English / Year 8 / Literature / Literature and context

Curriculum content descriptions

Explore the ways that ideas and viewpoints in literary texts drawn from different historical, social and cultural contexts may reflect or challenge the values of individuals and groups (ACELT1626)

Elaborations
  • investigating texts about Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander history from different sources and explaining differing viewpoints
  • comparing attitudes and ideas in texts drawn from contexts that are different to students’ own
General capabilities
  • Literacy Literacy
  • Critical and creative thinking Critical and creative thinking
  • Intercultural understanding Intercultural understanding
  • Personal and social capability Personal and social capability
ScOT terms

Social settings (Narratives),  Personal responses

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Work sample Year 8 English: Creative responses to a poem

This work sample demonstrates evidence of student learning in relation to aspects of the achievement standards for Year 8 English. The primary purpose for the work sample is to demonstrate the standard, so the focus is on what is evident in the sample not how it was created. The sample is an authentic representation of ...

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Us Mob Walawurru: Unit of work

This unit of work has been written to support the book Us Mob Walawurru. The book is set in the 1960s in an Aboriginal community in Central Australia and follows the life of a young Luritja girl. It explores the cultural challenges faced by both the community members and non-Indigenous people. The story touches on various ...

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Respectful Civil Discourse: Post-Referendum (Years 7 and 8)

This set of resources about civil discourse education uses the Uluru Statement from the Heart and other resources as the basis for students in Years 7 and 8 to discuss the types of debates that occurred during the 2023 referendum for constitutional recognition of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people. The focus is ...

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The ABC Book of Australian Poetry: Unit of work

This unit of work has been written to support this anthology of Australian poetry. Compiled by Libby Hathorn, it contains over eighty poems dating from 1885 to the present day representing the diversity of Australia. This unit provides practical teaching ideas for teaching specific poems and an assessment task.

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Mirror: Unit of work

This unit of work has been written to support Mirror, a picture story book set in Morocco. It explores themes of family, identity, and cultural interactions. This unit provides practical teaching ideas, an assessment task and an essay by Robin Morrow.

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A Fortunate Life: Unit of work

This unit of work has been written to support the autobiography A Fortunate Life which explores the life of Albert Facey in surviving Gallipoli, raising a family through the Depression and managing several family challenges. This unit provides practical teaching ideas, an assessment task and an essay by Geordie Williamson.

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Cartooning Political and Social Issues

In this lesson, students will examine the role of cartoons play in presenting viewpoints about political or social issues. Students gather and organize information about a current or past issue and analyze the different sides. They plan, design, and illustrate a political cartoon that presents a position on a political ...

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Tales of Terror

This text for students contains short answer questions on four short stories - 'The Landlady', 'Lamb to the Slaughter', 'The Monkey's Paw' and 'Cold Reading'. It describes how to write short answers, as well as how to use textual evidence.

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Wide Reading

Good advice for students encouraging them to read widely beyond the classroom, with useful links to ways to finding a good book

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Science Fiction: Short Stories

This resource for students presents information on how to respond to short answer questions on texts. Using textual evidence is discussed, with details on the use of ellipses and full stops. A sample answer is provided to a short answer question on Louise Lawrence's story 'Extinction is Forever'. Students are then asked ...

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The Invisible War: A tale on two scales

The Invisible War is a graphic novel set on the Western Front in 1916. The novel is an interdisciplinary text that includes a large science-history reference section (hyper-linked within the novel). Told from two points of view – human and microbial – the story describes a deadly infection by dysentery-causing Shigella ...

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Science Fiction: Radio Dramas

This resource for students is one in a series of three on science fiction. The introduction contains links to old radio dramas as great examples of story telling. Students are then asked to produce their own two minute science fiction radio drama. A link is provided to Celtx, an application which allows you to write the ...

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Shaun Tan's The Lost Thing

This is a very rich resource for students from the Australian Centre for the Moving Image (ACMI), which gives them an insight into the art of Shaun Tan through a focus on both the book and the film of The Lost Thing. The content focuses on aspects of storytelling, including themes, techniques, forms and language, visual, ...

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Show, Don't Tell

This resource for students explains the importance, when writing narratives, of showing your reader rather than telling, with an example, ways of achieving this, and some follow-up activities

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Reflective writing: the 3D format

This is a teacher resource describing a scaffolding strategy developed by New South Wales teacher Kerri-Jane Burke to help her students analyse texts and write reflective responses to them. The resource describes the three-dimensional writing strategy - Describe, Disclose, Decision - in more detail, outlining how it provides ...

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The Whole business with Kiffo and the Pitbull

This web page provides chapter by chapter synopses and commentary to support a study of the YA novel 'The Whole Business with Kiffo and the Pitbull'. The resource provides various activities on test analysis, essay writing, incorporating textual evidence into an analysis, report writing, key vocabulary, quizzes, and key ...

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Identity and Cultural Diversity

This resource is a professional development package which focuses on global education concepts of identity and cultural diversity through the subject of English for Years 7-10. It provides a range of activities that support cross-curriculum integration, with syllabus programming, quick lesson ideas,a series of lessons, ...

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Film it! Screenwriting

Screenwriting is the act of writing what's known as a script or screenplay for film, television and web series. It involves a special set of rules that makes it different from a book or play. This module of Film It covers formatting, scene writing, script structure, themes, and character. Writing the script is part of ...

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The Language of Connection- A resource for Global Education

This resource is for teachers of English, from Years 7-10, focusing on the identification and practice of the language of connection. It provides language activities which can be embedded in existing units of work, as well as individual units of work.