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.
A PowerPoint explaining the parts of a digital camera (using snapshots from the manual -- also attached). Also a few images of what settings to put your camera on to get the best photos.
A PowerPoint presentation which teaches students how to structure a paragraph using the PEEL acronym. This will be used by students when they write their reviews of the poems they will later read. The PPT includes the words to Kidnappers by Iris Clayton which explores some of the consequences of the stolen generation. Children are asked to write a PEEL paragraph in response to a set question. Depending on the ability level of the class this can be done independently or as a group with the teacher writing their suggestions on the board. This process is repeated for another two poems.
I have also provided a handout with the words for each poem and the questions (for students who need hard copies).
Additional resource: homework handout - a three level guide (designed to prompt higher order thinking about the topic).
1) A PPT: to facilitate learning about the use of poison gas in WW1 and the gas masks which were provided to soldiers. Some context about the poet (Wilfred Owen). Students read and annotate Dulce et Decorum Est. This is followed by questions about the tone of the poem and its intended reading. Following this, students will identify the poetic devices within the poem and evaluate their effectiveness. This is followed by a series of questions for students to answer in their books (to help them expand their analysis). This is followed by a discussion to compare this text with other WW1 poems we have already explored and a reflection activity (KWL).
2) A handout for students to complete their analysis in (which also includes the details for their homework -- to write a mini essay about Owen’s representation of war in comparison to Seeger’s)
A document with over 300 trivia questions (and answers) useful for class competitions, homeroom, school fundraisers etc. Questions include those about Australia, other nations, celebrities, popular culture texts, inventors and scientific discoveries, historical events, true or false etc
This PPT was designed for an English staff meeting but could be modified for use in other departments. It is especially useful when mentoring beginning teachers.
It explains the three types of assessment: Assessment of learning (summative). Assessment for learning (formative). Assessment as Learning (learning from reflections after completing the task). It looks at why all three forms are important and how to make each type meaningful.
It includes example scaffolding for an assessment task (including how to explain the criteria to your students). It includes an example template for students to write their assignment into (that teacher’s can then model their own templates off of). It includes an example of a draft checklist which can speed up a teacher’s draft time. It explains the importance of providing timely feedback on final assessment and includes example feedback and an explanation of the sandwich model.
The first two lessons in a year 9 English unit. Within this unit, students engage with a range of Australian literary texts including short stories, films and poetry, and literature for stereotypes including bogans, Indigenous Australians and bushmen etc. We also explore concepts like multiculturalism, fair go and mateship. Students explore how events, situations and people can be represented from different perspectives and draw conclusions about characters, key ideas and Australia’s identity, justifying these with selective use of textual evidence.
PowerPoint 1: Unit introduction
Classroom expectations, Homework expectations, Expectations around use of laptops in the classroom and an introduction to the unit. It includes questions to prompt students to brainstorm their prior knowledge. It also includes clips from advertisements including the Australia Day Lamb Ads for fun brainstorming activities.
PowerPoint 2:
Introduction to key terms: multicultural, patriot, assimilate, nationalism and juxtapositon.
Identifying Australian stereotypes within a music video parody
Defining the term Identity and teaching students how to answer quesitons using the RAF method. It includes example responses and then questions for the students to respod to.
1) A PowerPoint for an introductory lesson to a year 12 Authority English unit in Australia. Overview of school rules, my rules and expectations for Authority English. A term overview, a list of spelling words, goal setting prompts, an introduction to poetry and why it matters, & a brief writing activity.
2) A handout with the questions for the student self-reflection.
The first resource is a template I use for student reflections at the end of each term. It includes sections for feedback about the assessment, the learning opportunities and about me as a teacher.
The second resource is a template I use for completing my own reflections after teaching a unit. It can be great for beginning teachers or for staff to complete together at the end of term.
Task sheet for an assessment requiring the following things: Treatment, Making the magazine in photoshop, Reflecting on your final product, Responding to someone else��s magazine cover (critiquing)
The PowerPoint includes an example student magazine cover (annotated), the requirements for a treatment, an example treatment.
Additional resource: A scaffolding table for planning their magazine cover
This booklet has been designed as part of a year 8 English unit of work on Parvana (a novel set in Afghanistan during the reign of the Taliban). It includes activities about characters, the setting and language features which students are to complete as they read the novel. There are also questions about the events/themes/character's perspectives et cetera for each chapter.
This is all in preparation for a creative writing assessment where students take what they have learned to create a written literary transformation (a short story from a marginalised character's perspective). Their short story has to focus on a moral issue within the novel.
I have referenced the other study guides I drew on when creating this resource.
Prior to students learning about moral issues in The Hunger Games, they must first learn what morals are and have a chance to identify them in other texts. This PowerPoint teaches students what terms including moral, morality and immoral mean. Students are also introduced to the news genre and its purpose. They learn about how regular news stories are structured and their common language before reading a news story with a moral issue in it. After reading the article there are a series of comprehension questions which could be answered individually or as a class depending on the abilities of your learners. These questions increase in difficulty and were written using verbs from Bloom's taxonomy.
Resource 2: A copy of the newspaper article students explored in this lesson (taken from an Australian newspaper in 2017).
This booklet has been designed as part of a unit of work on Catching Fire (the second book in the Hunger Games trilogy). It includes activities about characters, the setting and language features which students are to complete as they read the novel. There are also questions about the events/themes/character's perspectives et cetera for each chapter.
This is all in preparation for a creative writing assessment where students take what they have learned to create two or three diary entries which provide insight into a minor character from the novel. In doing so they must reveal the personality of their character through what they see, think, feel, hope for and fear.
Students were assessed on how purposefully they shaped their representations of people, places, events and concepts in the novel.
3 resources used in a 9 English unit.
1) A homework sheet which includes the poem 'Then and Now' by Oodgeroo Noonuccal and comprehension questions which are designed to help students begin to analyse the text. This poem touches on the dispossession of land and the consequences for the poet and her people.
2) A PowerPoint which teaches visual source analysis using the picture book 'The Rabbits' by John Marsden (illustrated by Shaun Tan). Students have to respond to the images by answering the following questions: What do you feel about the imagery? What does it mean to you? What is the idea of Australian identity portrayed in the picture? Afterwards, the PPT explains that this story is an allegory. The PowerPoint also includes some examples of Australian slang (as this is part of a stereotypes unit).
3) A PowerPoint which points out that for a long time there were “entrenched negative stereotypes” about Aboriginal people in Australia and how the media’s focus on negative Aboriginal issues creates much hurt when it presents the problems of individual Aboriginal people as problems of all Indigenous Australians. It explores the negative stereotypes about Indigenous people as shown in Bran Neu Dae and the positive attributes shown in The Sapphires. The clips I have selected from Bran Neu Dae are humorous but touch on serious issues and often generate good classroom discussions.
Hunger Games 1 Student Work Booklet. This booklet has been designed as part of a unit of work on moral issues. It includes activities about characters, the setting and language features which students are to complete as they read the novel. There are also questions about the events/themes/character's perspectives et cetera for each chapter.
This is all in preparation for a feature article assessment where students respond to the following statement:‘In times of conflict people disregard the social and moral norms of the time. This has been reflected in various fictional texts.’
Students must form and argument and persuade their audience to accept your viewpoint. They also had to analyse quotes and examples from the novel and use them to justify their argument.
Within their feature article they had to:
Use specific examples of moral issues from The Hunger Games.
Focus on one or two characters in the novel (and their perspective of the moral issue).
Quote from the novel and identify language features which help position readers to view the moral issue in a particular way. You must explain the effect of these language features
Include genre features such as a headline, by-line, two columns, images and captions
Write in 3rd person and use a range of language features to engage your readers (e.g. similes, metaphors, rhetorical questions etc.).
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).
3 resources for a year 12 English unit.
1) A PPT for a mini lesson on nouns, verbs and adjectives + another mini lesson on adverbs.
2) A PowerPoint engaging with 2 WW1 poems: ‘I have a rendezvous with death’ and ‘In Flanders Fields. After reading the first poem there are discussion questions. I have also included some of my observations about each of the poem (modelling analysis), some info about the author, activities encouraging the students to consider how langauge features have been used in the text. Following this, students read the second poem on their own and complete the comparison activity (3rd resource).
3) A handout with the table for the comparison activity (for students to complete electronically)
A resource taken from an Australian 10 English Unit entitled 'Contemporary literature.' In this unit students compare and contrast the social, moral and ethical themes in a range of contemporary literature texts, including films and the close study of a novel. Students evaluate how text structures, language and visual features can be used to influence audience response.
This PowerPoint provides a dot point summary of these chapters and is followed by chapter questions which could have been set for homework or could be used within the lesson to check for student understanding. I have added one YouTube clip showing a relevant scene but you could add more if your learners prefer the broadcast strategy.
Anyone who thinks that slavery went the way of the nineteenth century will be disabused of that belief when reading “Slave: My True Story” written by Mende Nazer, a Sudanese Nuba, along with Damien Lewis, a British journalist. This book gives a chilling overview of the modern slave trade from the perspective of one who was victimized by it. Human trafficking, unfortunately, is alive and well as a weapon of war in the late twentieth and twenty-first century.
This resource is a PowerPoint presentation designed for use in a 12 English Authority class in Queensland Australia. It introduces students to the concepts of cultural context and social situations and how both can influence the author. This lesson prepares students to answer the following question: What is the social impact of the text? i.e. is it recycling or reinforcing cultural assumptions?
Within this lesson students will learn about the Nuba people – cultural practices e.g. scarification, beads, wrestling, religious beliefs, dwellings, diet, languages & female genital mutilation. In addition to information, images and videos of some of these are provided. It also includes some information about save trading in Sudan.
At the end of the PowerPoint are some sample answers to the chapter questions for chapters 1-8.
PowerPoint one: appropriate for senior classes (years 10-12)
- includes tips to help students improve their verbal and nonverbal presentation skills
- includes clips of famous speeches to help students identify the techniques
PowerPoint two: appropriate for junior classes (years 7-9)
- includes public speaking tips
- includes tips for Power Points including visual pictures of what not to do
- includes an example PowerPoint presentation created by a student that presents the information effectively
- includes a list of topics for 30 seconds speeches (to get students to practice the skills they've learned
Resource 1: PowerPoint
This lesson introduces the concept of lying broadly before zooming in to focus on how the moral issue is shown in the novel. Students are introduced to the types of lie (white lie, fabrication, bold faced lies). Discussion questions are posed on the PowerPoint to encourage students to share their views on the issue. There is a short clip from the film Liar Liar to provide a humorous stimulus for discussion. Following this students will read the feature article 'Are white lies dead in the age of social media?' As they read the various language and visual features will be pointed out to them (as they will be writing a feature article for their mid term assessment). After reading the article there are activities for students to complete including defining some terms from the article and answering literal, inferred and applied level comprehension questions. Subsequently, the lesson introduces the various types of lies in the novel. The PPT includes extracts from the text where people are shown discussing lying or telling a lie. These extracts are followed by discussion/comprehension questions.
Resource 2: a feature article taken from 'The Australian' (newspaper) in 2017 about white lies which students will explore in this lesson.