Formative assessment task 1 — Mahtab's perspective

Australian Curriculum: English sub-strand: Literature — Creating Literature

Assess students’ writing to determine whether students are able to:

• demonstrate an understanding of some key concepts of the book
• show they are developing an empathy with Mahtab and her family’s circumstances
• include specific text references
• use an appropriate form of writing
• write grammatically correct sentences.

Provide written feedback to students indicating what they have done well and any areas requiring improvement, as well as how this can be done.

Students will: Using the photo on the front cover, consider what Mahtab might be thinking and feeling at various points of the novel, to speculate on and record Mahtab’s perspective on the journey (losses, grief and sense of the unknown); to write a journal or letter to Mahtab’s friend Leila, citing specific text references (for example, page 32 and pages 127-128) to record speculations.

Reading Mirror by Jeanie Baker

Australian Curriculum: English sub-strands: Literature — Literature and context; Literacy – Interacting with others

As a class, read Mirror by Jeannie Baker. Select one student from each group to report back on group discussions. Lead the class in discussion, emphasising the similarities between the families and the universality of many human behaviours.

Students will: Consider the similarities and differences between the Australian and Moroccan families depicted in Mirror and the similarities between Mahtab’s family and their own. Form small groups to share ideas. Create a contrast chart for the families in Mirror, and a contrast chart to compare their own family to Mahtab’s. Alternatively, students will create a Venn diagram instead of the contrast chart.