ATESOL NSW Professional Development Program 2005
English (ESL) Course Stage 6 Year 11
Unit: Language Study within an
Area of Study – Transitions
Teaching Sequence – PART b
ATESOL NSW Professional Development Program 2005
English (ESL) Course Stage 6 Year 11
Unit: Language Study within an Area of Study – Transitions Part B
This unit of work was developed by Dianne O’Neile of Pendle Hill High School and Jo-Anne Patterson of Wyndham College as part of the 2004-5 ATESOL NSW Quality Teacher Programme Project: Programming ESL in English 7-12 within a Quality Teaching framework.
ã Commonwealth of Australia 2004
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Disclaimer
The views expressed herein do not necessarily represent the views of the Australian Government Department of Education, Science and Training.
Acknowledgement
This project was funded by the Australian Government Department of Education, Science and Training as a quality teacher initiative under the Australian Government Quality Teacher Programme.
4. A student learns the language relevant to their study of English including:
4.1 its terminology
4.2 language for making connections, questioning, affirming, challenging, speculating and generalising
4.3 language of personal, social, historical, cultural and workplace contexts
9. Students learn about the ways they can respond to texts by:
9.1 engaging with texts in a range of modes and media
8. Students learn to use a variety of textual forms appropriately by:
8.2 identifying the effects of the language forms and features, and the structures of particular texts
8.3 using various language forms and features, and structures of particular texts to shape meaning
11. Students learn to analyse and synthesise information and ideas by:
11.1. collecting, selecting, interpreting and drawing conclusions about information and ideas in a range of texts from personal, social, historical, cultural and workplace contexts
11.2 making connections between information and ideas in a range of texts
11.4. developing and presenting information and ideas in texts in a range of modes and media in analytical, expressive and imaginative ways
11. Students learn to analyse and synthesise information and ideas by:
11.3 synthesising information and ideas
11.4 developing and presenting information and ideas in texts in a range of modes and media in analytical, expressive and imaginative ways / Reading skills:
Prediction
Vocabulary: Introducing key words students will need to demonstrate their understanding of the text, its narrative structure, language techniques and links to the concept of transitions.
Skills:
Listening for details in an audio text
Reading for the main ideas
Reading skill: sequencing text
Writing skill: summarising
Grammar: descriptive language -
Identifying adjectives used to describe the appearance of characters in a story
Building descriptive vocabulary
Describing mood
Identifying and using third and first person
Skill:
Formulating general statements
Structuring an analytical response that explains how transitions are expressed in the text:
· topic sentence
· elaboration
· explanation and examples
· concluding sentence
Identifying and using the language features of a diary entry
· personal voice created by first person pronouns
· informal register
· emotive words
· conversational tone / 5. Exploring a Core text: On Loan
Tell students that in this section of the unit they will be studying a novel related to the concept of Transitions called On Loan.
a. Pre reading activities
Issue the text
Text prediction tasks:
· Read blurb on back cover
· Examine image of the young girl on front cover. Who is she? What kind of transitions might she be going to experience in the story?
· Discuss the title On Loan what does ‘loan’ mean?
Check students’ understanding of the term narrative. They may need to find the meaning in the dictionary. Ask them to use the thesaurus to find synonyms for narrative. Issue Handout 1 and work through the introductory activities that cover the purpose, elements, and structural and language features of narrative.
Ask students to demonstrate their understanding and consolidate their knowledge of the key features of narrative by completing the matching words and definitions activity on Handout 2.
b. Reading the text
Present the orientation of the story as a listening activity. Create a taped reading of chapter 1, pages 1-4. Ask students to record some of the details on Handout 3 as they listen to the recording. For example:
- a description of the setting in this section of the chapter
- key words to complete sentences from the orientation.
Allow students to read the questions before playing the tape. Replay 2 or 3 times.
Informal assessment: Check students’ ability to record details from an audio text by asking them to share their answers with the class.
When reading the remainder of the story, teachers may select from the following strategies to suit the abilities of the students in their class.
· read the novel as a class with teacher and/or students reading aloud
· teacher creates a recorded reading of the story for the students to listen to as they follow the words in the text
· pair or group reading of selected sections
· students read the story or selected sections independently.
Alternatively, all of the strategies above may need to be employed to cater for the different reading levels in a class. If space is available the teacher may have groups of students employing a reading strategy appropriate to their ability.
After students have read the novel, informally assess and reinforce their understanding of the events in the story by asking them to work in pairs to complete the plot sequencing activity on Handout 4 and share their responses with the class.
Divide students into groups of two or three. Allocate a chapter of the novel to each group (there are 8 chapters in the novel). Ask each group to write a plot summary for their chapter and present it on paper incorrectly sequenced as modelled in the activity on Handout 4. Ask each group to pair up with another, swap plot summaries. Each group is to correctly sequence the events of the chapter. Groups may need to reread the chapter.
c. Engaging with the text
Explore the characters in the story by asking students to complete Handout 5. The activities in this handout require them to name the major characters and examine the descriptive language used by the composer to create strong images of these characters in the minds of the responder.
Explore how the composer creates mood and imagery as Lindy begins her transition in the story by asking students to complete Handout 6.
Explore how perspective is created in a story by asking students to retell key events in the story from a different character’s perspective.
Informally assess students’ knowledge of the whole text by giving them a revision quiz. See Handout 8.
d. Linking the text to the Area of Study – Transitions
Revisit the sentences about Transitions that were jointly constructed at the beginning of the unit.
Read through these sentences with the class and ask students to choose those that are relevant to Lindy’s experience in On Loan. Ask students to find evidence from the story to illustrate how these statements relate to Lindy’s experience. See Handout 9 which guides students through making these connections between the text and the Area of Study.
e. Responding to the text
An analytical response
Ask students to use the ideas developed from the activity above and the scaffold on Handout 9 to write an extended response explaining the transitions Lindy experiences in the novel On Loan.
A creative response
Ask students to compose a diary entry that Lindy might write explaining in her own words the transitions she has experienced and how they have affected her. Prepare students for this composition by:
1. Conducting a class brainstorming session on the major changes in her life that have led to Lindy’s transition. This may be done in groups on butcher’s paper or as a class on the whiteboard. Give students a structure to organise these ideas. For example:
Changes / Lindy’s feelings about these changes
Finding out that her real parents are still alive / Lindy is excited by the idea that she has real parents, brothers and sisters. Lindy is confused about what is expected of her. Lindy is also worried about the reaction of Marj and Geoff.
2. Providing students with a model of a diary entry.
3. Exploring the purpose, structure and language features of a diary entry that Lindy would write.
4. Discussing Lindy’s personality, level of education and feelings and linking these factors to the register and language she would/would not use in her diary entry.
Collect student compositions and provide feedback. / Class set of novels On Loan Penguin edition, 1985
Dictionaries and
thesauruses
Handout 1: An introduction to On Loan
Handout 2: Learning about narrative
Tape recording of chapter 1 of the novel, pages 1-4
Handout 3: Listening for details in the story On Loan
Handout 4: Plot sequencing
Handout 5: Creating characters in a story
Handout 6:
Creating mood and images in a story
Handout 7:
Changing perspectives
Handout 8: Revision quiz
Handout 9:
Linking On Loan to Transitions
Handout 9:
Linking On Loan to Transitions
Teacher selected model of a diary entry / Dimension:
Significance
Element:
Background knowledge
Dimension: Intellectual quality
Element: Metalanguage
Dimension: Quality learning environment
Elements:
Engagement
Social support
Dimension:
Quality learning environment
Element:
Engagement
Social support
Students’ self-regulation
Dimension:
Quality learning environment
Element:
Engagement
Social support
Dimension:
Intellectual quality
Elements:
Deep knowledge
Metalanguage
Substantive communication
Dimension:
Intellectual quality
Elements:
Deep understanding
Higher order thinking
Substantive communication
Dimension:
Significance
Element:
Knowledge integration
Dimension:
Quality learning environment
Elements:
Explicit quality criteria
Student self-regulation
Dimension: Quality learning environment
Element:
Engagement
Social support
ATESOL NSW AGQTP Stage 6 English unit - Preliminary Area of Study: Transition Jo-Anne Patterson Wyndham College
Handout 1
An introduction to On Loan
On Loan is a narrative.
The word narrative means ______
______
Other words for narrative include ______
______
The purpose of a narrative is to ______
______
Types of narratives include ______
______
On Loan is a novel composed by Ann Brooksbank. It is a fictional story. This type of narrative has particular elements, structural and language features.
Elements of narrative
A narrative involves a sequence of events (plot) and a collection of people (characters) in a variety of places (settings).
Structural features
The plot of a story is made up of three main parts: orientation, complication and resolution. The first part of a story is the orientation. Here the world of the story is introduced, its characters and setting. There may be some foreshadowing of the action to come.
Next, a narrative has a complication. For a story to be interesting its characters may be confronted with an obstacle, choices where decisions need to be made or a problem that impacts on their life. This section of the story aims to draw the reader into the plot and make them curious to find out what happens. There may be more than one complication in a story.
In the resolution the problems are resolved, obstacles overcome and decisions made. Some stories have more than one resolution and some leave us wondering, ending with questions for the reader to ponder or solve.
The novel On Loan uses this narrative structure.
Handout 1 (cont.)
Language features
The narrator
This is the person who tells the story. In the novel On Loan the composer has chosen to tell the story in the third person. This means someone not part of the story tells what the characters are doing, thinking and feeling. This someone is called the narrator. Pronouns such as he, she, them and they are used to indicate the use of third person. The narrator also describes the events of the story and the setting. Composers often choose to tell stories this way because the reader is then able to find out what everyone in the story is doing, what their personality is like and what they are feeling about the things that are happening in the story from the one perspective.
Dialogue
During the story the composer may choose to vary the way the story is told to make it more interesting for the responder or to allow them to see things from a different perspective. The use of conversation is one of these ways. Conversation happens when the characters speak to each other. Throughout the story On Loan the composer has chosen to use conversation to enable the characters to speak for themselves, allowing the responder to find out how they feel through their own words rather than those of the narrator. This is called first person and is indicated by the use of I, me, us and we.
Description
Descriptive words are used in a story to create images in the reader’s mind. The composer describes the appearance of characters and settings in the story to create a picture of them in the mind of the responder. Mood and mood changes are also conveyed through the use of descriptive words in On Loan.
Handout 2
Learning about narrative
Using the information from Handout 1 demonstrate your understanding of narrative terms by matching the terms with their definitions in the table below.
Term / Meaningnarrative / Characters in a story speak for themselves. Pronouns such as I, me, we and us are used to indicate this type of narration.
plot / Someone not part of the story tells what the characters are doing thinking and feeling. Pronouns such as he, she, they and them are used in this type of narration.
character / When a complication is resolved.
setting / A character’s point of view.
orientation / Locations in a story, where things happen.
complication / When characters talk to each other.
resolution / The people involved in a story
third person / A story, tale or yarn.
perspective / The part of a story where the characters, setting and situation are introduced.
conversation / Pictures created in the minds of readers by the composer’s careful choice of words.
first person / This section of the story aims to draw the reader into problems, obstacles or decisions experienced by the characters in the story and make them curious to find out what will happen.
images / The things that happen in a story.
fictional / Work of the imagination.
Handout 3