Activity Introduction
Subjects: English
Year Levels: 7 & 8
Topics: Disaster, hazards, misconceptions, Australia.
Teaching Time: 60 mins.
Quick summary: In this English lesson, students will begin by reflecting on their understanding of disasters and disaster resilience in Australia, before engaging with excerpts from a New York Times article focused on the Black Summer bushfires and subsequent floods. Students will practice their summarising and evaluating skills before engaging in a gallery walk to explore the thinking of their classmates.
Learning intentions:
- Students will build on their understanding of the disasters that Australia faces, and challenge their misconceptions surrounding these
- Students will summarise and evaluate language for intent.
21st-century skills:
Australian Curriculum Mapping
Content descriptions:
Year 7 English:
Identify and explore ideas and viewpoints about events, issues and characters represented in texts drawn from different historical, social and cultural contexts (ACELT1619)
Year 8 English:
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 (ACELT1626)
Syllabus outcomes: EN4-8D
General capabilities: Literacy
Cross-curriculum priority: Sustainability
Relevant parts of Year 7 achievement standards:
Students demonstrate understanding of how the choice of language features, images and vocabulary affects meaning. Students explain issues and ideas from a variety of sources, analysing supporting evidence and implied meaning. They select specific details from texts to develop their own response, recognising that texts reflect different viewpoints.
Relevant parts of Year 8 achievement standards:
Students explain how language features, images and vocabulary are used to represent different ideas and issues in texts. Students interpret texts, questioning the reliability of sources of ideas and information. They select evidence from the text to show how events, situations and people can be represented from different viewpoints.
Level of teacher scaffolding: Medium – the teacher must facilitate introductory activity and encouraging thinking in students, as well as support the transition to text immersion and the gallery walk.
Resources required:
- Copies of the news articles excerpts – printed across two A4 pages or one A3 page, enough for pairs/triads to have one of the three excerpts each.
- Student Worksheets – one copy per student.
Keywords: Disaster, resilience, hazard, Black Summer, text analysis.
Cool Australia’s curriculum team continually reviews and refines our resources to be in line with changes to the Australian Curriculum.
