# data[].attributes.body
Year 8 English

# data[].attributes.body
Content Descriptor/s:
-Apply increasing knowledge of vocabulary, text structures and language features to understand the content of texts(ACELY1733)
- Interpret and analyse language choices, including sentence patterns, dialogue, imagery and other language features, in short stories, literary essays and plays (ACELT1767)
-Explore the ways that ideas and viewpoints in literary texts drawn from different historical, social and cultural contexts may reflect or challenge the values of individuals and groups(ACELT1626)

Literacy as language in use:
The skill and disposition needed to analyse and understand the philosophical, moral, political and aesthetic bases on which many texts are built.

Activity:
This activity focuses on the analysis of short stories. for the purpose of demonstration we will be focusing on 'A Sound of Thunder' by Ray Bradbury. Ultimately this can be used for any story you wish.

Introduction:
-Have students predict the text based on title an any other stimulus (cover, blurb) and allow them to share these predictions.
- Read the first paragraph (this reading can be done as a class or individually)
- Engage back with the initial predictions, do we still believe them? what do we think now?
- Read the whole text, stopping at points to draw attention to aspects such as language, literary techniques, sentences and their structure, what the story is dealing with, what genre they thin this might fall into etc.

Body:
- After the story has been read through, discuss what it was about? how did it make the reader feel? what was its purpose?
-Create a Plot Diagram,Story Map or Cube, highlighting each of the questions from the plot. (links to activities under resources)
-Engage with the text by looking at the flow of the actual text. look at sentence length, word choice, vocabulary and grammar.

Conclusion:
-To conclude, explore the themes of the text and the way it interacts with other texts, (example: sound of thunder sparked the idea of the butterfly effect)
- encourage students to think about the intertextuality of their favorite song, book, movie, or other.

Resources:
http://www.readwritethink.org/classroom-resources/student-interactives/plot-diagram-30040.html?tab=5#tabs
http://www.readwritethink.org/classroom-resources/student-interactives/story-30008.html
http://www.readwritethink.org/classroom-resources/student-interactives/cube-creator-30850.html

# data[].attributes.headline
Activity 2: Interactive multi-modal stories 

# data[].attributes.subject
Activity 2: Interactive multi-modal stories 

# data[].attributes.body
Content Descriptor/s:
- Investigate how visual and multimodal texts allude to or draw on other texts or images to enhance and layer meaning(ACELA1548)
- Explore the ways that ideas and viewpoints in literary texts drawn from different historical, social and cultural contexts may reflect or challenge the values of individuals and groups(ACELT1626)

Literacy as language in use:
Fluency and innovation in listening to, reading, viewing and creating texts for different purposes and contexts.

Activity:
Compare and contrast different multi-modal short stories. this will be accomplished by completing Y-charts for each and then compiling the data into a Venn Diagram.

Introduction:
-Show students 2-3 appropriate multi-modal short stories.
- Allow them time to interact with them.

Body:
- After viewing each complete a Y- chart using creately.com.
- Remind students to think of the sentence structure, themes, characters,  etc.
- Facilitate discussion about the multi-modal aspect (sound, visuals,videos, etc).

Conclusion:
- With the Y-charts compile a Venn diagram. This will also the students the opportunity to see the differences between genres but also acknowledge the similarities of the presentation

Resources:
http://blog.visme.co/10-mind-blowing-interactive-stories-that-will-change-the-way-you-see-the-world/
https://creately.com/Free-K12-Education-Templates

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Read, write, discover, and share the books and poetry you'll always remember.

# data[].attributes.headline
Activity 1: Sentence structure in short stories  

# data[].attributes.subject
Activity 1: Sentence structure in short stories  

# data[].attributes.body
Content Descriptor/s:
- Recognise that vocabulary choices contribute to the specificity, abstraction and style of texts (ACELA1547)
- Understand how coherence is created in complex texts through devices like lexical cohesion, ellipsis, grammatical theme and text connectives(ACELA1809)
- Understand the use of punctuation conventions, including colons, semicolons, dashes and brackets in formal and informal texts(ACELA1544)

Literacy as language in use:
An expanding vocabulary and grasp of grammatical and contextual patterns sufficient to understand and learn from texts encountered in and out of school.

Activity:
This activity is focused mostly on generating the concepts of using grammar and contextual patterns to breathe life into the students creative writing while also encouraging an expansion of vocabulary.

Introduction:
- Introduce students to the concept by showing the example below.
- Have students read the passage aloud. This will allow them to experience the way grammar can force the reader into reading the passage in a certain way, (example, first paragraph is monotonous, second paragraph is exciting, last paragraph is whimsical).

Body:
- Have students highlight the 4 different length sentences, (very short, short, medium, long).
- Have students underline words they are unfamiliar with.
- Use the pedagogical approach of the three-cueing system to puzzle out what the words they are unfamiliar with might be. (example, monotonous: Grapho-phonic, 'mono' means one, 'tonous' is an expansion of the word tone, therefore the word means one-tone. Semantic knowledge: the paragraph overall is dealing with sentence structure, it later states "the writing is getting boring. The sound of is drones." this leads the reader to assume that monotones could mean something akin to boring, dull etc. Finally syntactic knowledge, the sentence before read a positive, the sentence itself starts with the word 'but' this implies that the word monotonous is not a positive).

Conclusion:
- This is the opportunity to link back into the students every day life, show examples of varying sentence lengths in pop culture clips, this could include games, movies, TV shows or popular novels.
- You could ask students to revisit the highlighting stage with these new works.
-You could implement ICT by asking students to independently find examples and upload to sites like Twiddla or Yammer, both sites (and many more) allow students to work in a collaborative space independently.

# data[].attributes.body
Content Descriptor/s:
-Experiment with particular language features drawn from different types of texts, including combinations of language and visual choices to create new texts (ACELT1768)
- Use a range of software, including word processing programs, to create, edit and publish texts imaginatively(ACELY1738)

Literacy as language in use:
An interest in expanding the range of materials listened to, viewed and read, and in experimenting with ways of expressing increasingly subtle ans complex ideas to create effective and innovative texts.

Activity:
This activity is an accumulation of all the other activities suggested here. Although it ultimately links in with the key idea mentioned above, it also draws upon the skills learnt during the other activities an as such it is suggested that this activity is placed after the acquisition of the previous skills.

Introduction:
- Song bird is an interactive website which allows for students to create their own work, based on stimulus provided by the web site.
- Ask the students to log into song bird and choose a stimulus picture. this can be any of the pictures that spark imagination in them.
- Once they have found a picture they should click the lightning symbol and choose the option of 'poem'
- This will take them to a page with their chosen picture in the center surrounded by random words and punctuation.

Body:
- Students then click and drag the allocated words on to the picture to try and create a short snippet of a story, this can be used to stimulate ideas for their own short story.
- This activity will allow the students the chance to play around with the forming of sentences and different uses of punctuation.
- The students can change the words they have been allocated until the find something they like.

Extension:
- Give students the opportunity to use the picture book feature.
-This allows more creative freedom because the are not limited by the word they can use while still allowing them the chance to work with stimulus.

Conclusion:
- Ask students to share their work.
- Ask them to identify the theme, the way they used/didn't use grammar and the types of sentences they used.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Storybird - Read, write, discover, and share the books you'll always remember.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Become a better writer with Storybird's creativity tools. Online courses, challenges, and reader feedback will help you improve your writing.