PoLT Online Professional Learning Resource – Principle 3
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Vignettes – Later Years – The Hunter
Back to Principle 3 - Vignettes: Later Years
Example
The Hunter
Jack’s Year 11 English class is drawn from a rural area. The students have experienced community polarisation on issues of conservation and development. Some students are studying VCE Outdoor Education, others VCE Psychology. Some have experienced trauma. The class group is diverse. All are intrinsically fascinated with scenarios of the future. Jack selects The Hunter by Julia Leigh as an appropriate text for study. The students read The Hunter quickly and discuss it animatedly.
Jack explicitly teaches the key skills of possible interpretation of the characters and text using evidence. He supports the students to identify issues within the text and develop scrapbooks of media cuttings relevant to The Hunter issues. These scrapbooks are used to stimulate discussion and debate. Jack also integrates visuals and involves guest speakers throughout lessons. A documentary is screened from the viewpoint of an Australian professional hunter and students debate similarities with the novel’s main protagonist.
They explore plot credibility through developing knowledge and information questions that they ‘test out’ with an expert guide at the museum. During the fact-finding visit to the museum they also explore questions that require analysis, synthesis and evaluation - ‘What would?’ ‘When might’ and ‘Why?’. They pose these and similar substantive questions to a national parks officer, a trauma counsellor, a research biologist and a psychiatric nurse who visit their class.