The Oasis - English - Years 9 & 10 - Having a Conversation About Youth Homelessness

Activity Introduction

Quick summary: This lesson is part 2 of Tuning in to youth homelessness. Students have a structured conversation with a guest speaker about issues surrounding youth homelessness. This lesson facilitates student-led inquiry into questions that they raised in response to the THE OASIS clip shown in the previous lesson.

Key ideas to explore:

Youth homelessness is often invisible.
There are differences between being houseless and homeless.
There are a number of different ways to find information.

Australian Curriculum Mapping

Content descriptions:

Year 9 English

Explore and reflect on personal understanding of the world and significant human experience gained from interpreting various representations of life matters in texts (ACELT1635) 
Listen to spoken texts constructed for different purposes, for example to entertain and to persuade, and analyse how language features of these texts position listeners to respond in particular ways (ACELY1740) 
Plan, rehearse and deliver presentations, selecting and sequencing appropriate content and multimodal elements for aesthetic and playful purposes (ACELY1741)

Year 10 English

Evaluate the social, moral and ethical positions represented in texts (ACELT1812)
Plan, rehearse and deliver presentations, selecting and sequencing appropriate content and multimodal elements to influence a course of action (ACELY1751)

Year 11 English

Unit 1

Using appropriate form, content, style and tone for different purposes and audiences in real and imagined contexts (ACEEN011)

Unit 2

Using imaginative, interpretive and persuasive elements for different purposes, contexts and audiences (ACEEN032)

Year 12 English

Unit 3

Using and experimenting with text structures and language features related to specific genres for particular effects (ACEEN052)

Unit 4

The selection of language features that generate empathy or controversy, for example, juxtaposition of image and text. (ACEEN068)

Syllabus Outcomes: EN5-1A, EN5-2A, EN5-7D.

General capabilities: Critical and Creative Thinking, Ethical Understanding, Literacy.

Topic: THE OASIS, Social Issues

Unit of work: THE OASIS – English

Time required: 60 minutes

Level of teacher scaffolding: Medium – facilitate discussion.

Resources required: Student Worksheet – one copy per student OR computers/tablets to access the online worksheet. Device capable of presenting websites/videos to the class and access to THE OASIS documentary on Vimeo.

Digital technology opportunities: Digital sharing capabilities.

Homework and extension opportunities: Includes opportunities for extension.

Keywords: House, home, homelessness, youth, THE OASIS, expert, interview.

Acknowledgement: This resource has been adapted from ‘Teaching Social Issues Through English’ developed with the English Teachers Association NSW and the‘Youth Homelessness Matters Resource’ developed by Janice Atkin. You can find these resources here.

Cool Australia’s curriculum team continually reviews and refines our resources to be in line with changes to the Australian Curriculum.

Worksheets

Teacher Worksheet

Teacher preparation

Overarching learning goal: Students find out about the issue of youth homelessness by engaging in a conversation with a person who works in a position supporting marginalised young people - either locally or via web link using a program such as Skype.

Teacher content information: This lesson is based on THE OASIS documentary, which raises awareness of youth homelessness, celebrates the resilience of young people who are experiencing homelessness in Australia and empowers the next generation of young people to take action to prevent youth homelessness in the future.

Young people often become homeless because of family breakdown, often stemming from parental conflicts or a collapse of their relationship with a husband/wife or partner. Some young people who are living independently become homeless because they can’t afford living expenses such as rent. Being homeless is unsafe, unhealthy and very stressful. Young people experiencing homelessness are not a homogeneou

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Student Worksheet

Thought starter: Most young people experiencing homelessness are hidden from view and aren’t homeless by choice. - Homelessness Australia

What did you ask the guest speaker?

What was the response?

Did you ask a follow-up question?

Note down one other interesting question that one of your classmates asked.

What was the response?

Outline three key pieces of information that you remember hearing during the session.

Reflection

Rate the usefulness of interviewing an expert to find out information.

1 = Not useful at all, 10 = Extremely useful.

Explain why you chose that rating.

Identify and explain the information or experience you heard that you can relate to the most.

Identify and explain the information or experience you heard that you can relate to the least.

Describe at least three ways in which your view on the issue of youth homelessness has changed after the guest speaker's visit to your class.

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Activity: The Oasis – English – Years 9 & 10 – Having a Conversation About Youth Homelessness