Week 6 Term 2 - 301ENGLit Update - Plan for Week 7 onwards (Jun 6 - Jun 10)

 We are at the point in the term where momentum is starting to pick up. It is a credit chase at the moment and teachers are doing all that they can to get their students over the line. Term 2 is typically labelled the 'academic term' where the learning, creating and sharing kicks into full gear. As I have been away for the last two weeks (attending my Grandfather's funeral) I knew that my absence from my classes would present a few challenges. One being the break in momentum with my student's progress and managing the learning program. My Level 2 and Year 9 class are quite good in adapting with change and can work independently. However my Level 3 English class have become quite dependent on routine and I knew that being away from them would disrupt the progress that we made in the first 4 weeks of Term 2. 

My focus with my Level 3 students for Term 2 is the extended text study (Tim O'Brien's The Things They Carried) . We have focused on three texts from the novel in particular - Speaking of Courage, The Man I Killed + How To Tell a True War Story. For each text, we read it together as a class followed by a lengthy class discussion around each text. The discussion was my way of checking with the students and also to get the students to think about the underlying messages and themes from each story. One story in particular (Speaking of Courage) resonated well with the students and we had whole discussion around the reoccuring metaphor of the 'lake' and how it is a safe place for Norman Bowker, symbolic of the safety he yearns from his father but in reality he feels quite distant from. We started to talk about the 'lakes' in our lives and what it means to us. It was a beautiful class discussion and it helped the students to connect with the text and understand the heart behind the story. After our the reading of each text and class discussion, the students were then required to complete a reading log for each text. The purpose of the reading log is for the students to reflect on what they have read, identifying the significant connection (theme) in the text, find quotes that link to the connection, reflect on the author's purpose and find stylistic features (language features) from the text that help to highlight the connection. All of this is required in preparation for the focus assessment for Term 2 - 91478 (Respond Critically to Connections Across Texts - 4Cr). 

In the time that I have been away, the students were given the task on completing the reading logs for the three texts. In addition to this, they were also asked to find a fourth text of their choice (extended, short, audio or visual text) that links to the connection in one of the texts and complete a reading log for this as well. As Week 6 closes out, the focus is to finish the reading logs by the end of the week and start on the assessment in Week 7. In readiness for this, I have updated and tweaked the assessment structure to meet the tight time frame that we have and hopefully give the students a much needed boost. The writing of the Connections Report should take 3 weeks (with feedback for each draft - ideally 2 drafts) with 1 week to complete the final draft. 

Level 3 Connections Writing Framework - Click on the image to access the link

I plan to finish the reading logs with my students tomorrow (Friday June 10) and start the assessment process with them in Week 7 (Tuesday June 14). I have scaffolded the document so that the students have a break down on the expectations for Introduction, Body paragraphs and Conclusion. I have also included a pre-assessment task where they can reflect on the texts that they have reviewed already so that they can use it as a reference point during the crafting of their text. I am hoping that this will help close the loop on the time lost whilst I was away. Fingers crossed!