PowerPoint (defining crime and genre, introducing students to the crime fiction genre, the three basic elements of crime fiction and listing some subgenres of crime fiction.
Resource 2: One lesson from a unit entitled ‘Revolutionary texts of the past meet popular culture texts of today.’ A PowerPoint introducing students to gothic romantic literature (genre conventions). It explains the social context of the time this genre originated, it outlines its key features and looks at two prominent examples: an extract from Frankenstein and Edgar Allen Poe’s Short Story ‘Tell-Tale Heart.’
Resource 3: Homework handout with questions about ‘Tell-Tale Heart’
Resource 4: A copy of the ‘Tell-Tale Heart’ to email to students.
Resource 5 & 6: Spelling words for the term and a template for students to write their definitions and sentences in.
The unit focuses on the study and analysis of texts including a film, novel extracts and a range of short stories to allow students to judge and value literary works in terms of the insights and truths they offer. Students should come to realise that both popular culture and canonical texts have meaning and value in contemporary society. If you are interested in the other resources from this unit, please visit my shop.
Two powerpoints used in a 8 English protest poetry unit I designed.
The first explores: What is critical literacy and why do we need these skills? How will it help us to understand protest poems? It introduces key critical literacy terms (ideology, privileged, intended reading, marginalised, silenced etc.) It includes a list of things it is important to be aware of when viewing or reading a poem/text. It also begins to introduce students to Indigenous Australian issues as these are the first series of poems to be explored. It includes poems about colonisation and questions to prompt students to analyse these poems.
The second is an introduction to poetic devices which includes definitions and examples of personification, rhyme, onomatopoeia, alliteration, simile, metaphor etc.
Additional resource: A handout I use at the end of the poetic devices lesson to check whether the students have understood what was taught (it is a matching terms activity).