English / Year 6 / Language / Expressing and developing ideas

Curriculum content descriptions

Understand how ideas can be expanded and sharpened through careful choice of verbs, elaborated tenses and a range of adverb groups/phrases (ACELA1523)

Elaborations
  • knowing that verbs often represent actions and that the choice of more expressive verbs makes an action more vivid (for example 'She ate her lunch' compared to 'She gobbled up her lunch')
  • knowing that adverb groups/phrases and prepositional phrases can provide important details about a happening(for example, ‘At nine o'clock the buzzer rang loudly throughout the school’) or state (for example, ‘The tiger is a member of the cat family’)
  • knowing the difference between the simple present tense (for example 'Pandas eat bamboo.') and the simple past tense (for example 'She replied.')
  • knowing that the simple present tense is typically used to talk about either present states (for example, ‘He lives in Darwin’) or actions that happen regularly in the present (for example, ‘He watches television every night’) or that represent ‘timeless’ happenings, as in information reports (for example, ‘Bears hibernate in winter’)
  • knowing that there are various ways in English to refer to future time, for example auxiliary ‘will’, as in ‘She will call you tomorrow’; present tense, as in ‘Tomorrow I leave for Hobart’; and adverbials of time, as in ‘She arrives in the morning’
General capabilities
  • Literacy Literacy
ScOT terms

Tense (Grammar),  Adverbial phrases,  Verbs

Interactive

Syllabus bites: Visual literacy

A resource with information, study guides and resources on visual literacy to support the English K-10 Australian Curriculum in English. It provides a series of activities, guidelines and tasks about visual texts from a variety of sources. Contains writing scaffolds, templates and proformas for responding and composing ...

Interactive

Syllabus bites: types of sentences

A web page resource with information, teacher guides and activities on types of sentences to support the Australian Curriculum in English K–10. It has detailed activities, links to resources and quizzes.

Interactive

Super stories: The Abandoned House: verbs and adverbs

Help a publishing director create a bestselling horror story. Read the story. Choose effective verbs and adverbs to increase the impact of the story by making it scarier. Select illustrations that highlight the horror of the events.

Interactive

Point of view: newspaper report

Examine a model newspaper report to learn about structure and use of verbs, adverbial phrases and pronouns. Read and listen to two witness reports of a skateboarding accident. Identify the two different points of view. Arrange paragraphs for the newspaper report. Select suitable verbs and adverbial phrases for the report. ...

Interactive

Finish the story: bushfire

Edit a comic book story to make it more exciting and complete. Look closely at a narrative about an adventure where a couple driving home are trapped by a bushfire. Choose an ending. Improve the story by adding adverbs, choosing verbs and changing nouns to pronouns. Choose a title and image for the cover.

Interactive

Super stories: The Abandoned House: nouns and adjectives

Help a publishing director create a bestselling horror story. Read the story. Choose effective nouns and adjectives to increase the impact of the story and make it scarier. Select illustrations that highlight the horror of the events. This learning object is one in a series of four objects.

Interactive

Syllabus bites: Active and passive voice

A web page with information, teacher guides and activities on writing sentences using the active and passive voice. This resource supports the BOS NSW Syllabus for the Australian Curriculum in English K–10.

Online

Creating change as a literacy coach

This teacher resource describes how a literacy coach made a substantial difference to students' literacy achievements, teachers' involvement in literacy strategies and whole-school culture at Allendale East Area School in South Australia. Organised in nine sections: Summary; Target student group; Method; Results; Lessons ...

Interactive

Syllabus bites – responding to literature

A web page with information, teacher guides and resources on responding to texts. This resource supports the NSW English K-10 syllabus.

Video

How to Build Stories, Ch 5: Using language to flavour your story

Language is like the flavour of a story. It helps relate your imagination to readers in a way they'll understand. But you have to add the right flavours; otherwise your story will be like a bad meal. Learn how to write what you want your readers to imagine and feel.

Video

How to Build Stories, Ep 4: Exploring genre and setting of your story

Every genre has different rules. But once you know them, you can choose which rules you want to break. Find out how you can mix and match genres to create unique, interesting stories!

Video

Say hello in Dharug

Watch this video to learn how to greet someone in the Dharug language, spoken by the Indigenous people of the Sydney Basin area. How do you say 'hello, how are you?' in Dharug? And what are the words for good and bad? Practise these phrases with Jacinta Tobin and then teach them to a friend or family member.

Interactive

Finish the story: boat disaster

Edit a comic book story about an adventure where a couple spend a day fishing from a boat, but then get stranded. Look closely at the narrative and make it more exciting and complete. Choose an ending. Improve the story by adding adjectives, choosing verbs and linking sentences using text connectives. Choose a title and ...

Online

A comparison of the effectiveness of two strategy tutoring programs for children with persistent spelling difficulties

This teacher resource describes a small-scale research study into the capacity of two strategies of one-on-one tutoring (Look-Say-Cover-Write-Say-Check and Old Way/New Way - Mediational Learning) to help primary school students with persistent difficulties develop effective spelling strategies. It is presented in nine sections: ...

Online

Primary English: models and modelling

These seven learning activities, which focus on 'modelling texts' using a variety of tools (software) and devices (hardware), illustrate the ways in which content, pedagogy and technology can be successfully and effectively integrated in order to promote learning. In the activities, teachers are provided with guidance about ...