Diving Bell Education
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English language arts
Unit of Work: Early Utopias in Writing
Although dystopian novel study is a firm and familiar part of high school English, an awareness of the Utopian tradition in thought and literature is just as important. Tested on a middle-ability Year 9 (14-15 years) class, this 60-page unit can be taught independently or alongside the study of dystopian fiction. This unit looks at how ideas of a perfect world grew from visions of paradise in early religion, through planned societies (focusing on Ancient Sparta), and comical visions (the medieval poem of topsy-turvy land), before appearing as a full description of a social perfection in Thomas More’s Utopia and Michel de Montaigne’s account of Brazil in the 1600s.
Each section as an introduction to the concepts and context, and has a core primary text broken into manageable chunks which encourage collaborative learning. There is a variety of writing tasks throughout for students of all abilities. There is an ongoing task, based on the work of Jim Dator, for students to describe their own ideal society. The final assessment (for which the marking criteria are included) draws on this ongoing project and requires a verbal presentation of one aspect of the student’s ideal world.
This unit can be taught in an English, History, Social Science, Civics, or Philosophy class.
Silas Marner: Chapter by Chapter Study Guide
A thorough study of each chapter in Eliot’s short masterpiece Silas Marner. Each chapter is annotated with a short precis of the chapter’s events, so that students can quickly locate the right section, and a thematic table at the beginning lays out some of the complex philosophical and literary ideas which underpin Eliot’s morality tale. Language and narrative techniques are carefully explained, and each chapter is accompanied by a selection of quotations to strengthen students’ understanding of evidence-based arguments.
Unit of Work: Othello
Shakespeare’s play about race and manipulation is an established favourite for senior students. This 35-page unit of work has been tested successfully with a mixed-ability class and provides material for a full 10-week school term.
This unit focuses on close textual analysis. There is a mixture of tasks which gets students writing analytically, personally, and creatively, helping them to build up their own unique interpretation of the work, and eventually to express this in a formal essay.
There is a brief, student-friendly explanation of what a close reading actually is and how to perform it, followed by a sample close reading of the opening passage.
Each scene has a single-page task sheet comprising three higher-order tasks: a close reading of a nominated passage, an extended response to develop interpretative thinking, and a choice of creative writing tasks which springboard from the language and ideas in the chapter.
Ten senior-level essay questions offer a choice of arguments about character, theme, language, and context, and a sample essay discusses how the play shows that ‘we need the Outsider narrative to help us define ourselves’.
Unit of Work: The Picture of Dorian Gray
Wilde’s Gothic novel about vanity and perdition is an established favourite for senior students. This 55-page unit of work has been tested successfully with a mixed-ability class and provides material for a full 10-week school term.
Pre-reading research tasks introduce students to the late Victorian period and the Decadent movement, before the bulk of the unit focuses on close textual analysis. There is a mixture of tasks which gets students writing analytically, personally, and creatively, helping them to build up their own unique interpretation of the work, and eventually to express this in a formal essay.
There is a brief, student-friendly explanation of what a close reading is and how to perform it, followed by a sample close reading of the opening passage.
Each chapter has a single-page task sheet comprising three higher-order tasks: a close reading of a nominated passage, an extended response to develop interpretative thinking, and a choice of creative writing tasks which springboard from the language and ideas in the chapter.
There is a discrete analysis task which shows students how to evaluate the same piece of textual evidence against three different questions, preventing them from regurgitating the same remarks regardless of question.
A guided essay which breaks an essay down into manageable steps for lower-ability students or those who struggle to form and maintain an argument. Ten senior-level essay questions offer a choice of arguments about character, theme, language, and context, and a sample essay discusses whether ‘touching the sacred things is the only thing worth touching’.
Unit of Work: Introduction to Medieval Literature
The Middle Ages are fun and fascinating period of literature which even younger middle school students can enjoy. This complete unit of work is an easy and enjoyable survey of ten different medieval genres (including courtly love poetry, advice guides to children, frame tales, chronicles, and allegories) which will engage students of a more developed reading ability. This unit was successfully tested on a high-ability Year 8 (age 13-14) group.
It assumes no prior knowledge of the medieval period.
Contextual introduction to the period, changes to the English language, discussion of what people read and valued.
Ten short modules covering ten different text-types found in popular medieval literature. Each module includes:
introduction to the text type and a discussion of where we can see it in literature and culture today; a short focus text in modern English, either translated or retold
Bloom’s Taxonomy questions on the focus text
Stand-alone creative writing with medieval prompts
Summative thematic essay on one short text (provided) and the student’s choice of another text from the unit
Teachers can use the ten modules as a complete unit or as single modules supporting a study of another text.
The Great Gatsby: Unit of Work
Fitzgerald’s novel about ‘careless people’ and avarice in the modern era is an established favourite for senior students. This 30-page unit of work has been tested successfully with a mixed-ability class and provides material for a full 10-week school term.
Pre-reading research tasks introduce students to the Roaring 20s, before the bulk of the unit focuses on close textual analysis. There is a mixture of tasks which get students writing analytically, personally, and creatively, helping them to build up a their own unique interpretation to the work, and eventually express this in a formal essay.
There is a brief, student-friendly explanation of what a close reading is and how to perform it, followed by a sample close reading of the opening passage.
Each chapter has a single-page task sheet comprising three higher-order tasks: a close reading of a nominated passage, an extended response to develop interpretative thinking, and a choice of creative writing tasks which springboard from the language and ideas in the chapter.
Ten senior-level essay questions offer a choice of arguments about character, theme, language, and context, and a sample essay discusses whether we can think of the novel as a tragedy.
FREE 4 Contextual research tasks
Explanation of close reading method
Sample close reading
9 chapters with close reading, writing at length, and creative writing tasks
FREE 10 essay questions suitable for senior students
Sample essay
Unit of Work: Victorian Poetry
Victorian poetry regularly makes the top ten poems in public surveys, and much of our conception of what makes ‘good’ poetry was shaped by poets like Tennyson, Browning, Rossetti, and Arnold. This period formed the emotional and social attitudes which linger today – even in post-modern texts which claim to have moved beyond them. While the Romantics were read by the literati, the Victorian poets in this unit formed the core of public poetry consumption. An understanding of this period is essential for students who will read Edwardian and Modernist literature in later terms, by showing them what these writers and artists reacted against.
The unit is designed to be taught over an 8-10 week term, and contains:
Introduction to Victorian Britain – an easy research task which students can do together or individually, drawing on readily-available online resources about the nineteenth century.
Seven poetry-focused modules:
o The Poet Laureate: Alfred, Lord Tennyson
o The Pre-Raphaelites: Dante Gabriel and Christina Rossetti
o Celebrity Marriages: Elizabeth Barrett and Robert Browning
o Personal Piety: Matthew Arnold and Gerald Manley Hopkins
o Nonsense Poetry: Edward Lear and Lewis Carroll
o The Poetry of Empire: Rudyard Kipling and Thomas Hardy
o America: Walt Whitman and Emily Dickinson
A short list of films, documentaries, and series which students can watch for context.
An essay-based assessment task suitable for students aged 15-16
Unit of Work: Macbeth
Shakespeare’s play about madness and ambition is an established favourite for senior students. This 48-page unit of work has been tested successfully with a mixed-ability class and provides material for a full 10-week school term.
This unit focuses on close textual analysis. There is a mixture of tasks which gets students writing analytically, personally, and creatively, helping them to build up their own unique interpretation of the work, and eventually to express this in a formal essay.
There is a brief, student-friendly explanation of what a close reading actually is and how to perform it, followed by a sample close reading of the opening passage.
Each scene has a single-page task sheet comprising three higher-order tasks: a close reading of a nominated passage, an extended response to develop interpretative thinking, and a choice of creative writing tasks which springboard from the language and ideas in the chapter.
Ten senior-level essay questions offer a choice of arguments about character, theme, language, and context, and a sample essay discusses the following question:
I dare do all that may become a man. Who dares do more is none.
How are ideas of manly behaviour presented in the play?
Unit of Work: Classic Gothic
Gothic literature still informs many popular works of fiction, television and cinema, and the genre is still a regular part of many students’ high school literature experience.
This 135-page all-inclusive unit comprises:
An introduction to the values of the Gothic genre
Ten modules based around a classic Gothic short story or poem, which highlight one of the ten values or conventions. Each module has an introductory discussion; complete text of the story/poem; questions based on Bloom’s taxonomy
An assessment task suitable for students aged 15-16 who have well-developed reading ability
A reading list of other short stories both modern and classic from which teachers can choose partner pieces for the module stories
Unit of Work: John Hersey, Hiroshima
John Hersey’s Hiroshima is one of the narratives that have shaped our world, and is a great core text for a study of journalism, modern non-fiction, or life-writing. This extensive unit comprises:
An introductory section on the event
Six sections on each of the work’s parts
An extra/extension section on short films about nuclear issues
A bibliography of the influence of Hersey’s journalism
A close-reading exercise which compares Hersey’s style in 1946 and 1985
A list of long-form analytical and creative responses
Several contextual texts including the JapaneseImperial Rescript of Surrender and the Renouncing of Imperial Divinity; poetry by other survivors, and other American essays justifying the military’s decision
This unit was tested with a mixed-ability Year 10 class (age 15-16) and a lower-ability Year 11 (age 16-17) class.
Bundle
Poetry Study Worksheets - Oodgeroo, China poems
This suite of poems from Oodgeroo Noonuccal (Kath Walker)'s collection on China offers a glimpse into several famous landmarks seen through the eyes of this famous indigenous poet. The poems are linguistically and structurally very simple and can be read and studied by students from a variety of language and ability levels. Poems studied are:
China…woman
The Past
Sunrise on Huampu River
Entombed Warriors
Lake within a Lake
Reed Flute Cave
Visit to the Sun Yat Sen Memorial Hall
Each poem is examined in a separate worksheet, with questions structured around Bloom’s taxonomy of lower-to-higher-order tasks. There is also a link to another poem by Chinese or Australian poets which allows teachers to discuss differences in the manner of presenting the same place or idea.
Teachers often buy these worksheets together with: the Close Reading Notes (a complete reading of each poem), and the sample essay to a senior question for this topic.
Please note - because of copyright costs the poems themselves must be downloaded free from the NESA website.
Bundle
19th Century Poetry and Novel: Twin Units of Work
Victorian poetry regularly makes the top ten poems in public surveys, and much of our conception of what makes ‘good’ poetry was shaped by poets like Tennyson, Browning, Rossetti, and Arnold. This period formed the emotional and social attitudes which linger today – even in post-modern texts which claim to have moved beyond them. While the Romantics were read by the literati, the Victorian poets in this unit formed the core of public poetry consumption. An understanding of this period is essential for students who will read Edwardian and Modernist literature in later terms, by showing them what these writers and artists reacted against.
The unit is designed to be taught over an 8-10 week term, and contains:
Introduction to Victorian Britain – an easy research task which students can do together or individually, drawing on readily-available online resources about the nineteenth century.
Seven poetry-focused modules:
o The Poet Laureate: Alfred, Lord Tennyson
o The Pre-Raphaelites: Dante Gabriel and Christina Rossetti
o Celebrity Marriages: Elizabeth Barrett and Robert Browning
o Personal Piety: Matthew Arnold and Gerald Manley Hopkins
o Nonsense Poetry: Edward Lear and Lewis Carroll
o The Poetry of Empire: Rudyard Kipling and Thomas Hardy
o America: Walt Whitman and Emily Dickinson
A short list of films, documentaries, and series which students can watch for context.
An essay-based assessment task suitable for students aged 15-16
TOGETHER WITH SILAS MARNER
A thorough study of each chapter in Eliot’s short masterpiece Silas Marner. Each chapter is annotated with a short precis of the chapter’s events, so that students can quickly locate the right section, and a thematic table at the beginning lays out some of the complex philosophical and literary ideas which underpin Eliot’s morality tale. Language and narrative techniques are carefully explained, and each chapter is accompanied by a selection of quotations to strengthen students’ understanding of evidence-based arguments.