Decoding context and genre

Australian Curriculum: English sub-strand: Literacy – Interpreting, analysing, evaluating

Display the front cover of the book and, using the concepts and understandings of visual literacy, support students to decode the book covers. Ask students which narrative genre they think Thai-riffic! might be – adventure, humorous, fantasy, historical?

Visual literacy: covers and book trailers

Show some illustrations (such as the inside cover) and discuss the style and how this style contributes to the humour of the book. Read the back cover blurb with the students and ask them to predict storyline based on the cover illustration and the blurb.

View a book trailer (such as that by Random House for Grimsdon by Deborah Abela) and discuss the ways in which complications and plot development are signaled by book trailers. Inform students that in this unit of work they will be focusing on how to develop interesting and engaging plots in their narrative writing. See also a Grimsdon book trailer made as a home school project by 11-year-old Bhanuka and another made as a class project.

Students will: Discuss the use of colour and the placement and prominence given to specific images. Identify the narrative genre (humorous). Recognise the purpose of comic strip images and illustrations in conveying humour. Record their predictions so that as they read the book they can confirm or alter them. Highlight key words, phrases or images used that introduce important elements within the plot.