Teacher's Guide

Implementation

This WebQuest may be used as the major teaching resource for secondary students of English. It has been designed to provide a major component of an Area of Study for Preliminary Stage 6 English (content common to the Standard and Advanced courses) as described in the NSW English Stage 6 Syllabus (NSW Board of Studies [BOS] 1999/2007:14-15), with some limitations, as described below. Material quoted has been taken from the English Stage 6 Syllabus which can be downloaded from the NSW Board of Studies website.

The WebQuest can be used to support in class teaching, with each activity forming a separate lesson, or for independent student learning. For the former, teacher direction will be needed regarding introducing the topic area, developing concepts, revision of language forms and features and structures, class discussion, group and pair work, and guidance for independent learning. Assessment for learning can be derived from any stage of these activities, including oral and written work where indicated. The summative assessment is in the task of creating a digital poetry or song.

Rationale

By Stage 6 English students will already have experienced material with Aboriginal and indigenous content, a mandatory component of Stages 4 and 5. During these earlier stages, they will have developed a knowledge and understanding of indigenous history and culture in Australia and internationally. They will have explored a range of experiences and achievements of Aboriginal peoples in historical and social contexts and made links between cultural expression, language and spirituality (adapted from English Year 7-10 Syllabus [NSW Board of Studies 2003:10]). Often study at this level involves looking at Aboriginal sporting heroes as well as Aboriginal poetry.

This unit of study aims to develop students' insight and understanding of indigenous issues at a more sophisticated level, within the context of helping them to evaluate the range of choices available to them in constructing their own multimodal texts. It aims to give students the opportunity to analyse and evaluate some of the texts they may have already been exposed to in early years (e.g. Kelly and Carmody's, 'From Little Things, Big Things Grow') from a multimodal perspective: e.g. how has Kelly and Carmody's text been appropriated by the Getup mob? To what purpose? For what audience? How does the Getup multimodal version of the Kelly/Carmody song appropriate the text of Paul Keating's 'Redfern speech'? What does it mean that Keating's speech was co-written with Don Watson? How does this affect our understanding of authorship?

The unit also seeks also to introduce texts students may not have come across before. For example, students are invited to examine how Aboriginal poet Jack Davis' poem, 'John Pat', has been appropriated and performed by different musical artists e.g. Paul Kelly and Archie Roach, and musician Mark Bin Baker. This gives students the opportunity to analyse and evaluate the different textual choices made in appropriating this poem and how these choices affect the aesthetic value of the resulting texts as well as their effectiveness in conveying both emotional and political sentiment. It also allows teachers to introduce or to explore further a more challenging issue that relates to indigenous content, Aboriginal deaths in custody, which may only have been touched on in earlier stages. Extension activities also allow students to explore the poem/song by deceased Aboriginal singer-songwriter, Ruby Hunter, 'Down City Streets'. This text again deals with more challenging issues, including homelessness and addiction, and students are invited to explore further the notion of authorship and its implications of speaking/singing/writing for, about, or as an Aboriginal person, and how awareness of one's own subject position in relation to a text (both personal and cultural) has implications for whether what one is depicting falls into the category of 'stereotype' or deals appropriately and sensitively to real, lived experience. 

Primarly, the unit seeks to expose the relationship between a visual and aural texts in creating new meanings for poetry. An understanding of this relationship is an essential prerequisite for students to make effective and insightful choices in their own creation of what, for simplicity, I have termed 'digital poetry and song'. It does this by introducing students both to visual texts with indigenous content, and to multimodal versions of non-indigenous, international poetry texts (see Poetry for the 21st Century in the class acitivities).

In this aim, this unit seeks to fulfil the following Stage 6 syllabus requirements. (Material following has been adapted from the English Stage 6 Syllabus document 1999/2007 available from NSW Board of Studies.)

Stage 6 ‘involves the study and use of language in its various textual forms, encompassing written, spoken and visual texts of varying complexity, including the language systems of English through which meaning is conveyed, interpreted and reflected.

‘The study of English enables students to recognise and use a diversity of approaches and texts to meet the growing array of literacy demands, including higher-order social, aesthetic and cultural literacy… Through reading, writing, listening speaking, viewing and representing experience, ideas and values, students are encouraged to adopt a critical approach to all texts and to distinguish the qualities of texts…

‘In Stage 6, students come to understand the complexity of meaning, to compose and respond to texts according to their form, content, purpose and audience, and to appreciate the personal, social, historical [and] cultural… contexts that produce and value them…

‘The English Stage 6 syllabus is designed to develop in students the faculty to perceive and understand their world from a variety of perspectives, and it enable them to appreciate the richness of Australia’s cultural diversity. (BOS 1999/2007:6)

‘The Study of English

‘The study of English makes explicit the language forms and processes of meaning. English Stage 6 develops this by encouraging students to explore, critically evaluate and appreciate a wide variety of the texts of Australian and other societies, in various forms and media, including multimedia… Meaning is achieved through responding and composing, which are typically interdependent and ongoing processes. (BOS 1999/2007:7)

‘Key Terms in the Study of English

‘Responding is the activity that occurs when students read, listen to, or view texts. It encompasses the personal and intellectual connections a student makes with texts. It also recognises that students and the texts to which they respond reflect social contexts. Responding typically involves:

• reading, listening and viewing that depend on, but go beyond, the decoding of texts
  
  
• identifying, comprehending, selecting, articulating, imagining, critically analysing and evaluating.

‘Composing is the activity that occurs when students produce written, spoken, or visual texts. Composing typically involves:

• the shaping and arrangement of textual elements to explore and express ideas, emotions and values.
  
  
• the processing of imagining, drafting, appraising, reflecting and refining.
  
  
• knowledge and understand of use of the language forms, features and structures of texts.

‘Texts in English Stage 6 are communications of meaning produced in any medium that incorporates language, including sound, print, film, electronics and multimedia. Texts include written, spoken, nonverbal or visual communication of meaning. They may be extended unified works or presented as a series of related pieces.

‘Context is used in its broadest sense. It refers to the range of personal, social, historical [and] cultural… conditions in which a text is responded to and composed.

‘Language modes refers to the modes of listening, speaking, reading, writing, viewing and representing. These modes are often integrated and interdependent activities used in responding to and composing texts in order to shape meaning.

‘It is important to realize that:

• any combination of the modes may be involved in responding to or composing print, sound, visual or multimedia texts; and
  
  
• the refinement of the skills in any one of the modes develops skills in the others. Students need to build on their skills in all language modes.’ (BOS 1999/2007:7-8)

K-12  Continuum

The learning design in this WebQuest fits into the continuum of learning as described in the English Stage 6 syllabus document. It builds on the understanding first acquired in Stages 1-3 of ‘how language is used to include and exclude others’ (BOS 1999/2007:10). It further develops the knowledge students acquired in Stages 4 and 5 of ‘the effects of personal… social, historical and cultural… contexts on the ways that people respond to and compose texts’ and their understanding of ‘the ways that texts reproduce experience and modify language practices, values, ideas and ways of thinking’ (BOS 1999/2007:11). It assumes a level of competency and insight developed in Stages 4 and 5, where students acquire ‘skills in responding to and composing a wide range of mass media products in a sensitive and critical way’ and ‘begin to consider the ethical and sociopolitical implications of texts’ (BOS 1999/2007:11). It reflects the growing independence of learning required in Stage 6, study at which level ‘is characterized by students’ increased awareness of the ways in which they organise and participate in learning, and by greater self-direction’ (BOS 1999/2007:11).

The choice of texts which students respond to and compose in this WebQuest reflect the Stage 6 learning in that, in this stage ‘students are more specific and articulate in their study of how meanings are shaped in and through texts. Students extend their skills in reading, writing, listening, speaking, viewing and representing, by refining their imaginative and interpretive skills and by applying their analytical abilities to increasingly complex texts. They develop their awareness of personal, social, historical [and] cultural… contexts, their notions of value and their understanding of self and others. They engage in responding to and composing texts, and consider the diverse processes involved in this through their wide reading, and through close analysis of texts. They develop knowledge and understanding of the ways that the linguistic, structural, contextual and thematic interrelationships among texts shape meaning. They develop and apply a knowledge and understanding of the role and function of literary conventions and devices. Students analyse the relationships between texts and technologies of production and evaluate the ways in which the medium itself influences the shape and nature of meaning. Their skills in composition are further developed.’ (BOS 1999/2007:11-12).

‘Content common to the Standard and Advanced courses – AREA OF STUDY (45 hours)

‘Provides students with the opportunity to explore, analyse and experiment with:

• meanings conveyed, shaped, interpreted and reflected in and through texts
  
  
• ways texts are responded to and composed
  
  
• connections between and among texts.’ (BOS 1999/2007:14 and 15).

Key Competencies

The WebQuest helps students develop a number of ‘key competencies’ (BOS 1999/2007:19), including:

• collecting, analysing and organising information – students collect and organise digital objects.
  
  
• communicating ideas and information – students explain their own personal experience of indigenous culture.
  
  
• solving problems – students learn to create a digital poem or song.
  
  
• using technology – students access the internet for a range of information, images and resources, and use multimedia and/or word processing software to create their digital poem or song.

Limitations and Development Directions

Preliminary English (Standard and Advanced) students explore a concept through ‘close study of one text’, as well as responding to and composing a wide range of related texts’ (BOS 1999/2007:26,44). This WebQuest, in its present form, does not focus on one particular text or concept, however, it has been designed with a view to it being compatible with the study of, for example, Radiance, a film directed by Rachel Perkins (1998) which was a prescribed HSC text 2001/2002 but would be suitable for study at Preliminary level. Regarding the lack of an over-arching concept, this is a serious shortcoming and will be addressed in future revisions. There is also room for a link to be made to a lesson sequence designed for Stage 4/5 study of Aboriginal poetry and song, which will hopefully be added at a later date. Also, while there are some visual literacy terms used, this important component is as yet underdeveloped in the present version. It is hoped that this content will be refined and included before long.

Other limitations include the following. The WebQuest does not involve students in responding to or composing texts in workplace contexts. (This accounts for the ellipses used in quoting the syllabus document above.) Although aspects of this WebQuest involve collaborative learning (e.g. suggestions for class discussion, peer review of draft versions of text), the WebQuest is directed to the independent learner rather than to a ‘team’. With changes in emphasis and assessment, the task could be adapted for teamwork, with each team member assigned to some essential aspect of the process. There are no plans at this stage for either of these limitations to be addressed in the WebQuest design.

Assessment of outcomes and link to content of unit:

The Preliminary English Stage 6 (Standard and Advanced) outcomes to be formally assessed in this unit are:

1. A student demonstrates understanding of the relationship between composer, responder, text and context. (Standard only)

7. A student selects appropriate language forms and features, and structures (of texts) to explore and express ideas and values.
8. A student articulates and represents own ideas in critical, interpretive and imaginative texts.
11. A student draws upon the imagination to transform experience into text.
Students in Standard learn about the relationships between composer, responder, text and context by:

1.3 composing texts for a variety of contexts, purposes and audiences

1.4 recognising the effects of their own language experiences and culture on their response to and composition of texts

1.5 changing the contexts of responding to or composing texts in order to achieve particular meanings.

Students (Standard and Advanced) learn to communicate information, ideas, and values for a variety of purposes, audiences and contexts by:

7.2 composing and adapting texts to address different purposes and audiences within workplace and other contexts [Standard content only in italics]

Students in both Standard and Advanced learn to compose imaginative, personal and critical texts through:

8.1 engaging with complex texts.

8.3 using and manipulating some genre forms for different audiences and purposes

8.4 controlling a range of language features to meet requirements of various composing tasks in a range of modes and media [Advanced content only in italics]

8.5 shaping compositions appropriately to purpose, audience, medium and context. [Advanced content only in italics]

Students in both Standard and Advanced learn to draw upon the imagination in responding to and composing texts by:

11.2 experimenting with ways of transforming experience into imaginative texts in different contexts for specified audiences

11.3 recreating texts into new texts by changing perspective and contexts for specified audiences [Standard content only in italics]

(Source: English Stage 6 Syllabus, NSW Board of Studies 1999/2007)