This unit provides opportunities for students to develop their speaking and writing skills, by presenting research findings verbally and through writing in two different genre - a ship's log and a sea shanty. Students are encouraged to use a variety of web based resources for gathering their material. A unit designed to stimulate and encourage poetry writing and publishing in a mixed-ability class. A unit in which students choose either a fiction or non fiction book to read and use it to complete pre, during and after reading responses. Assessment focuses on the close reading of a selected passage with a model provided.
Students complete the unit with a contribution to the What's Hot Web site.
Risks and Challenges Using a variety of resources, students explore different situations that involve people overcoming personal fear, apprehension, facing a risk, meeting a challenge, making a crucial choice, etc. Their consideration of such situations through discussion and group work will lead to a crafted piece of poetic writing and a static image. Shakespeare's England Prior to the study of a Shakespearean play, students research an aspect of Shakespearean England and present their findings to classmates. A comparison of this profile is then made with that of a fictional character, studied in the context of a novel where survival is a theme. Chosen from among many possibilities, Gary Paulsen's Hatchet is used as the focus novel for this unit.