A free lesson on using signposting in your writing. A definition of signposting is provided along with the two ways to achieve this. Some hints for signposting in an introduction and signposting in a body paragraph are provided. Just a quick lesson which can be used as a warm up before tackling unit-specific content.

A free resource which I created to give to all senior English students at the beginning of grade 11. If you use it, and like it, please come and give me a positive star rating / review . Constructive criticism is also appreciated. It is a handy ‘survival guide’ which includes: • definitions of cognitive verbs which students will encounter e.g. evaluate, explain, infer, justify etc. • text connectives (aka cohesive links / linking words) • what makes a good paragraph (and the PEEL structure) • tips for research tasks (using BOOLEAN search operators) • quoting, summarising and paraphrasing – what these are + when it is best to use each of these in their assessment writing • a checklist for editing their work • tips for when an in text reference is needed in their assessment work

This free lesson was designed to remind students about the requirements of historical essays in preparation for drafting their assessment. It looks at the QCAA’s exemplar essay about the end of the Cold War. It goes through the instrument specific marking guide and what must be done to get top marks for each criteria. Students are then given a handout (included for free in my shop at this link) designed to prompt students to deconstruct the IA3 example from QCAA. After students are given time to work through this independently or in groups, there is a whole class discussion of the answers (allowing teacher to point out what makes the essay a high quality example). This is followed by some advice from historyskills.com about how to write an apt introduction with a recommended structure – B.H.E.S. This is followed by the T.E.E.A.S.C. Structure which they recommend for body paragraphs (as an alternative to TEEL). Finally, we look at recommendations made for writing powerful concluding paragraphs. If you loved the resource and think it’s worth 4 or 5 stars, please leave a review as this will help other people to know that my resources are high-quality. **NB: Resources designed for the new senior Modern History syllabus (implemented in QLD in 2019). The content would also be useful more broadly for students in other states and countries with an interest in the Vietnamese Independence Movement (1945-1975). The other resources are also available in my store - lrigb4. The end of term assessment for this unit was an essay. **

This is a draft feedback checklist created to aid the teacher to provide consistent feedback to students about their assessment in a timely manner. It has comments for the various parts of the assessment - the inquiry booklet and the essay. It also includes some proofreading and editing steps. This style of feedback is not indicated on the actual draft itself, but as a separate document, which means that the learner has to locate the issues in their draft for correction. A lifesaver for busy teachers! You can reduce the number of points or use this document as a template to modify to suit your own tasks.

A reading comprehension activity which utilises the QAR reading strategy. Students will read an article entitled “Teenagers and social networking – it might actually be good for them” and then complete the questions.

A PowerPoint to guide students as they read the World War One poem ‘Aftermath.’ It includes information about the author’s background and encourages students to speculate about how that influenced him to write Aftermath. As they read the poem there are little discussion-prompting questions and annotations down the side. Afterwards, students will suggest an intended reading and explore how the language features contributed to this message. Finally, students will review what they have learned about WW1 as next lesson they will move onto a new time period. The handout with the typed questions from the PPT.

24 spelling words for 6 weeks. A few weeks of context-specific words followed by conjunctions, verbs, emotive language.

A PowerPoint exploring the origins and evolution of film (1895-present). Information about The Seven Ages of Film and the advent of sound. Video clips from 'Singing in the Rain' which depict how film studios began to make talking pictures. Looking at the advent of colour in films with clips from The Wizard of Oz showing the use of technicolour. Information about the introduction of The American movie rating system in 1968. The phenomena of Midnight movies - with clips from the Rocky Horror Picture Show.

A PowerPoint presentation explaining how to reference and a handout for students to glue into their books

This is part of a series of resources developed for a year 8 English class in Australia. The first resource is a list of context-specific spelling words for the first six weeks of the term (24 words per week). The second is a PowerPoint introducing the unit and key terms. It specifies the difference between a theme and an issue, gives examples of specific social issues and it has a viewing activity to help students understand a particular social issue (poverty). Finally, it includes some images and creative writing prompts to get students thinking and writing themselves.

Document 1: a worksheet to step students through the process of writing a feature article. This is an interesting topic and ideally the students would work together to develop ideas and then share them with the teacher who would construct the feature article on the board. This is designed to be the students first experience of writing a feature article and uses the I do, we do, you do method where some paragraphs are provided while other sections have key points that the students need to elaborate on to complete the feature article. Document 2: The lesson plan for this activity with talking points and key questions to ask.

This lesson defines politics, looks at what is needed to be classified as politically literate, lists various forms of political participation, explains how the party system works and defines opposition/minor/independent parties. It also looks at the Labor party key players, the ideals of the party, the main platforms for the election, the 100 positive policies (their advertisement and the chaser’s response), it then lists all 100 positive policies and looks at some of the most interesting ones (social issues including refugees etc.) PLEASE NOTE: The material in this lesson was created in 2016 so would be good at providing context for where we are now

A document with over 300 trivia questions (and answers) useful for class competitions, homeroom, school fundraisers etc. Questions include those about Australia, other nations, celebrities, popular culture texts, inventors and scientific discoveries, historical events, true or false etc

Looking at marriage equality and what has been said about it on Q&A (with some clips to watch). Another Q&A clip about Independent Candidate Bob Katter (in an episode about mental health) where he gets challenged by Josh Thomas about his homophobia and his denial that there are any gay people in his electorate. This lesson also looks at immigration (particularly illegal immigrants) and looks at the language used to label them. It also looks at newspaper articles and political cartoons about a drowned three year old Syrian boy, Aylan Kurdi, whose lifeless body was washed ashore in Turkey. It includes scaffolding to write an analysis of some of these political cartoons. PLEASE NOTE: this resource was made in 2016 before marriage equality was achieved in Australia. The discussion of refugee issues is still pertinent but much has happened since then thus have marked down the price

1) A PowerPoint for an introductory lesson to a year 12 Authority English unit in Australia. Overview of school rules, my rules and expectations for Authority English. A term overview, a list of spelling words, goal setting prompts, an introduction to poetry and why it matters, & a brief writing activity. 2) A handout with the questions for the student self-reflection.

3 Resources: 1) Report Writing PowerPoint explaining the assessment task: (They had to create a written informative report that analyses how language, communication and technology influence our personal lives and has changed society.) The PowerPoint explains what a report is, goes through planning steps, how to search more effectively using a BOOLEAN search and a structure for the report. 2) A word doc template for students to fill their report into. 3) An example PowerPoint looking at the evolution of the Radio

This lesson (PowerPoint) was designed to have a short explicit teaching episode at the start followed by for students to develop key inquiry question. This lesson was a review of the key skills required for writing a question for their research essay. It begins with a summary of the assessment task. This is followed by looking at an example key question from QCAA for a different topic (The Cold War). Beneath this is some annotations from QCAA explaining how this addresses the ‘Devising and Conducting’ portion of the criteria. There is some advice about writing a key inquiry question and a graphic organiser showing how you could dot point ideas before narrowing this into a question (examples about the American Civil Rights Movement). There are also example questions written to demonstrate / centre on each of the 7 historical concepts. This is followed by an example key question for our topic (Vietnamese Independence Movement). Students must identify whether it is an open or closed question. They are provided with some information about each question type to help them make this decision. Three more questions (of varying degrees of suitability) are provided for students to evaluate against the criteria. Afterwards students have time to write their first draft of their key question (due the following week for feedback). If time permits, there is feedback about the Tet offensive and the famous photograph entitled ‘Saigon Execution’ which they were to research for their homework task. ** NB: Resources designed for the new senior Modern History syllabus (implemented in QLD in 2019). The content would also be useful more broadly for students in other states and countries with an interest in the Vietnamese Independence Movement (1945-1975). The other resources are also available in my store - lrigb4. The end of term assessment for this unit was an essay.**

List of emotive words which are useful for creative writing tasks.

Two PowerPoints for a 9 English Unit. The first PowerPoint includes a synopsis of the film and the film trailer is embedded. This is followed by a range of clips and viewing questions. It also includes information about how Indigenous Australians are portrayed in the film. Additionally, there is a section on exploring key quotes. Students have to pick out the slang and the beliefs of the protagonist which are indicated in the quote. The second PowerPoint is a paragraph writing lesson. It takes students through the various stereotypes in the film and includes some pre-writing (planning) steps. It reviews the PEEEL paragraph structure. It includes some scaffolding (suggested sentence starters) along with an example paragraph (which is colour coded to indicate which section it addresses). After this activity, there is information about modality and some examples of high and low modality words. There is also some information about linking words.

4 resources designed for a year 8 poetry unit. The first is a PowerPoint which takes students through the STEP UP acronym which they will use to analyse poems in their upcoming assessment: subject matter, theme, emotions, poetic devices, your interpretation, purpose… It includes prompting questions that students should ask themselves to help guide their response for each category. It then includes a poem about a refugee and slides which work through the STEP UP process. The second is a worksheet for modified students which has most of the notes written so that they only have to write a few. The third is a handout which explains STEP UP which could be used as a poster. The fourth is a typed version of the analysis of the refugee poem (in a Word Doc)