You're the Expert unit. This is a speaking assignment, and the models of the research process and the exercises on guidance and practise of the speaking skills may be particularly useful. If you can set the assignment up on your school's Intranet then the students can use the computer for the whole assignment. The class brainstorms all they know of pirates past and present. Handout a pirate activity sheet and a detailed set of instructions .
Students conduct their research individually in their own time and in class time.
They need to do some general background reading before they set out to specifically compose their log and their sea shanty. Once they have written the first draft of their logs and shanties they could be introduced to the stylistic suggestions as part of a focused drafting process. They may find it useful to get together in peer groups so that they can critique each other's writing to see how well the stylistic suggestions and structural changes have been incorporated into their writing. See the speech assessment task sheet . The assessment schedule can be used for peer assessment, teacher assessment or a combination of both.