Links to the Victorian Curriculum – English
Reading and viewing, language: Text structure and organisation
Level 3:
- Understand how different types of texts vary in use of language choices, depending on their purpose, audience and context, including tense and types of sentences (Content description VCELA246)
Reading and viewing, language: Expressing and developing ideas
Level 3:
- Identify the effect on audiences of techniques, including shot size, vertical camera angle and layout in picture books, advertisements and film segments (Content description VCELA248)
Level 4:
- Explore the effect of choices when framing an image, placement of elements in the image, and salience on composition of still and moving images in a range of types of texts (Content description VCELA279)
- Understand how adverb groups/phrases and prepositional phrases work in different ways to provide circumstantial details about an activity (Content description VCELA280)
Reading and viewing, literature: Examining literature
Level 3:
- Discuss how language is used to describe the settings in texts, and explore how the settings shape the events and influence the mood of the narrative (Content description VCELT253)
Reading and viewing, literature: Responding to Literature
Level 4:
Writing, language: Expressing and developing ideas
Level 3:
- Understand that verbs represent different processes (doing, thinking, saying, and relating) and that these processes are anchored in time through tense (Content description VCELA262)
Speaking and listening, literacy: Interacting with others
Level 4:
- Interpret ideas and information in spoken texts and listen for key points in order to carry out tasks and use information to share and extend ideas and use interaction skills (Content description VCELY307)
Links to the Victorian Curriculum – English as an Additional Language (EAL)
Pathway B
Speaking and listening
Level BL:
- Participate in predictable social interactions appropriately
(VCEALA168)
Level B1:
- Use appropriate social formulas
- Interact and respond appropriately verbally and non-verbally in simple conversations with teacher or peers
(VCEALC241)
Level B2:
- Respond appropriately in some contexts
- Enhance own spoken texts with appropriate non-verbal strategies
(VCEALA330)
Level B3:
- Respond appropriately during different classroom activities
- Identify and use features of formal and informal spoken texts
(VCEALA410)
Reading and viewing
Level BL:
- Show awareness that texts convey meaning
(VCEALA191)
- Participate in activities around class texts
(VCEALC190)
- Acquire information from simple images, with teacher direction and support
(VCEALC186)
- Make simple predictions or inferences about a text, with support
(VCEALC189)
- Use simple present and past tense verb forms to talk about ongoing, current and past actions
(VCEALL204)
Level B1:
- Participate in simple group activities on shared texts, with some support
(VCEALC270)
- Acquire some information from a small range of images
(VCEALC266)
- Make simple predictions or inferences about a text
(VCEALC269)
- Read sentences that use basic subject, verb and object patterns, where content and vocabulary are familiar
(VCEALL283)
- Identify simple present and past tense verbs
(VCEALL284)
Level B2:
- Contribute to group activities on shared texts
(VCEALC351)
- Acquire information from different types of visual representations in text
(VCEALC347)
- Make and substantiate inferences and predictions when reading or listening to a text read aloud
(VCEALC350)
- Read texts that contain compound and complex sentences
(VCEALL364)
- Use knowledge of simple tense and negation to interpret the meaning of written text
(VCEALL365)
Level B3:
- Contribute actively to group activities on shared texts
(VCEALC430)
- Interpret and explain information from a range of images in text
(VCEALC426)
- Discuss texts with some understanding of meaning beyond the literal level, moving towards the inferential level
(VCEALC429)
- Follow the meaning of complex sentence patterns
(VCEALL443)
- Interpret the meaning of written text that uses a range of tenses and negation
(VCEALL444)
Writing
Level BL:
Level B1:
Level B2:
Level B3:
- Follow a simple writing process, including planning, drafting and revision
(VCEALA461)
- Use a range of key vocabulary appropriately
(VCEALL474)
- Write using extended descriptive phrases
(VCEALL471)
- Maintain appropriate tense throughout a text
(VCEALL470)
- Create mood and feeling through the selection of appropriate vocabulary and idiom
(VCEALL475)
Theory/practice connections
The verb groups in a text represent the meaning about what is happening in the clause. There are different kinds of meaning to be made, which are represented by action verbs (doing), relating (is, has), saying and sensing. Action verbs are important in providing information about the sequence of events. These verbs hold significant meaning in many text types, including memoirs. In addition, verb groups provide information about when something has happened, that is, the tense. Information about the verb group - how something happens, where it happens, when it happens is provided through adverbials. Adverbials provide information in the clause about the circumstances (Humphrey, Droga & Feez, 2012).
For example:
- I read the memoir. (clause) → read (verb group)→ No adverbial of circumstance
- I read the memoir, at the bus stop. (clause) → read (verb group) →Adverbial of place-where the memoir was read.
-
This morning at the bus stop, I read the memoir. (clause) → read (verb group) → Adverbial of time-when the memoir was read.
- This morning at the bus stop, I read the memoir with delight. → read (verb group) → Adverbial of manner-how the memoir was read.
Additional resources
Picture story books - Ian Abdulla's Tucker and As I grew older: the life and times of a Nunga growing up along the Murray River. Nadia Wheatley and Ken Searle's Playground, Janeen Brian's Pilawuk, when I was young and books about memories - Sally Morgan & Ezekiel Kwaymullina's The Memory Shed.
Learning intention
We are learning to examine how authors and illustrators provide information about memories, time and place in memoirs.
Success criteria
- I can make predictions about what is included in a memoir.
- I can identify the memories shared in a memoir.
- I can explain how memories are represented through words.
- I can explain how memories are represented through pictures.
Role of the reader
Text analyst: examining the elements of visual and verbal codes that are used to communicate a message, and critiquing the effect these elements have on the reader and viewer.
Group size
Partners, small groups, whole class.
Lesson sequence
This will take place over several sessions.
- Clearly explain the learning intention. Share with students texts that include memoirs. Include texts with indigenous perspectives, such as Tucker and As I grew older: the life and times of a Nunga growing up along the Murray River. Discuss why these texts have been created and why people might read these texts.
- Introduce Remembering Lionsville and explain it is a memoir. Investigate the root word 'mem' and the words that originate from it (remember, memory, memo, memorabilia, memorable). Students create a visual representation to link these words. This could be presented as a symbol, concept map, new font creation, infograph etc.
-
Examine the front cover and the end pages, asking students to predict what memories might be recorded in this text. Students record their predictions and record the reasons they have made them. - Read the first three double pages and note what the author does with words and pictures to share her memories with the reader.
Some points to note: The sentences beginnings used in the first page (This is…There are…Here's the) provide the sense that the author is showing the reader around the property. On the next page, the author directly addresses the reader (Come on, let's go round the back to the creek). The visuals support the texts but go further to provide more information about the author's past. Students consider what else the visuals tell us. Each page has a strong border, with an artefact prominent from the recount found on that page. The artefact forms a repeated pattern in the double pages' border.
Read the remainder of the text and then allow students time to explore the artefacts on the other pages, and consider why these have been chosen to form a significant part of the page design.
- e.g.
- page numbers
- artefact
- picture of artefact
- why it is important?
Each of the double page spreads can be considered as a standalone recount. Students work with a partner to closely examine one double page spread. Students examine:
- Who is involved in this memory? (use of proper nouns, Aunt Alice, John Tindal, and common nouns, people, kids, brother)
- What is the event or action remembered? Action verbs (swimming, preserving foods, driving)
- What feelings do the event or action evoke for the author? Feeling adjectives (Felt safe, warm, peaceful, relaxed, sad)
- What connections can I make to my life? Use of personal pronouns (I, my, mine, our)
- How is the memory represented in the visuals?
- Memoirs tell us of things that have happened in the past. Students identify the words that tell us about the past or the passing of time, by examining past tense verb groups; temporal language (later, after that, then); items that were used in the past (telegraph, cast-iron stove, pit-saw).
Time and place are important aspects of Remembering Lionsville. Examine how these concepts are communicated through sentence structures.
Adverbials of time: before pa got his car, Years later, After the war, when my grandfather died, after that).
Adverbials of place: away in the bush, Here in the dining room, in the bedroom, out in the bush, up on bed, in the bush around us).
The concepts of time and place are also communicated through the visuals. These can also be examined with students.
Visual representation of time: images of day and night, use of sepia and black and white photos from the past; lines which act as pathways to move the eye across the page from left to right; the car driving from left to right highlighting forward movement; silhouettes used to symbolise the ancient people.
Visual representation of place: the double page spreads feature horizontal lines, providing the viewer with a wide-angle view to capture a scene and provide detail about a place; perspective to highlight importance by foregrounding certain images.
Divide the pages into those that mostly use cool colours and those that are illustrated with warm colours. These pages divide the outdoors and the indoors. Discuss the effect the use of colour has on the reader.
Assessment: Students create a personal list, which includes some of the language features and visual features used by Bronwyn Bancroft that they would like to include in their own text creation. The teacher can use this as formative assessment to check if students have developed understanding of verbal and visual techniques and if students have the metalanguage to talk about these features.
Differentiation
The timing, pace and content of this lesson can be differentiated for the needs of individual students, according to their rate of learning, time taken to complete tasks, and prior experiences with the metalanguage of visual and verbal texts.
The sequencing of this lesson and the time set aside in order to allow students to connect to their own experiences offers a high level of support for all students. It is particular suited to students from EAL or diverse backgrounds.