Character profiles and activities for Abigail Kirk, Beatie Bow, Grandma Tallisker and Dorcas (Dovey) Tallisker.

This resource includes the male character profiles of Gibbie, Samuel and Judah. It includes page references and activities related to each character including research into the Battle of Balaclava and the possible causes of Samuel's head injury and Judah's conflicted love for Abigail that can never be because of the gap in time and his betrothal to Dovey.

Descriptive writing task requiring students to compare the fashion of Abigail's middle-class world of 1973 with Beatie's working-class world of 1873.

This activity involves writing a description of The Rocks in 1873 vs. 1973. It includes a photograph from both eras and a map of the historic site.

In Playing Beatie Bow, Ruth Park has researched the dialects common in The Rocks in 1873: Orkney Scottish, Cockney, Australian, which give her many characters authenticity. This activity asks students to translate the statements into Standard Australian English.

The Wallaby Creek children debate what they believe racism to be. The activities provided pick up on their views about what racism is exactly, which groups have been subjected to racism, and what definition the dictionary gives to racism. Students then trace the line of argument by putting the views of each character into speech bubbles. The final activities are to identify ways to deal with racism and to design a poster on hoe to deal with racism at school. This set of activities is designed for Stage 3 students of the NSW English K-10 Syllabus for the Australian Curriculum.

Activities for Chapters 13-18 of Jackie French's novel, Hitler's Daughter.

The back story of Bertram Christie is woven into the main story and gradually uncovered by the teenagers. They change their opinion of the man from being a murderer to being a war hero who acted in compassion. This back story challenges the protagonists (and the reader) to question the values and understandings of the world before the war. It suggests that maybe killing in war is not the same as killing during times of peace. This resource provides some of the quotes concerning the Hermit and focus questions .

Stasiland - Activities for Chapters 7-12

Stasiland - Activities for chapters 1-6

This resource uses an excellent The Guardian Australia newspaper article to examine the long-term impact of Stasi surveillance, control and violence on child victims and informers. The activities focus on the key points in the article, particularly the individuals whose lives are examined. The last activity then uses this information to write an extended response.

This worksheet introduces students to the concept of 'Doublespeak" and explains the concept of "Doublethink' as it originated in Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four (a parallel text). Activities focus around explaining how examples from the text are 'doublespeak' and an assessment of how important 'doublespeak' was to the Stasi in maintaining control of the East German people.

Activities for Chapters 7-12 of Jackie French's novel, Hitler's Daughter.

This activity is a pre-reading activity on analysis of book covers. The analysis focuses on colour, people, content and critical response. The skills being taught are elements of visual literacy including deconstruction of visual images to draw conclusions in support of the text.

Activity asking students to find the chapter in which the given events occur.

This poster was part of a series made for a New England NSW high school to promote the importance of visual literacy across the curriculum and to scaffold how a visual image (in this case an advertisement) can be used to elicit short- and long-responses from students. The techniques of visual literacy are outlined in the diagram on the second page.

Background notes, passage from the text and student activities on the theme of the relationship between animals and people.

Activity requiring students locate the chapter that various events that place in the text, Stasiland.

Set of activities exploring the theme of childhood trauma, its impact on later life and the concept of resilience.

Activity requiring students to locate the chapter that key events occur in the text, Romulus, My Father.