Thai-riffic!

Key skills, knowledge and understandings developed in this unit

This unit of work focuses on specific strategies used to teach plot development in narrative writing. Students will learn how to link scenes and events using concise, effective language choices, avoiding word redundancy and repetition; create purpose through effective event transition and sentence structure; embed appropriate tension, suspense and engagement in the storyline; use illustrations and diagrams for purpose and to add meaning; and utilise ICT to draft and edit work samples, focusing on engagement and plot transition.

Teaching and learning sequence (each lesson will open in a new tab/window)

Lesson 1: Assessment for learning  | Before reading 

Lesson 2: Decoding context and genre   | Visual literacy: covers and book trailers

Lesson 3: Shared and independent reading  | Exploring context

Lesson 4: Creating storyboards

Lesson 5: After reading — Assessment as learning | Exploring plot

Lesson 6: Close reading  | Exploring humour  | Exploring beginnings

Lesson 7: Video conference Part 1  | Exploring the writing task  | Expanding language

Lesson 8: Independent writing  | Assessment of learning

Lesson 9: Video conference Part 2 | Class Wiki and podcast

Lesson 10: Creating a Thia-riffic! book trailer

Video note: This unit resulted from a collaborative project between PETAA and the Copyright Agency. The unit links to videos recorded live at Gymea Bay Public School using the NSW DEC videoconference network. The videos are presented as recorded with minimal editing.

Content descriptions

Language: Expressing and developing ideas Year 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 AC9E4LA10. Year 5 – Understand how noun groups/phrases and adjective groups/phrases can be expanded in a variety of ways to provide a fuller description of the person, place, thing or idea AC9E5LA06.

Literature: Responding to literature Year 4 – Use metalanguage to describe the effects of ideas, text structures and language features of literary texts AC9E4LE02. Year 5 – Use metalanguage to describe the effects of ideas, text structures and language features on particular audiences AC9E5LE02. Examining literature Year 4 – Discuss how authors and illustrators make stories exciting, moving and absorbing and hold readers’ interest by using various techniques, for example character development and plot tension AC9E4LE03. Year 5 – Recognise that ideas in literary texts can be conveyed from different viewpoints, which can lead to different kinds of interpretations and responses AC9E5LE03. Creating literature Year 4 – Create literary texts that explore students’ own experiences and imagining AC9E4LE05. Year 4 – Create literary texts by developing storylines, characters and settings AC9E4LE05. Year 5 – Create literary texts using realistic and fantasy settings and characters that draw on the worlds represented in texts students have experienced AC9E5LE05. Year 5 – Create literary texts that experiment with structures, ideas and stylistic features of selected authors AC9E5LE05.

Literacy: interpreting, analysing and evaluating Year 4 – Identify characteristic features used in imaginative, informative and persuasive texts to meet the purpose of the text AC9E4LY03. Year 4 – Use comprehension strategies to build literal and inferred meaning to expand content knowledge, integrating and linking ideas and analysing and evaluating texts AC9E4LY05. Year 5 – Identify and explain characteristic text structures and language features used in imaginative, informative and persuasive texts to meet the purpose of the text AC9E5LY03. Navigate and read texts for specific purposes applying appropriate text processing strategies, for example predicting and confirming, monitoring meaning, skimming and scanning AC9E5LY04. Creating texts Year 4 – Plan, draft and publish imaginative, informative and persuasive texts containing key information and supporting details for a widening range of audiences, demonstrating increasing control over text structures and language features AC9E4LY06. Use a range of software including word processing programs to construct, edit and publish written text, and select, edit and place visual, print and audio elements. Year 5 – Plan, draft and publish imaginative, informative and persuasive print and multimodal texts, choosing text structures, language features, images and sound appropriate to purpose and audience AC9E5LY06. Year 5 – Use a range of software including word processing programs with fluency to construct, edit and publish written text, and select, edit and place visual, print and audio elements.

Source for content descriptions above: Australian Curriculum, Assessment and Reporting Authority (ACARA)