Red School Creek English Program

PHASES
Teaching and Learning Cycle

(Derewianka & Jones 2015, p. 45)

Strategies

Purpose

Phase One Building Knowledge of the Field

Strategy One Picture Walk
- Images reflecting droughts.

- To incite interest and engagement.

Strategy Two Picture Walk Pair-Share

- Inquiry questions:
- Describe what you see.
- Why do you think this image was made?
- Who do you think is the target audience?

- To activate students prior knowledge.

Strategy Three Word Wall

- Words with similar onsets and rimes will be explicitly grouped together.

- To develop student whole-to-part phonic understanding (Hill 2013, p.

198).

Strategy Four Pair-Share-Create

- Focus activities:
- Write a caption for the image.
- Predict what will happen ten minutes after the scene in the image.

- Making meaningful connections to the text.

- To be used as a diagnostic tool to gauge textual knowledge and
understanding.

Strategy Five - Shared Reading

- Water Witcher, by Jan Ormerod.
- Inquiry questions (using Reciprocal Reading Strategies):
- What does this story remind you of?
- Whose point of view is this story from/whose is missing?
- What pictures did you have in your head during the book?
- What message do you think the author wants us to get?
- What would you tell another person about the text?

- To develop knowledge and understanding of text structure and

organization; build on the familiar; how the purpose of texts may vary
(ACARA 2015, ACELA1504); introduce new vocabulary (Hill 2013, p.
298); print conventions (Hill 2013, p. 83) and build listening
comprehension (Schickedanz & McGee 2010).

Phase Two Modeling the Genre

Strategy One Genre Comparison

- Comparisons are drawn between:
- Social purpose; field, tenor, mode; verbs/processes; noun
groups/participants; number of personal pronouns

- To compare language features of a narrative to a descriptive report

Strategy Two Analysing Plot Structure

- Story map skeletons are filled in as a class, and compared with
differing plot structures from other books

- To understand how orientation, complication and resolution can be

manipulated to suit the purpose and style of the story

Strategy Three Analysing Setting

- Using an excerpt from Water Witcher
- Inquiry questions:
- Where and when does the story take place?
- How do we know that?
- Which words, phrases, sentences give you clues about the setting?

- To determine how adjectives and noun groups are used to describe

the setting through imagery

Strategy Four Characterisation Role Playing

- Students take on the role of various characters in Water Witcher
describing their qualities and personality to the rest of the class
- The class asks the character what they think and feel about different
events in the story

- To understand that characters in a story must have qualities that

resemble people in real life in order to be believable and interesting

Phase Three Joint Construction

Strategy One Shared Reading
- Read the picture book, The Lost Girl by Ambelin Kwaymullina.
- Discuss narrative plot structure and whether the text follows a typical
convention.

Consolidate understanding of narrative sequencing (MacDonald

2013, pp. 73-75).

Strategy Two - Resolution Reconstruction

- Consider alternative narrative endings

- To recognize the different structures a narrative can follow.

Strategy Three - Finding Congruence

- Discuss how setting can be developed through language and
illustration (McDonald 2013, p. 160).

Understand the importance of illustrations and how they help

develop a setting and tell a story.

- Consider:
- How has the author used illustrations to create or enhance the
setting?
- Does the setting affect the events of the plot?
Strategy Four - Character Development Through Noun Groups
- Discuss understanding of protagonists, antagonist and focaliser
characters in narratives.
- Develop and change noun groups to improve characterization and
description.

- Acquire knowledge of functional language in relation to character

development (McDonald 2013, p. 97).

- To highlight that the perspective from which a story is told can

change the

Strategy Five Point of View

- Two students silently act out a scene while the other students watch
- The class jointly constructs brief narratives from each actors point of
view

Stage Four Independent Construction

Strategy One Group Text Analysis
- Groups to read and analyse, Drought by Tricia Oktober, focusing on
plot structure, setting or characterization.
Strategy Two Planning Presentation
- Students to become experts about their topic of analysis.
- Groups create a presentation illustrating narrative conventions,
through a modality of their choice.
- Groups report analysis to class in form of oral presentation at the
Narrative Expo (McDonald, 2013).
Strategy Three Conferencing
- Teacher conducts 5-10 minutes conference with groups.
Strategy Four Open Forum
- Each group to devise two open questions to ask the presenting group.

- Applying the knowledge obtained throughout the unit to show their

skills in being independent critical analysers of text

- Allows students to develop collaborative and cooperation skills,

communicating their learning through oral means.

- To determine individual understandings of the key concepts

presented by their group.
- Ensures active participation and retention of information.