Stimulating, engaging and promoting thinking beyond the lesson of the day - that's the support material I seek to produce in the English, Maths and Humanities areas. As a resource manager and classroom teacher for over 30 years, I want to offer practical, get-to-the-point material to broaden, challenge and deepen understanding, provide for a range of skill levels, and make teaching and learning stimulating and enjoyable.
Stimulating, engaging and promoting thinking beyond the lesson of the day - that's the support material I seek to produce in the English, Maths and Humanities areas. As a resource manager and classroom teacher for over 30 years, I want to offer practical, get-to-the-point material to broaden, challenge and deepen understanding, provide for a range of skill levels, and make teaching and learning stimulating and enjoyable.
Here are two handout items on the anti-war poem / song lyric AND THE BAND PLAYED WALTZING MATILDA by Eric Bogle. The first contain the text of the poem / lyric which use has shown works best by playing the video version from Youtube to being to life this immensely powerful and moving lyric. There are a series of comprehension questions which can be used for formal assessment or group discussion.
The letter writing task contains an example of a letter to the editor about the thematic relevance and literary qualities of the poem. The student is then provided with a question task of their own to complete on a war poem of their choice.
This is a unit to prepare secondary students to produce their own short story, by a close study of five short stories each of which have enquiry and discussion questions about characterization and language use, together with explicit powerpoint instruction on genre, the creation of conflict, the construction of tension, using implicit description, and using figurative language devices for effect
The 5 stories are formatted with graphic art and sidebar explanation of the vocabulary and each are provided with a set of comprehension questions on plot, character,writer’s purpose and use of language. As a way of close analysis with the full class, each comes as both a document / pdf for digital transmission / printing, and also in powerpoint form so that focus on particular language in the text can be best managed in class. These powerpoints come in separate student and teacher versions - teacher copy contains answerson slides to all questions.
