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Australian Curriculum, Assessment and Reporting Authority. (2019). Australian Curriculum: English F-10. Retrieved 29 March 2019 from https://australiancurriculum.edu.au/f-10-curriculum/english/

Australian Curriculum, Assessment and Reporting Authority. (2019). Australian Curriculum: English Key Ideas. Retrieved 29 March 2019 from https://www.australiancurriculum.edu.au/f-10-curriculum/english/key-ideas/

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Understanding persuasive language

Teacher's resource

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Writing persuasive texts

Teacher's resource, samples texts for teaching persuasive writing

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A short panel discussion on Picnic at Hanging Rock including the use of adjectives, Lindsay's portrayal of the Australian bush and thoughts on character descriptions.

The lost and the missing at Hanging Rock

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Fake news, the importance of fact checking and media ethics.

Reporting fact as fiction

Has the media lost trust and respect?

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Students exhibit an interest in expanding the range of materials listened to, viewed and read, and in experimenting with ways of expressing increasingly subtle and complex ideas to create effective and innovative texts.

Use interaction skills to present and discuss an idea and to influence and engage an audience by selecting persuasive language, varying voice tone, pitch, and pace, and using elements such as music and sound effects (Australian Curriculum: English, Literacy Strand - ACELY1811).

Elaborations:

Participating in pair, group, class, school and community speaking and listening situations, including informal conversations, discussions, debates and presentations.

Using effective strategies for dialogue and discussion in a range of formal and informal contexts, including speaking clearly and coherently and at appropriate length, presenting a point of view and listening to other viewpoints, and negotiating an agreed position on an issue.

Choosing vocabulary, spoken text and sentence structures for particular purposes and audiences, such as debating a topic with a team from another school, creating a voiceover for a media presentation, and adapting language choices such as use of similes, metaphors and personification to meet the perceived audience needs.

Selecting voice effects such as tone, volume, pitch and pace for their specific effects, such as putting forward a point of view or attempting to persuade an audience to a course of action.

(Australian Curriculum, Assessment and Reporting Authority, 2019)

Notes...
This activity combines students' creative writing and narrative skills, their ability to form a logical and appropriate argument and the use of multiple media platforms to create and express their ideas and viewpoints. Students will need to have completed reading the novel and actively participated in the previous activities to ensure that their understanding of the key ideas presented throughout are embedded in their final activity.

Instructions...
Students are required to write an eighteenth chapter for Picnic at Hanging Rock for consideration in a competition being run by Joan Lindsay's family. This chapter should utilise existing themes and literary devices present in the novel and display use of creativity to present an alternate ending for the novel. Having completed this chapter, students will then prepare a three to five minute oral presentation for the board of judges persuading them to consider their piece as the winning entry on the basis of:

The student's motivation for ending the novel in the way that they have.

How the student feels the ending would resonate with both past and present readers.

What themes and literary devices they have utilised in conjunction with or contrast to Joan Lindsay's original work.

Students should utilise a visual aid such as a storyboard, power point or a short animation to support their presentation.

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Students display the skill and disposition needed to analyse and understand the philosophical, moral, political and aesthetic bases on which many texts are built.

Interpret and compare how representations of people and culture in literary texts are drawn from different historical, social and cultural contexts (Australian Curriculum: English, Literature Strand - ACELT1633).

Elaborations:

Exploring and reflecting on representations of values (for example love, freedom, integrity) in literature drawn from cultures and times different from the students’ own.

Exploring and reflecting on personal understanding of the world and human experience, interpreted in literature drawn from cultures and times different from the students’ own.

(Australian Curriculum, Assessment and Reporting Authority, 2019)

Notes...
This activity invites students to consider the impact that setting Picnic at Hanging Rock in 1900 has had on the narrative and themes presented throughout the novel. Students should consider the potential moral, ethical and political issues presented in the text from 1900 when the novel is set, 1967 when the novel was written and from present day reading. It should be confirmed that students have knowledge of historical and present day disappearances in the Australian bush and a general understanding of safety protocols and procedures for on and off school activities.

Instructions...
Guide students through the process of uncovering the moral, ethical and political issues Picnic at Hanging Rock invites, discuss:

The impact or existence of these in the 1960s when the novel was first published in contrast with how they would be perceived today.

How modern ideologies and attitudes would improve or further complicate this situation. (E.g. it is likely that counselling would have been brought in for the students and staff of Appleyard College if this incident happened today?).

Would today's intensive media coverage of the disappearance resulted in a different outcome for the college?

Instruct students to imagine a new school or college has recently opened in the Macedon Ranges area and a group of girls have gone missing after a hiking activity. The students have decided to write a news piece about it for their blog. Students should consider the following having watched a selection of videos about fake news, the importance of fact checking and media ethics:

What language and images of the school and the area will they use to convey the story?

Will they place a large emphasis on the connection to Picnic at Hanging Rock and if so, what effect will that have on their readers?

How will their choice of story and the narrative they use to construct it effect public perception the victims?

How much consideration for the thoughts and feelings of the victims family and friends have the students given and why?

Their blog post should closely mimic an online news article and include relevant visual aids (such as maps, photographs and videos) where appropriate.

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Students exhibit fluency and innovation in listening to, reading, viewing and creating texts for different purposes and contexts.

Create imaginative, informative and persuasive texts that present a point of view and advance or illustrate arguments, including texts that integrate visual, print and/or audio features (Australian Curriculum: English, Literacy Strand - ACELY1746).

Elaborations:

Presenting arguments that advance opinions, justify positions, and make judgments in order to persuade others about issues such the importance of maintaining balance in the biosphere.

Creating imaginative texts with main ideas developed through the interconnections of plot, settings, characters, the changing of chronological order, foreshadowing in written, spoken and digital texts.

Creating informative and argumentative texts with explanations, details and evidence.

Following the structure of an argument which has a series of sequenced and linked paragraphs, beginning with an outline of the stance to be taken, a series of supported points that develop a line of argument, and a conclusion which summarises the main line of argument.

(Australian Curriculum, Assessment and Reporting Authority, 2019)

Notes...
This activity is split into two parts and follows on from activity one; students should have completed their paragraph describing the landscape surrounding Hanging Rock in an alternate way as the genre chosen in activity one will be developed in part two of this activity. The following activity invites students to consider descriptive language use in out of school contexts and to exhibit use of persuasive language. Students are also encouraged to consider the context of Picnic at Hanging Rock outside of the novel through independent and group research.

Instructions...
Part one:
Invite students to research Hanging Rock (either in small groups or individually) using a variety of sources to gain knowledge about the historical and cultural contexts of the area, these may include newspaper articles, online encyclopaedias and, tourism and government websites; these sources should be collated and categorised using Microsoft OneNote. The students should consider:

How the area is described in different contexts and what aspects of the area are being highlighted/ focused on (e.g. what is the Macedon Ranges Shire Council's intention and how have they utilised language to achieve, or not achieve, this outcome?).

What effect Joan Lindsay's novel has had on the reputation of the area, is their evidence to suggest this would not be the case if Picnic at Hanging Rock were set elsewhere?

Part two:

The students have been employed by an agency that requires them to convince a director that the landscape including and surrounding Hanging Rock would be the ideal location for the filming of their latest blockbuster. Students should build on the paragraph written in activity one as well as, utilising the research from part one of this activity to compose an email with an accompanying one page advertisement (using Adobe InDesign) or, design a short video (Adobe Spark Video) advertising the location and it's cultural and historical points of interest. The appropriate language and vocabulary should be utilised by students in the context of using persuasive language in a corporate setting. Students should consider:

What aspects of the landscape would be appealing to the director.

Whether the location would be desirable for the actors/ crew.

If and how the reputation developed as a result of Picnic at Hanging Rock could be utilised for or altered by this film.

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Students display an expanding vocabulary and grasp of grammatical and textual patterns sufficient to understand and learn from texts encountered in and out of school.

Use comprehension strategies to interpret and analyse texts, comparing and evaluating representations of an event, issue, situation or character in different texts (Australian Curriculum: English, Literary Strand - ACELY1744).

Elaborations:

Evaluating techniques used to construct plot and create emotional responses, for example comparison, contrast, exaggeration, juxtaposition, the changing of chronological order, or the expansion and compression of time.

(Australian Curriculum, Assessment and Reporting Authority, 2019)

Notes...
This activity is designed to demonstrate to students the effect that use of language can have on the way a person, place or event is likely to be perceived by the reader. Ideally, students will have read the first few chapters of Picnic at Hanging Rock to have a basic understanding of the tone that Lindsay has set and a grasp of the characters, setting and circumstances being discussed during this class.

Instructions...
Provide students with an early section of the book to read and analyse, ask them to identify:

The use of language devices such as adjectives, similes and metaphors and what effect these have on their opinion of the students and staff at Appleyard College, the college itself and the surrounding landscape.

Invite the students to collaborate and share their ideas in small groups utilising Microsoft OneNote. Ask them to consider the following:

Has everyone formed the same impressions or are there varying views?

How has the language invited and shaped these opinions?

Based on their knowledge of the novel or their impression of the chapters they have read what purpose do these devices serve in this early section of the novel?

Instruct students to return to their own spaces & using the Flash Face app or Planner 5D, invite students to create images of the students, teachers or Appleyard college based on their reading. Students should note and discuss their different interpretations of the descriptive text and why they chose certain facial and design features based on their reading.

Display images depicting Hanging Rock (Mount Diogenes) and ask students to write a paragraph describing the landscape for a different genre (e.g., a romance novel, an action novel, a true story). Ask them to consider:

What impression of the area they were trying to convey and why it seemed appropriate for their chosen genre?

How have they utilised language devices to invite this opinion through their writing?

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Key ideas from the Australian Curriculum: English

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Key ideas from the Australian Curriculum: English

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1. an expanding vocabulary and grasp of grammatical and textual patterns sufficient to understand and learn from texts encountered in and out of school.

2. fluency and innovation in listening to, reading, viewing and creating texts for different purposes and contexts.

3. the skill and disposition needed to analyse and understand the philosophical, moral, political and aesthetic bases on which many texts are built.

4. an interest in expanding the range of materials listened to, viewed and read, and in experimenting with ways of expressing increasingly subtle and complex ideas to create effective and innovative texts (Australian Curriculum, Assessment and Reporting Authority, 2019).

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Welcome! This resource has been designed to assist year nine English teachers provide students with a broad conceptual understanding of what a language is, and its importance in and out of school per the Australian Curriculum: English (Australian Curriculum, Assessment and Reporting Authority, 2019). Through exploration of Joan Lindsay's Picnic at Hanging Rock, teachers will assist students to further their understanding and utilisation of four of the five key ideas from the Australian Curriculum: English with a focus on the use of ICT in classrooms.

Navigation of this page should be from top to bottom with each activity following on from the next. Links to relevant websites and programs are in bold and highlighted in green. Additional resources have been provided where applicable or relevant.