Week 5 Term 2 - Teacher Practice: NCEA Level 1 English: Understanding Context (May 19 - May 23)

The primary focus and theme for our NCEA Level 1 English students in Term 2 "Our Stories and Our Histories (through poetry)." The primary text for our study is Tusiata Avia's 'The Savage Colonizer Book' and we are looking at three specific poems from the collection which are: 

Jacinda goes to the Pacific Forum in Tuvalu and my family colonises her house

BLM

Covid in the time of Primeminiscinda

An important part of the poetry study is understanding the context for each text. Understanding context is where our students can identify or navigate the context of each poem. Many of students struggle with understanding context and with texts that are rich and dense like Avia's, I knew that before launching into the poetry study that we had to do some groundwork around context - what it is and what it means to understanding and appreciating a text in full. In this post I will outline what I did with my NCEA Level 1 English class with 'Understanding Context.' 

UNDERSTANDING CONTEXT: A pre reading exercise 

Social, Historical, Cultural and Economic Contexts

The purpose of the pre reading exercise is to give my students the opportunity to learn and develop their own understanding of context. The premise of the pre reading exercise is focused on the study of two texts. I have used two texts in the pre reading exercise as a way to hook my students into understanding, identifying and exploring social, historical and cultural contexts. The two texts that used in this pre reading exercise are: 

Tusiata Avia's poem 'Dawn Raid Apology' (click on the image to access the poem)

The second text I used was the 2001 All Stars Tribute song 'What's Going On?' which was released in 2001. 

We went through each text and then discussed the following questions. The texts and questions we discussed are also on a document that the students worked from so that they have a record and evidence of pre reading work for understanding contexts. 

Here are the guiding questions we looked at for 'Understanding Context' for Tusiata Avia's poem and the All Start Tribute song. I used the same questions for both texts. 

1. After your first listen and/or read, write down your first thoughts/impressions of the text.
2. What clues does the text give you that tells you about the context surrounding the text?
3. Look up and Google global current events 2001(What's Going On) and 2019 local current events (Dawn Raids Apologiy) and write down the main current events (x5) that happened in 2001 and 2019.
4. Do you think that the social, cultural and historical contexts in this time period influenced and inspired the text and why?
5. What does this tell you about context?

This was a good exercise and the students were able to really delve into the context for both texts. They were particularly drawn to the Dawn Raids Apology text and the history of the Dawn Raids. I want to convert this study into a graphic organizer so that it organized and easier for the students to follow through as opposed to answering questions on a table on Google Doc. 

Week 4 Term 2 - English Department: Junior + Senior English Program for Term 2 (May 12 - May 16)

 As a Department, we want to ensure that our curriculum and programs for each term is engaging and relevant for our students. We also want to make sure that our curriculum and term units align with the New Zealand curriculum and ensure that our students achieve and succeed in English. In this post I am going to share what we are going to do with our Junior and Senior English programs for Term 2. 

JUNIOR ENGLISH PROGRAM TERM 2

Year 9 + Year 10 English Program for Term 2

The focus and theme for Term 2 is "I see myself in texts". Our Year 9 and Year 10 English students will look, study and explore stories, texts and experiences of those in our community. They will also create their own text in the form of a Creative Writing. For my Year 9 English class, we are working through Term 2 unit - My Voice (you can see the unit here - Year 9 Term 2: My Voice) Our primary texts are the short texts that all explore our people uses their voices to express their opinion and thoughts. These texts are: 

Alicia Keys - P.O.W

Tupac - Sometimes I Cry

Sia Figel - Love Letters for Iona

Jillian Sullivan - Dear Ex Dad

We will study each text and the students write a short response to text for each text. Once we have done this, they will do the Term 2 Common Assessment Task which is Creative Writing. 

SENIOR ENGLISH PROGRAM TERM 2

Written text study is the focus for our NCEA Level 1, 2 and 3 English students. Our NCEA Level 1 English program's primary text is Tusiata Avia's "The Savage Colonizer." We will be looking at four poems from the collection and the students will complete a reading log for each poem looking at the context for each poem and the language features used. The assessment to fall from the study is 91924 (Demonstrate understanding of how context shapes verbal language use). Our NCEA Level 2 English program's primary text is Doris Lessing "The Grass is Singing" and the assessment to fall from the study is 91104 (Connections Essay). Our NCEA Level 3 English program's primary text is Tim O'brien's "The Things They Carried." We are looking at three stories from the text and the students will complete a reading log for each story. The assessment to fall from this is 91478 (Connections Report). 

We are hoping our curriculum and program for Term 2 goes well for our students. We are confident in what we have planned and we look forward to working with our students through our learning journey. 

Week 3 Term 2 - English Department: Goals for Term 2 (May 12 - May 16)

Term 2 is an important term for our English Department. This term, we look to prioritize goals that focus on both our Junior and Senior School English students, the curriculum and our school goals. We understand that as the term progresses, things change (as we have experienced before). We will endeavour to do our best to stick to our goals for Term 2. Below are some of the goals that we would like to work towards in Term 2.

Students at risk of achieving - We want to work with our identified students who are at risk of achieving credits in English. We have identified who the students are, the reasons and the next steps that we want to put in place. We consolidate our lists of priority students at the end of every term and we identify who the student is at risk of not achieving credits, what are their reasons and what our next steps are for the student. We share this across our department so we all aware who needs support and what support has been put in place.

STEPSWeb - This is a great literacy initiative that has been introduced to us by our Learning Support Team (Mrs Mary-Anne Wyatt and Ms Vivienne Jensen-Jones). We are looking forward to working with this online tool with our Year 9 and Year 10 English students.

Library Period - Prioritize our library period (once a week) for all of your Year 9 and Year 10 English classes. We will use this period of time in the library to continue our StepsWeb program and reading programs. 

91926 - This is a new internal assessment that we are going to be rolling out in Term 3. We are looking forward to using time this term to understand the assessment and design a study and framework that we can implement to help our student. I am hoping to work with our NCEA Implementor facilitator who has helped us with our NCEA Level 1 English curriculum refresh. 

Term 2 is a short term so we are looking at making sure that we use the time well and get our students through our curriculum over the next 9 weeks. In my next post I am going share our learning program for Term 2 for our Junior and Senior English cohort.

Week 2 Term 2 - English Department: Review of Junior and Senior English Program Term 1 (May 05 - May 09)

TERM 1 JUNIOR ENGLISH REVIEW

Term 1 Junior English Program

Our focus for Year 9 and Year 10 English for Term 1 was “Who am I?” Our primary text for Term 1 was Tim Tipene’s ‘Kura Toa’. The Common Assessment task that our Year 9 and Year 10 English students have been working on is Formal Writing. We are really happy with how our students have responded to the assessment. We continue to use the online literacy app - StepsWeb. The students spend ONE period a week in the library on StepsWeb. We also use the library period for our students to read (the shared class text or a text of their own choice). This aligns with one of our Department goals in our Junior English program ‘Read for Pleasure.’ Some of our Junior English classes have also been working on the Literacy Essentials Book. In particular with our Year 10 English students, who will be sitting the CAA in Term 2.

Junior English Year 9 Student Writing Exemplar - Term 1

Junior English Year 9 Student Character Study Exemplar - Term 1

TERM 1 SENIOR ENGLISH REVIEW

Term 1 Senior English Program

In Term 1 our main focus for our NCEA Level 1, 2 and 3 English students was to make sure that they understood our curriculum and what it means for them. We held introduction assemblies for our NCEA Level 1, 2 and 3 English students in the beginning of Term 1 to go through our program, the curriculum and assessment schedule. This was our time to set our expectations to the students and make sure that they understood the curriculum and assessment timeline of the year. 

For our NCEA Level 1 English program, our focus was the film study for ‘The Dark Horse’. There are no credits offered in Term 1 for our NCEA Level 1 English students however following the film study, the students worked on crafting a response text to the external assessment (91925) which is a response to a studied text essay. Our NCEA Level 2 English program focused on the film ‘Muru’ and the students started working on the 91101 (Writing Portfolio - 6 Credits) and 91106 (Reading Responses - 4 Credits). Both internal assessments are due in Term 3 but our Year 12 cohort have used Term 1 to get a head start on these assessments. Our NCEA Level 3 English program saw our Year 13 students through their film study of ‘A Beautiful Mind’ and they completed their first internal assessment for 91480 (Close Viewing - 3 Credits). We are looking forward to getting into the written text studies with our learners in Term 2. Please see some of our NCEA English students from Term 1.

NCEA Level 1 English Student Exemplar - 91925 - Term 1

NCEA Level 3 English Student Exemplar - 91480

In my next post I will share the English Department's goals for Term 2.