The document discusses recommendations for effective units to teach English for years 7-9 based on the Australian curriculum. It suggests focusing units on big ideas, critical awareness, genres/text types, and responding to texts. Example unit topics are listed for each area and year level. Multimodal texts and those exploring cross-curriculum priorities like sustainability are also recommended resources. The goal is to do fewer things in the curriculum but explore those topics in more depth so students better master key concepts and skills.

1. The Best Units To Teach
At 7-9 English
For The Australian Curriculum

2. AusVels
• From 2013 AusVels is the mandated
curriculum forVictorian Government and
Catholic Schools and the recommended
curriculum guideline for independent
schools

3. AusVels
• AusVels for English is identical to The
Australian Curriculum
• Why call it AusVels then?

4. AusVels
• AusVels takes the Australian Curriculum
word for word and houses it within theVels
Domain Framework
• Physical Personal and Social Learning
• Discipline Based Learning
• Interdisciplinary Learning

5. Assessment

6. What the....
• But I just worked out whatVELs was all
about - I have to start again....????

7. Not Quite
• Many units you are doing now might meet
Australian Curriculum standards
• Pick a unit you do between 7-9
• Which descriptors do these units meet?

8. But I’m Not Doing
Everything
• The American Education Researcher
estimated it would take the typical student
23 academic years to master state
standards (WhatWorks In Schools 2003)

9. It’s less means more
• The Australian Curriculum is an
opportunity to do fewer things - and to do
those things better

10. Unit Types
• Thinking about the big idea
• Being critically aware
• Focusing on genre and text type
• Responding to texts

11. Unit Types
Lev
el
Big Idea Critical Genre Text
7
*My story
*Bullying
*Fairytales
*Advertising
*Fantasy
*Poetry
*Whale Rider
*Spirited Away
8
*Australian Story
*Heroes
*Satirical advertising
*Making headlines
*Multimodal stories
*Picture books
*Camel Rider
*Trash
9
*Art or graffiti?
*Journeys
*Text review
*Great speeches
*Teen film
*Science fiction
*Rabbit Proof Fence
*Short films

12. Thinking about the big
idea
• Focusing on an idea
• Exploring different examples of that idea in
fiction and non fiction texts
• Producing a piece of writing that shows an
understanding of different aspects of the
idea

13. Thinking about the big
idea
• Justice
• Power and corruption
• Community
• Teen identity

14. Justice

15. Justice
•A bully is physically vicious to lots of students in a
class. One student he has bullied trains really hard
until he becomes strong, fights the bully and beats
him up.
•A bully is physically vicious to lots of students in a
class. He is expelled from school.
•A bully is physically vicious to lots of students in a
class. He has to undergo counseling and apologise to
all the students he bullied.

16. Thinking about the big
idea
• Argue why the death penalty is a just
punishment
• Reflect on how the world is a just and
unjust place
• Explain how a text is an example of justice
being served
• Write your own story about with a just or
unjust end

17. Being critically aware
• How is this text trying to position me as a
reader/viewer?
• What is the message of this text?
• Do I agree with this message?
• What is the value or merit of this text?

18. Being critically aware
• Exploring how stories are presented in the
media
• Analysing persuasive texts
• Identifying embedded messages within texts
(such as attitudes to class, gender, age or
race)
• Writing reviews

19. Critical Unit
Evaluate the impact on
audiences of different
choices in the
representation of still
and moving images
LA - 10 - 8
Understand and explain how combinations
of words and images in texts are used to
represent particular groups in society, and
how texts position readers in relation to
those groups LI - 8 - 16

20. Funny?In reality, the girl
was standing on a ledge
beneath her or had
climbed into a safe
position. But the
cleverly-staged -- and
hilarious -- photo,
which made its way to
the front page of
Reddit last weekend,
looks shocking enough
to fool many viewers.
- Huffington Post
Smug: Despite almost
giving her mother
Rebecca, left, a heart
attack, Samantha Busch,
right, insisted the
prank wouldn't be her
last
- Daily Mail

21. Being critically aware

22. Being critically aware

23. Being critically aware
• Write a critical review of a web page,
book, film or television series
• Write an analysis of persuasive language
• Identify the message of a text and argue
why it’s a positive or negative message
• Critique the messages of advertisements
and the techniques used to create them

24. Focus on genre and
text type
• Understanding the structural, grammatical
and content elements of specific genres and
text types

25. Focus on genre and
text type

26. Focus on genre and
text type
• Explain the genre elements of one text
• Compare how two texts from the same
genre use similar or different genre
elements
• Produce a creative piece using genre
elements

27. Responding to texts
• Level 7: Identify and explore ideas and viewpoints about events, issues and
characters represented in texts drawn from different historical, social and
cultural contexts.
• Level 8: Explore the ways that ideas and viewpoints in literary texts drawn
from different historical, social and cultural contexts may reflect or challenge
the values of individuals and groups / Share, reflect on, clarify and evaluate
opinions and arguments about aspects of literary texts.
• Level 9:Analyse and explain the use of symbols, icons and myth in still and
moving images and how these augment meaning / Present an argument
about a literary text based on initial impressions and subsequent analysis of
the whole text.

28. Responding to texts
• Think of a text you have taught
• List all the ways characters feel and all the
things they want in that text
• Which feelings/desires are in conflict?

29. Responding to texts
• This text explores the problems that arise
when somebody wants...but another...
• This texts shows the conflict
between...and...

30. Texts
• Multimodal texts
• Cross curriculum priority texts

31. Multimodal Texts
• The Australian Curriculum’s Glossary defines a
multimodal text as a “combination of two or more
communication modes (for example, print, image
and spoken text, as in film or computer
presentations).” According to this definition texts
that we already traditionally study, such as film, tv
shows or advertisements, qualify as a multimodal
text.

32. Multimodal Texts
Traditional Multimodal Texts
(Traditional Literacies)
New Multimodal Texts
(New Literacies)
•Feature films
•Documentaries
•Picture books
•Magazines
•Print Advertisements
•TV Advertisements
•TV Shows
•Digital stories
•Multimodal Short Films
•Interactive digital non-fiction
•Interactive digital fiction
•Animated digital picture books
•Web pages
•Web advertising (including viral
advertising)
•Web shows
•Mash up texts

33. The Sandwich Movie
Yr. 8 -
Investigate how
visual and
multimodal texts
allude to or draw
on other texts or
images to
enhance and
layer meaning.

34. I Kill Giants
Analyse and explain
the use of symbols,
icons and myth in still
and moving images
and how these
augment meaning
- Yr. 9

35. Cross Curriculum
Priorities
• Asia and Australia’s engagement with Asia
• Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander
histories and cultures
• Sustainability