HSIE Archives

Writing in Secondary Schools – understanding and applying grammar in context

Please note that this course was formerly known as “Extended Response Writing in Secondary Schools”.

Overview

The focus of this three-day course presented by Kathy Rushton and Joanne Rossbridge is supporting participants to identify the language demands of texts commonly read and written in the secondary school and recognising the features of their students’ writing.

We will focus on the teaching of writing as the context in which grammar is taught to support meaning and we will outline those grammatical features which best support teachers to make an impact on students who are writing extended responses.

Our aim is not to focus on the basics, but we will briefly review or address grammar for those who may be addressing it explicitly for the first time. This will support participants to identify and address their students’ needs as they analyse their written work. We will provide practical examples of strategies for engaging students in writing and supporting students to write effectively.

Sydney

Day 1 – Friday 21 March 2025

Day 2 – Friday 9 May 2025

Day 3 – Friday 23 May 2025

Federation House

23-33 Mary St, Surry Hills, NSW 2010

Day 1 – Language and Literacy

Talking and Listening – What’s the difference? (Grammatical intricacy and lexical density)

Reading – What’s going on? (The verbal group)

Overview of sessions.
Discussion of Assessment tasks.
Introduction of field, tenor and mode:

Mode continuum.
Types of verbs and aspects of verbal groups identified and discussed.
The importance of teacher identification of verbal groups for exploring clause patterns in texts students are both reading and writing.

Whole group trials and share strategies for supporting students to explore verbal groups

Day 2 – Language Choices

Theme (Marked)

Reading – Who and What? (The noun group)

Writing – Where? When? How? (Adverbials and Theme)

Aspects of the extended noun group explained as well as the use of noun groups in developing lexically dense texts.
Analysis of texts suitable for all stages. Discussion at clause and group levels building on knowledge of the verb group to introduce the concept of marked theme of clause realised as an adverbial phrase of time, place or manner.
Analysis of texts and strategies for teaching adverbial phrases and their use in thematic position across the stages of texts.
Sharing of scaffolds.

Day 3 – Creating Cohesive texts

Sentence structure

The third voice in your classroom – Using quality texts. (Nominalisation)

Identifying the role of nominalisation and active and passive voice in quality texts and how they are used to develop theme across the stages of texts.
Identifying strategies for developing writing through a joint construction.
Sharing of notes for a joint construction.

Please note each day is accredited separately

Day 1 Accreditation

Completing Writing in Secondary Schools – understanding and applying grammar in context (Language and Literacy) will contribute 5 hours of NSW Education Standards Authority (NESA) Accredited PD in the priority area of Delivery and Assessment of NSW Curriculum/EYLF addressing Standard Descriptor(s) 2.5.2 and 3.5.2 from the Australian Professional Standards for Teachers towards maintaining Proficient Teacher Accreditation in NSW.

Day 2 Accreditation

Completing Writing in Secondary Schools – understanding and applying grammar in context (Language choices) will contribute 5 hours of NSW Education Standards Authority (NESA) Accredited PD in the priority area of Delivery and Assessment of NSW Curriculum/EYLF addressing Standard Descriptor(s) 2.5.2 and 3.3.2 from the Australian Professional Standards for Teachers towards maintaining Proficient Teacher Accreditation in NSW.

Day 3 Accreditation

Completing Writing in Secondary Schools – understanding and applying grammar in context (creating cohesive texts) will contribute 5 hours of NSW Education Standards Authority (NESA) Accredited PD in the priority area of Delivery and Assessment of NSW Curriculum/EYLF addressing Standard Descriptor(s) 2.5.2, 3.3.2 from the Australian Professional Standards for Teachers towards maintaining Proficient Teacher Accreditation in NSW.

“The course delivered by Jo and Kathy has been nothing short of positive and eye-opening. As a science teacher, I struggled to find why it is my role to teach literacy but that was only out of fear as I didn’t have much knowledge on language. This course not only expanded my knowledge but bolstered my confidence in implementing new strategies in the classroom. The course provided a clear understanding of literacy, allowing me to see the connections and applications of these concepts in a way that can resonate with my students. The experience I had implementing a joint construction has led to a boost in my self-efficacy. Overall, the professional learning course has been beneficial for me. It has provided me with tools and resources to enhance my teaching and better support my students on their learning journey. Thank you for the opportunity and experience.”

“Best PL I have done.”

“Presenters were highly engaging, approachable and demonstrated exceptional knowledge and pedagogical practice.”

“This course was extremely interesting and gave me many ideas for my own teaching – and my own learning.”

“This course was fantastic! Essential learning for all teachers! Thank you!”

“Thank you for the amazing and useful sessions! I feel more confident about grammar now.’

“I enjoyed the structure and engaging with colleagues regarding the strategies we started implementing into our classes.”

Kathy Rushton

Kathy Rushton is interested in the development of language and literacy especially in disadvantaged communities. She has worked as a classroom teacher and literacy consultant and provides professional learning for teachers in the areas of language and literacy development. Her current research projects include a study of multilingual pre-service teachers and the impact that teacher professional learning has on the development of a creative pedagogical stance which supports translanguaging and student identity and wellbeing.

Joanne Rossbridge

Joanne Rossbridge is an independent language and literacy consultant working in both primary and secondary schools and with teachers across Australia. She has worked as a classroom teacher and literacy consultant with the DET (NSW). Her expertise and much of her experience is in working with students from diverse linguistic and cultural backgrounds. Joanne is particularly interested in student and teacher talk and how talk about language can assist the development of language and literacy.

Secondary teachers especially teachers of all subjects requiring extended response writing such as HSIE, English, PDHPE and Science.

Teacher Librarians

$660 for three days

Three whole-day workshops with participants actively engaged in each session and undertaking pre-course and in-between course readings.

JPL Articles

Helping Your Students to Become Better Writers

Critical Literacy in English and History: Stages 3 & 4

A Guide to the New Stage 6 History Syllabuses

Margaret Vos introduces the new Stage 6 History syllabuses which are implemented for Year 11 in 2018… The new NSW Stage 6 History Syllabuses were endorsed in 2016. 2017 is a planning year with implementation for Year 11 in 2018 and Year 12 in 2019. These syllabuses aim to provide students with opportunities to further develop high order, core historical skills, knowledge and understanding which will assist them in the next stage of their lives.Whilst the syllabuses include some content, including skills and concepts, aligned with the Australian Curriculum they retain a uniquely NSW structure and useful parallels with the previous Stage 6 History syllabuses in terms of structure and content.Due to the online nature of the syllabus documents, teachers are encouraged to download and review each section, including the aim and rationale before moving to the course content.Initial information regarding assessment has been published by the NSW Education Standards Authority (NESA). The most significant change is the approach to the formal school-based assessment program for Year 11 and Year 12. Examination specifications are expected to be available in Term 3, 2017.Similarities between the Ancient History Stage 6 and the Modern History Stage 6 SyllabusesIntegrated historical skills and conceptsThis new approach enables teachers to plan for deeper analysis of the topics.The outcomesTeachers should carefully consider the outcomes in both Ancient History and Modern History. They are now organised into two categories: Knowledge and Understanding, and Skills. There are specific objectives attached to each category.Duplication and overlapThe important limitation to a teacher’s choice is the restriction that existed in the previous syllabus regarding topic choice in Year 11; Case studies must not overlap with or duplicate significantly any topic attempted in the Year 12 Ancient History, Modern History or History Extension courses. Structural organisationThere is some structural similarity between the Year 11 Courses in both Ancient History and Modern History which may be helpful.This also makes it easier for students to recognise that the two courses are similar in structure and in the amount of work involved. Teachers who transition from the teaching of Modern History to Ancient History (or vice versa) will find some commonality in the Year 11 Courses.Indicative hours in Year 11The breakdown of the 120 indicative hours into hours for each topic is also now identical in the two courses. Previously only the Modern History Year 11 Course had specified indicative hours for the Preliminary Course.Flexibility for teachers in the Year 11 coursesThe content of each case study and option is further developed within both syllabuses. This includes a list of possible examples that could be used to illustrate aspects of the content. The list of examples and content is not proscriptive. Teachers may develop their own examples and make choices about the sequence and emphasis of their teaching of the content. The Historical InvestigationThis important part of the previous syllabus has been retained in the Year 11 Course in both Ancient History and Modern History. This topic is also a crucial background and skill development for students who wish to go on to History Extension. The investigation provides all students with choice and opportunity to carry out the work as historians in areas of their own interest (either as an individual researcher or as part of a group investigation). It allows teachers to give their students a real choice about the topics they wish to study.Ancient HistoryThe Year 11 courseThe major changes in the new Ancient History Stage 6 Syllabus occur in Year 11. The breakdown of the specified indicative hours for each topic is below:Ancient HistoryYear 11 Course120 Indicative HoursIndicativeHoursInvestigating Ancient HistoryThe Nature of Ancient HistoryCase StudiesEach case study should be a minimum of 10 indicative hours.60Features of Ancient Societies40Historical Investigation20Investigating Ancient HistoryThis is the major section of the Year 11 Course (50% of the indicative hours).The Nature of Ancient HistoryWhat has changed?There are now six distinct areas and students must investigate at least ONE of the following options:The Investigation of Ancient Sites and SourcesHistorical Authentication and ReliabilityThe Representation of the Ancient PastPreservation, Conservation and/or Reconstruction of Ancient SitesCultural Heritage and The Role of MuseumsThe Treatment and Display of Human RemainsHow can this section be taught?A teacher can approach this section in various ways:Teach one of the options;Teach more than one option;Create an integrated study incorporating elements of two or more of the six areas.Case StudiesWhat has changed?TWO Case studies must now be completed – ONE from List A (Egypt, Greece, Rome, Celtic Europe) and ONE from List B (the Near East, Asia, the Americas, Australia).The two case studies do not need to be of equal length. The only requirement is that “Each case study should be a minimum of 10 indicative hours.” Old Kingdom Egypt is now a Case Study option as it is no longer in the Year 12 Course. Similarly, Mycenae is one of the possible topics as it too no longer exists in the Year 12 Course. Ancient China in the Qin and Han Dynasties may no longer be taught in the Year 11 Course as this topic is now in the Year 12 Course. Some exciting new topics are included below:Ancient AustraliaThe Shang DynastyTeotihuacanPalmyra and the Silk RoadFeatures of Ancient SocietiesWhat is the structure?This section is a new way of approaching the study of Ancient Societies. A list of both Ancient Societies and Key Features is provided. Students study at least TWO ancient societies through an investigation of EITHER a different key feature for each society OR one key feature across the societies selected. How can this section be taught?The emphasis is on the interpretation of historical sources. The structure of this section allows for flexibility in a teacher’s choice of topics which could allow for a study of the interaction of TWO distinct societies. Another approach could involve ONE study of two or more societies.Students investigate a key feature of the society or societies chosen. A list of possible studies is provided but is not proscriptive. The addition of India and China may encourage a more thorough focus on Asian history.School-based assessment requirementsTeachers should refer to the NESA Assessment and Reporting in Ancient History Stage 6 document http://syllabus.bostes.nsw.edu.au/assets/global/files/assessment-and-reporting-in-ancient-history-stage-6.pdf . Teachers are encouraged to refer to the relevant NESA documents for updates. Some features for the new syllabus include:The Year 11 formal school-based assessment program is to reflect the following requirements:three assessment tasksthe minimum weighting for an individual task is 20%the maximum weighting for an individual task is 40%one task may be a formal written examinationone task must be an Historical Investigation with a weighting of 20–30%.The Year 12 courseThe structure – What is the same? What is different?The structure of each of the four topics is slightly different. Each topic has two sections – Survey (a maximum of 3 hours) and Focus of Study (a minimum of 27 hours). It is important to note that there is still a requirement that students study from at least TWO geographical areas. The list has been expanded to include China. The indicative hours are listed below:Ancient HitoryYear 12 course120 Indicative HoursIndicativeHoursCore Study – Cities of Vesuvius – Pompeii and Herculaneum30Ancient Societies30Personalities in their Times30Historical Periods30The Core Study – Cities of Vesuvius – Pompeii and HerculaneumContent – what is the same and what is different?The Core’s Content Focus (which replaces the Principal Focus of the previous syllabus) has been expanded to include a statement that: “Students will develop and apply their knowledge and skills to understand and use different types of sources and relevant issues”.This is significant as this further clarifies the historiographical aspect of the core.There are three new terms specified to clarify the focus of the content relating to local political life (decuriones, magistrates, Comitium).Ancient SocietiesAlthough rearranged, the content for each Ancient Society will be familiar to teachers who have taught the previous syllabus and teachers will be able to use their resources to teach this topic. One new topic has been included: Society in China during the Han Dynasty 206 BC – AD 220.Personalities in their TimesWithin this section a new sub-topic exists – a close analysis of a source or type of source. This includes a study of the value of the source as well as an evaluation of the source in the context of other available sources (including the problems of evidence). This explicit addition is important. For, although teachers would have used sources when previously doing this topic, it is a reminder that there is an important historiographical aspect of this topic. One new topic has been included: China – Qin Shihuangdi.Historical PeriodThe new Survey looks at the chronological and geographical context as well as the key powers in the region and the nature of contact with other societies. This is to be completed in a maximum of 3 hours. One new option is included: Imperial China – the Qin and Han 247 – 87 BC. This was previously in Ancient Societies in the old Preliminary Course. School-based assessment requirementsTeachers should refer to the NESA Assessment and Reporting in Ancient History Stage 6 document for updates. The Year 12 formal school-based assessment program includes:a maximum of four assessment tasksthe minimum weighting for an individual task is 10%the maximum weighting for an individual task is 40%one task may be a formal written examination with a maximum weighting of 30%one task must be an Historical Analysis with a weighting of 20–30%.Information about the Historical Analysis in Ancient HistoryThe Historical Analysis provides students with the opportunity to focus on an historical question, issue or controversy of interest, and to develop a reasoned argument, supported by evidence. It may occur in or across any of the topics selected for study.The Historical Analysis may be presented in written, oral or multimodal form, and must:be completed individuallybe a maximum of 1200 words, 6 minutes duration or equivalent in multimodal formaddress relevant syllabus outcomesrelate to a topic or topics studied in the Ancient History Stage 6 Syllabus.Modern HistoryThe Year 11 courseThere are substantial changes to this course. The indicative hours are listed below:Modern HistoryYear 11 Course120 Indicative HoursIndicativeHoursInvestigating Modern HistoryThe Nature of Modern HistoryCase StudiesEach case study should be a minimum of 10 indicative hours.60Historical Investigation20The Shaping of the Modern World40Investigating Modern HistoryHow is this new section structured?Investigating Modern History is the major part of the Year 11 Course (50% of the indicative hours). This has been designed as an introduction to Modern History and its skills, historical concepts, relevant methods and issues. The topic has two distinct sections.The Nature of Modern HistoryWhat is its content?There are five distinct areas listed and students must investigate at least ONE of the following:1. The investigation of historic sites and sources2. The contestability of the past3. The construction of modern histories4. History and memory5. The representation and commemoration of the pastHow can this section be taught?A teacher can approach this section in various ways:Teach one of the options;Teach more than one option;Create an integrated study incorporating elements of two or more of the five areas.Case StudiesWhat has changed?Teachers can create their own case studies; old favourite topics can still be taught (except for those topics that now are part of the Year 12 Course). Some of the previous case studies are now part of the Year 12 Course. If these topics are not attempted in the Year 12 course teachers have the flexibility to develop their own case studies, including:The Civil Rights Movement in the USA in the 1950s and 1960s;Aung San Suu Kyi and the pro-democracy movement in Burma;The Chinese Government and Tiananmen Square.New Case StudiesThe new case studies are listed in the table below. There is a requirement that “each case study should be a minimum of 10 indicative hours.” They do not need to be of equal length. Teachers will continue to teach a case study from List A and List B. Some new and modified case studies include:The American Civil WarThis topic will be familiar to those teachers who have been teaching Modern History for a long time.Making Change: Day of Mourning to MaboWomen’s MovementsA much more comprehensive and interesting topic than the previous Emmeline Pankhurst and the Suffragette Movement.The Rise of the Environment MovementThe Changing Nature of Anglo – Irish RelationsThis topic was moved from the old Year 12 course.The British In India and BurmaIncludes aspects of The Indian Mutiny 1857 (from previous syllabus).The Making of Modern South Africa 1890 – 1910This topic will serve as background to Apartheid in South Africa 1960 -1994 (an option in the new Year 12 topic – Change in The Modern World).How can this section be programmed?TWO case studies.ONE case study and ONE of the teacher’s own.TWO case studies of the teacher’s own.Where teachers develop their own case studies they need to use the framework provided in the syllabus.The Shaping of the Modern WorldThe purpose of this section is for students to examine a key historical development through the study of different types of sources. Students can develop an understanding of modernity.This topic provides for the study of topics from the late 17th Century and the 18th Century.What is the structure of this topic?Students study at least ONE of the following key historical periods:World War I (which retains some elements of the former Year 12 Core from the previous syllabus as well as new elements)The EnlightenmentThe French RevolutionThe Age of ImperialismThe Industrial AgeThe End of EmpireHow can this section be taught?For this section, there are 40 indicative hours. A substantial part of the Year 11 Course should be spent on this topic. Teachers can, therefore, develop detailed and innovative studies. Only ONE topic is required to be taught. However, it is possible to create an option that integrates aspects of more than one of the topics listed. For example, an option could be developed that looked at the forces that existed in the late 17th Century and the 18th Century (such as industrialisation, imperialism, revolution and the Enlightenment) and trace the legacy of, and impact of, these forces on the modern world.School-based assessment requirementsTeachers should refer to the NESA Assessment and Reporting in Modern History Stage 6 document and other relevant NESA documents for updates http://syllabus.bostes.nsw.edu.au/assets/global/files/assessment-and-reporting-in-modern-history-stage-6.pdf . Some features for the new syllabus include:The Year 11 formal school-based assessment program is to reflect the following requirements:three assessment tasksthe minimum weighting for an individual task is 20%the maximum weighting for an individual task is 40%one task may be a formal written examinationone task must be an Historical Investigation with a weighting of 20–30%.The Year 12 courseThere is a new requirement that at least ONE non-European / Western topic is studied in the Year 12 Modern History Course. These non-European / Western topics are clearly listed in the syllabus. As seen from the Course Structure and Requirements below, there are substantial changes to the Year 12 Course.Modern HistoryYear 12 Course120 Indicative HoursIndicative HoursCore Study – Power and Authority in the ModernWorld 1919-194630National Studies30Peace and Conflict30Change in the Modern World30 Core Study – Power and Authority in the Modern World 1919–1946The new Core provides a broader international focus within which Germany is situated and this may provide contextual background for subsequent topics such as Conflict in the Pacific and The Changing World Order.What are the challenges?This Core study will be new for some who have not previously taught Germany. The fact that Germany was always such a popular choice, however, means that there is a huge range of existing resources.What is the content?The Core Focus states that “students will develop and apply their knowledge and skills to understand and use different types of sources and relevant historiographical issues.” Thus, the historiographical nature of this core is emphasised.SurveyThis gives an overview of the peace treaties which ended World War One and is a maximum of 3 hours, 10% of the indicative hours for the Core.Focus of study includes three sections:The rise of dictatorships after World War IThe concept of and the nature of power and authority in the period of 1919–1946 is examined, including a study of the rise of fascist, totalitarian and militarist movements after World War I. This investigation into the growth in dictatorships in Europe (with the central focus on the events in Germany) in the period between the World Wars considers why such regimes became popular.The Nazi regime to 1939The nature of Nazi ideology and the role of individuals in the Nazi state are studied. The consequences of the emergence of totalitarianism and militarism within Germany as well as opposition to the regime are also investigated.The search for peace and security in the worldThe Core concludes with a look at the international consequences. An overview of the ambitions of Germany and Japan are studied as is the role of the League of Nations and the United Nations.National StudiesWhat is changed?It is essential that teachers check to see if the dates for their chosen National Study have changed. China, Japan, Russia and the Soviet Union and the USA are completely unchanged. One new topic exists: Iran 1945–1989. This includes a Survey (maximum of 3 indicative hours) of Iran from 1945 to 1953 and a Focus of Study (including The Rule of the Shah; The Revolution and Iran under Khomeini).Three of the countries to be studied are the same but require a study of a different chronological period. These include India 1942–1984, Indonesia 1945–2005 and Australia 1918–1949.Peace and ConflictConflict in the Gulf 1980–2011 is an exciting new study.Change in the Modern WorldThis is a new topic in the Year 12 Modern History course. Students are to investigate key features in the history of ONE of six topics. Some new case studies draw upon some content from previous Preliminary course studies, including:New OptionsThe Nuclear Age 1945–2011The Changing World Order 1945–2011From Previous SyllabusApartheid in South Africa 1960–1994 (previous National Study)Civil Rights in the USA 1945–1968 (previous Preliminary course)Pro-democracy movement in Burma 1945–2010 (previous Preliminary course)The Cultural Revolution to Tiananmen Square 1966–1989 (previous Preliminary course)School-based assessment requirementsTeachers should refer to the NESA Assessment and Reporting in Modern History Stage 6 document for updates. The Year 12 formal school-based assessment program includes:a maximum of four assessment tasksthe minimum weighting for an individual task is 10%the maximum weighting for an individual task is 40%one task may be a formal written examination with a maximum weighting of 30%one task must be an Historical Analysis with a weighting of 20–30%.Information about the Historical Analysis in Modern HistoryThe Historical Analysis provides students with the opportunity to focus on an historical question, issue or controversy of interest, and to develop a reasoned argument, supported by evidence. It may occur in or across any of the topics selected for study.The Historical Analysis may be presented in written, oral or multimodal form, and must:be completed individuallybe a maximum of 1200 words, 6 minutes duration or equivalent in multimodal formaddress relevant syllabus outcomesrelate to a topic or topics studied in the Modern History Stage 6 Syllabus.History ExtensionThe course outlineThere has been a reduction in indicative hours for the History Project (from 24 to 20) and a subsequent increase in the hours (a minimum of 40) for the topic Constructing History. History ExtensionYear 12 Course60 HoursIndicativeHoursConstructing HistoryKey QuestionsCase Studies40(minimum)History Project20(maximum)Constructing HistoryThis is the largest topic with two distinct parts: the Key Questions and the Case Studies.Key QuestionsThere are now four Key Questions:Who are historians? This question still allows for a study of those historians who have created history over time. The deletion of ‘the’ from the previous question (Who are the historians?) considerably widens the possibility for debate about who should be considered as an historianWhat are the purposes of history? ‘The aims’ has been removed from this question.How has history been constructed, recorded and presented over time? An additional word ‘presented’ has been added to this question.Why have approaches to history changed over time?What is different?The other previous question “What are the historical debates in the case study?” is to “be integrated within each case study”.“The Readings” – reference to ‘The Readings’ has been removed from the new syllabus. However, where appropriate, extracts from this document can still be used as a resource. If used judiciously, and not studied in its entirety, selected readings may be of value.Case StudiesWhat has changed about the content?There is a reduction in the content to better reflect the requirements of 1 unit subjects. The areas of historiographical debate in every case study have been reduced from five to three. A summary of key topic changes is listed below:AncientNewAthenian DemocracyCollapse of the Western Roman EmpireModifiedThe Origins of Christianity retains substantial elements of the previous case study – The Historicity of Jesus Christ.Cleopatra VII (Formerly a topic in the Ancient History course)Medieval and Early ModernNew1. Witch Hunt and Witch TrialsModernModifiedNapoleonWestern Imperialism in the 19th CenturyAppeasementJohn Fitzgerald KennedyA British Prime Minister: Winston Churchill OR Margaret ThatcherAsiaNewGenghis KhanThe Opium WarsPartition of India; although new to History Extension, it was one key feature of the previous Modern History National Study – India: 1919-1947. It will also complement the new National Study – India: 1942–1984 in the Year 12 Modern History course.AustraliaNewRepresentations of ANZACAn Australian Prime Minister: Robert Menzies OR Gough WhitlamModifiedThe Frontier in Australia is a previous Case StudyThe Arrival of the British in Australia. Although the content is very much the same there has been a change in terminology. The use of the term ‘frontier’ instead of ‘the arrival of the British’ allows for a broader study of the Aboriginal response to British intrusion in Australia.History ProjectThe essay length is the same and must not exceed 2500 words. The bibliography is still required and an evaluation of three sources. This must not exceed 600 words in total. The Project is still to be marked internally and it is recommended to arrange for some collaborative/team marking of this Project (either amongst History teachers in one school or across schools).What has changed?There have been some slight but significant changes to Part II Documenting the ProjectProposalAn extra dot point has been added to the instructions. It explicitly mentions that a proposal should include a focus question.SynopsisNo longer required.Process LogThe content of this section has been expanded to include:Explanation of the topic choice – this reflects the intention of the former synopsis;Draft responses – this will ensure that the work follows the principle of good scholarship (including the lack of plagiarism);Teacher Feedback – so teachers can continue to monitor the Project and give genuine feedback at various stages in the process. This can be achieved by viewing and commenting on the drafts as well as checking the use of sources.CertificationThere is not further information available at present. The syllabus refers to the HSC All My Own Work Program.School-based assessment requirementsTeachers should refer to the NESA Assessment and Reporting in History Extension Stage 6 document for updates http://syllabus.bostes.nsw.edu.au/assets/global/files/assessment-and-reporting-in-history-extension-stage-6.pdf .The Year 12 formal school-based assessment program includes:three assessment tasksone task may be a formal written examination with a weighting of 30%one task must be the History Project – Historical Process (proposal, process log, annotated sources) with a weighting of 30%one task must be the History Project – Essay with a weighting of 40%.There are now two Life Skills coursesThere is now an authentic, stand-alone course for both Ancient History and Modern History Life Skills students. In the old HSIE Life Skills Syllabus, the study of Ancient History and Modern History were together with other subjects. For each subject, students will study the same topics as their peers.In implementing each of the new syllabuses for Stage 6 History, the importance of collaboration of History teachers between schools and within faculties will be essential. Professional learning opportunities such as those conducted by the Centre for Professional Learning will also be useful in supporting these processes. For more information visit: http://cpl.asn.au/Margaret Vos has 36 years’ experience as a high school History teacher in NSW Public Schools. In that time, she has regularly taught Ancient History, Modern History and History Extension. Margaret co – wrote Ancient Quest (a junior History textbook) and has been involved in the professional development of teachers (including helping teachers introduce History Extension as a subject in their schools). Margaret has also contributed to curriculum development processes throughout her career.

Helping Your Students to Become Better Writers

Joanne Rossbridge & Kathy Rushton share a framework for improved extended response writing…

Introduction

Teacher knowledge about language and how it works is critical for not only developing dialogue around texts but can make explicit for students the strategies used by effective writers across subject areas. This requires understanding of the grammatical features of the common genres students commonly are asked to write in the secondary school.

This article looks at the extended response to support teachers to analyse student writing and examine both the language and literacy demands related to writing extended responses in secondary settings. The following outlines the approach and principles that are drawn upon in both a one-day and three-day CPL course entitled Conversations about Text in the Secondary School and Developing Dialogue about Text in the Secondary Schools respectively.

Making appropriate choices – Field, Tenor and Mode Framework for writing

Texts can be discussed using a framework developed by Michael Halliday (Halliday & Hasan, 1985) in which the three critical aspects of the register of the text, field, tenor and mode are utilised to analyse and understand how successful texts are constructed to reflect their context and purpose:

Field refers to the subject matter of the text and this of course will differ across and within subjects;
Tenor is the relationship established between the reader and writer;
Mode addresses the nature of the text itself and the role language plays within it.

When viewed together, all students can be supported to understand the range of language choices which need to be made to successfully realise the purpose of a text for the audience it is addressing.

For further explanation see Halliday & Hasan, 1985 and Rossbridge & Rushton, 2015.

This helps students to realise that careful reading and note-taking may address field but to meet the challenges of engaging an audience and establishing a clear purpose for their text a range of other language choices need to be made.

The following framework provides teachers with a time-saving and focussed way to provide the support that developing writers may need at all levels of text from word, clause, group and sentence to paragraph and text levels (Derewianka, 2011).

Choices in context: a case study from the ancients

The context for writing in secondary schools is provided by the subject areas. Students may be involved in field building through the focus on teaching content around a topic such as an example of The Ancient World in History. In addition to acquiring the field knowledge we also need to be explicit about who the audience may be that they are writing for as well as the relationship between the writer and reader.

The following examples show how the field of the writing may be similar but the tenor and mode differ. This can be seen by the more personal connection with the audience in Text 1 while Text 2 seems to convey more authority on the topic. In addition, the mode of the texts may differ in that the writing may be more spoken or written-like as evident in Text 2, which sounds more written-like or academic in the way the ideas have been packaged and organised.

Text 1

Have you ever wondered what life was like for women in Ancient Sparta? They had lots of power and could think for themselves more than some of the other women in other places in Greece.

Text 2

Spartan women had a reputation for strength and independence. They enjoyed greater freedom and power than women in other city-states in Ancient Greece.

This framework for considering and talking about language choices in context can provide the basis of a strong scaffold (Hammond, 2001; Vygotsky, 1986) for adolescent writers.

Writing pedagogy

The genre based pedagogy known as the Teaching Learning Cycle was originally developed by Sydney School genre theorists… [it] has proved a powerful resource for scaffolding literacy development, with numerous published units of work documenting and/or guiding its implementation. (Humphrey & Macnaught, 2011, p. 99)

The Teaching Learning Cycle includes building the field, text deconstruction, joint construction and independent construction. Our focus is on supporting teachers to undertake the more challenging text deconstruction and joint construction.

We consider that the critical dialogue about text occurs during text deconstruction and joint construction (Rossbridge & Rushton, 2014). In many classrooms, texts are modelled but the rich language about language, metalanguage, can only be developed when the teacher and students talk together about the language features of the texts they are reading or writing (Lemke, 1989).

For this reason, one of the courses involves the conversations about text that teachers can develop to support writing development (Rossbridge & Rushton, 2010 & 2011). By using the field, tenor, mode framework for writing, not just the field (content) but also the tenor (relationship) and mode (nature) can easily be the focus of these conversations.

What a conversation might lead to

The following transcript provides an example of the conversations which might occur between a teacher and students. In this example from a whole class joint construction the notion of perspective in History texts is explored by considering the development of the noun group to name participants in events.

Student: Dan would say he’s like a visitor because he wouldn’t say he is trespassing or doing anything wrong. He’d say he’s visiting and helping out his country.

Student: You probably know that their settling there as a new country.

Teacher: So are you saying he’s a settler?

Student: Yeah. Like saying he would know he’s not really going to be going anywhere.

Teacher: So, is he a visitor or a settler?

Students: Settler.

Teacher: What have we built? Dan, who was a young British settler. What have we just built?

Student: Noun group.

Teacher: Yes, we’ve built a whole noun group with an adjectival clause.

(See Rossbridge & Rushton, 2014 & 2015)

Key principles for developing a critical dialogue about text

The key principles for developing the critical dialogue about text are, in our view, language, the learner and the support or scaffold provided for the student. The teacher needs to be very clear about the language needed to write target texts as well as having a clear view of the purpose of talk in the classroom.
The dialogue can be supported by questioning, Think Alouds (when the teacher verbalises their thinking as they read for meaning to model the thinking skills required for comprehension) and other strategies which provide opportunities for talk and substantive communication.
The learner needs to be both engaged and supported to undertake risks (Hammond, 2001) if they are to master the challenges of writing an extended response in an academic context. The support needed is not just modelling but the ability to hand over the tasks to the students (Gibbons, 2002 & 2006) at the right point, the Zone of Proximal Development (ZPD) (Hammond, 2001; Vygotsky, 1986). This may require both micro and macro scaffolding when programming and teaching.
One of the most important understandings about language development is that it can be viewed on a continuum from spoken-like to written-like language, the mode continuum. At one end of the continuum is oral language which differs from written language mainly in its density. Written language is lexically dense in the sense that more meaning is carried in fewer words (Halliday, 1985). The challenge teachers face is to support students to develop the lexically dense texts which are valued in our education system.Written language is lexically dense in the sense that more meaning is carried in fewer words

Nominalisation and theme

Using the framework of field, tenor and mode two very useful tools for writing can be drawn upon. These are the features of nominalisation and theme which can be identified in texts. Students can be taught how to use them to make their texts more effective. Nominalisation is a resource that allows writers to change verbs, conjunctions and adjectives into nouns.

Making language more powerful

We should reduce mining near the coastline.

The reduction of mining near the coastline will result in greater preservation of coastal ecosystems.

In the example the verb group in the first clause has been turned into a noun group (nominalised) and placed at the front of the second clause in theme position. By doing this the main focus of the writing can be put up front, the writing sounds more written-like and by repackaging the first clause into a noun group the writer is able to add additional information.

Such conversation and dialogue around text enables students to take on knowledge about language in the context of texts and apply it to their own writing.

The use of these features relates to the genre of the target text (Macken & Slade, 1993; Martin & White, 2005; Martin & Rose, 2008). While unfamiliarity may initially challenge students, when teachers become adept at deconstructing both modelled and student texts even very young students are able to grasp the concepts and begin to utilise them in their writing.

Our CPL courses demonstrate a range of strategies for developing extended responses which include the effective use of these features and support students to master them.

References:

Derewianka, B. (2011) A new grammar companion for primary teachers. Newtown: PETAA

Gibbons, P. (2006) Bridging discourses in the ESL classroom: Students, teachers and researchers (pp.59-70). London: Continuum

Gibbons, P. (2002) Scaffolding language, scaffolding learning: Teaching second language learners in the mainstream classroom (pp.77-101). Portsmouth: Heinemann:

Halliday, M.A.K.(1985) Spoken and written language (pp.61-67). Victoria: Deakin University Press

Halliday, M.A.K. & Hasan, R. (1976) Cohesion in English (pp.238-245). London: Longman

Halliday, M.A.K. & Hasan, R. (1985) Language, context, and text: Aspects of language in a social-semiotic perspective (pp.238-245). Victoria: Deakin University Press

Hammond, J. (Ed.) (2001) What is scaffolding? Scaffolding teaching and learning in language and literacy education (pp.1-14). Newtown:PETAA

Humphrey S., Droga, L. & Feez, S. (2012) Grammar and meaning: New Edition. Newtown: PETAA

Humphrey, S. & Macnaught S. (2011) Revisiting joint construction in the tertiary context. Australian Journal of Language and Literacy. 34(1), 98-116

Lemke, J. (1989) Making text talk: Theory into practice. Columbus, Ohio: College of Education Ohio State University

Macken, M. & Slade, D. (1993) Assessment: A foundation for effective learning in the school context. In Cope. B & Kalantzis, M. (1993) The powers of literacy: A genre approach to teaching writing. (pp.203-222) Bristol, P.A.: The Falmer Press

Martin, J. & Rose, D. (2008) Genre relations: Mapping culture London: Equinox Publishing

Martin, J. & White, R. (2005) The language of evaluation: Appraisal in English. (pp.26-38) Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan

Rossbridge, J. & Rushton, K. (2015) Put it in writing. Newtown: PETAA

Rossbridge, J. & Rushton, K. (2014) PETAA Paper 196 The critical conversation about text: Joint construction. Newtown: PETAA http://www.petaa.edu.au/imis_prod/w/Teaching_Resources/PETAA_Papers/w/Teaching_Resources/PPs/PETAA_Paper_196___The_critical_conversation_.aspx

Rossbridge, J. & Rushton, K. (2010) Conversations about text: Teaching grammar with literary texts. Newtown: PETAA

Rossbridge, J. & Rushton, K. (2011) Conversations about text: Teaching grammar with factual texts. Newtown: PETAA

Vygotsky, L. (1986) Thought and Language. Cambridge, Massachusetts: MIT Press pp.xi-xliii

About the authors

Dr Kathy Rushton is interested in the development of literacy, especially in socio-economically disadvantaged communities with students learning English as an additional language or dialect. She has worked as a literacy consultant, EAL/D and classroom teacher with the DOE (NSW), and in a range of other educational institutions. Kathy is a lecturer in the Faculty of Education and Social Work at the University of Sydney.

Joanne Rossbridge is an independent English, language, literacy and EAL/D consultant working in both primary and secondary schools across Sydney and Australia. She has worked as a classroom and ESL teacher, literacy consultant and lecturer in universities. Much of her experience has involved working with students with language backgrounds other than English. Joanne is particularly interested in student and teacher talk and how talk about language can assist in the development of language and literacy skills.

Feeding Back: Reflections on Mentoring

Alexandra Harris is a Head Teacher (Teaching and Learning) in Sydney. The story she tells here involves her work in the Schooling for a Fair Go project in which, as a targeted early career teacher, she was mentored in her own school around action research on her teaching practice. She then went on to mentor a HSIE teacher at another school to effect change in the motivation and engagement of students. Alexandra has been a sessional lecturer and tutor in History curriculum at Western Sydney University, a Curriculum Advisor and was a recipient the NSW Department of Education ‘Significant Achievement in Classroom Teaching’ award.

Me as mentee

In 2012 I was asked to take part in a project that became known as Schooling for a Fair Go. The premise was that I would work under a mentor teacher in my school through an action research project which would challenge and improve my practice. The project used the MeE Framework, a motivation and engagement framework developed in the early 2000s by a team led by Associate Professor Geoff Munns of Western Sydney University (WSU), and further developed from a collaboration between this team and Professor Andrew Martin (Munns & Martin, 2013)[i] Working in a low- SES South Western Sydney comprehensive high school as an early career History teacher, I knew that the opportunity to be mentored by a more experienced teacher would be an invaluable experience. Little did I know how much this project would change my practice and reinvigorate my passion for teaching and learning.

Being introduced to the MeE Framework, I was immediately drawn to the ‘e’ngagement aspect of feedback (see article on the MeE Framework by Geoff Munns in this Special Edition) and knew I wanted to use feedback more effectively to further improve student engagement. I decided to focus on two classes, Year 9 and Year 12. Both of these groups had learning needs that would benefit from more explicit feedback as well as other elements of the MeE Framework. The cultural make-up of my school at the time, with many students coming from EAL/D backgrounds (97% in 2012), meant that many students relied heavily on direct teacher input and found more ‘student-centred’ learning challenging. Most of my students did not feel confident enough in their own ability to complete work independently, for example. This was something I wanted to change through more effective feedback. I wanted students to feel confident about their knowledge of assessment and course content through: analysing marking criteria, ‘unlocking’ feedback cues to take on criticism of their work, and implementing strategies to improve.

Year 9 were a particularly challenging group. Through teaching this group and engaging with the MeE Framework I learnt that student ‘compliance’ does not equal ‘engagement’. To have 30 students appearing to be working away had always been a dream classroom for me, particularly as an early career teacher. However, I realised that half the group were not working to the best of their ability and the other half were taking my attention from others who truly needed my assistance. To address this, my main focus for the project was to use both verbal and written feedback to better develop a learning environment that strongly valued learning above any distractions.

When the WSU team and my mentor observed my lessons with this class, their feedback made me realise that whilst I was using a range of useful strategies in the classroom, they were not suitable for all students. Due to this, students did not feel like they had ownership over the learning and thus were not part of an ‘insider classroom’. This left other students who appeared to be working well not being valued as individual learners. Using the MeE Framework, I researched adaptive motivation strategies I could apply to this class to engage them with class materials and stay ‘on task’. Initially, I changed the seating of the class to be able to better monitor student progress and acknowledge and support individual encouragement of students to learn, solve problems and further develop their historical skills. In addition to this, I played around with pairs and groupings to maximise the support and extension offered in my classroom to better address student learning needs. I then created specific ‘laptop learning’ days, having our Thursday lessons be ‘laptop free’ and Friday lessons ‘laptop specific’, to continue developing their writing skills. This enabled students to showcase their individual talents and allowed those students who needed further writing assistance the time and place to develop those skills. I also modelled responses frequently in the classroom to support students with a base level of knowledge upon which to scaffold learning.

The effect of these small modifications created remarkable change in the classroom. Upon closely monitoring students in their new grouping configurations and asking questions from a range of students, rather than relying on the usual pattern of students who frequently answered, I was able to keep students ‘on task’ whilst allowing students one-on-one time with me and individual feedback on their knowledge and skills. I utilised targeted questioning to elicit responses from a range of students and noted the growth in knowledge acquisition over the course of the project. Over time, my use of metacognitive feedback generated student self-assessment and self-direction which led to a rise in engagement and work productivity, and I found students were actually ‘in task’ instead of simply ‘on task’.

Reflecting on the ways I gave feedback, and being supported by my mentor and the WSU team gave me valuable insight into my classroom practice and the effects of my teaching on my students. Working closely with my mentor gave me a great opportunity to reflect with, and learn openly from, an experienced educator who was enthusiastic about pedagogy. This meant I was able to explore and appreciate the role that research could play in my development as a new educator. Investigating different pedagogies and applying them to my classroom through this project reignited my passion for teaching and the joy in the victories for both students and myself along the way.

Me as mentor

Part of my involvement in the project was to be involved in the next phase as a mentor myself. Through links with my previous mentor, I was able to form a connection with a local high school with a diverse cohort of students. I approached an early career HSIE teacher at the school to become involved in the project. This teacher’s classes were mixed ability, coming from many backgrounds and with many learning needs. The teacher selected one class in particular to work with, a Year 9 Geography class she had been battling to keep on task for most of the first term. She was coming up against several roadblocks to learning in this classroom: not having specifically studied Geography at university herself; the school’s timetable, which meant only seeing the class a couple of times a fortnight; high absenteeism in the class; and a history of these students themselves not valuing learning. This combination of factors meant that most students were disengaged.

We decided that the emphasis of the project in this iteration was for the teacher to use specific language to identify her students as learners, moving away from a focus on negative behaviour and towards motivation in the classroom. The teacher was concerned that the class were falling behind and was seeking ways to better structure their learning to enhance engagement. On my initial observation of the Year 9 Geography class I could see that some students were desperate to learn but lacked confidence in their ability. Others were hindered by the nature of some classmates who were trying everything to seek attention from their peers and the teacher.

Over the course of a few months I spent time observing and unpacking lessons, creating further ways to implement the MeE Framework in this class and discussing changes in student behaviour. The teacher worked to improve the confidence of her class by drawing attention to the positive learning experiences students were having instead of focusing on negative behaviour. Eventually, students began to engage with the classwork further. Phone usage, which was officially banned by the school but actually prevalent in this class, began to decline. The peak of this action research project culminated in the final topic, Darwin: A Community. I raised the idea of using Minecraft in the teacher’s class to engage the students and, not being familiar with the program, she fully committed herself to learning how to use it. Observing students engaging with Minecraft and then working together to create a model of the city of Darwin in the program was a positive experience. The teacher implemented reflection activities into her class in which students themselves noted that the class’s behaviour had changed and that they were ‘learners’, working together and co-operating within the classroom. In my final observation of the class, all students were fully immersed in the activity at hand. Students were collaborating and the teacher was able to spend time with individual students, focusing on their learning rather than reprimanding them on their behaviour.

This project in this class was a positive learning experience, enabling me to work with WSU academic staff and challenged my own teaching methods to help support another teacher. Seeing the progressive changes in students’ learning and the teacher’s own teaching style proved to be a great success, with the MeE Framework underpinning the changes that occured. By the end of the cycle, most students were engaged and monitoring their own behaviour rather than giving in to other distractions. Overall, this was an extremely worthwhile exercise which produced real changes for all that were involved.

Now a lot further into my career, I can see the importance of action learning in shaping my teaching today and the need for continuous professional learning and reflection. I am an educator who thrives when working with both students and staff to improve learning outcomes for all. It is opportunities to be involved in projects that support my profession, like the Fair Go Program, that encourage me to stay engaged and committed to the profession and our students.

References:

Martin, A. J. (2007). Examining a multidimensional model of student motivation and engagement using a construct validation approach. British Journal of Educational Psychology, 77(2), 413-440.

Munns, G., Arthur, L., Downes, T., Gregson, R., Power, A., Sawyer, W., Singh, M., Thistleton-Martin, J., & Steele, F. (2006). Motivation and engagement of boys: Evidence-based teaching practices. Australian Department of Education, Science and Training.

Munns, G., & Martin, A. J. (2013). Me, my classroom, my school: A mixed methods approach to the MeE framework of motivation, engagement, and academic development. In G. A. D. Liem & A. B. I. Bernardo (Eds.), Advancing cross-cultural perspectives on educational psychology: A festschrift for Dennis M. McInerney (pp. 317-342). Information Age.

[i] The complete MeE Framework was first developed for the Motivation and Engagement of Boys project (Munns et al, 2006). Andrew Martin’s work is well-known through his ‘Student Motivation and Engagement Wheel’ (see Martin, 2007).

Critical Literacy in English and History: Stages 3 & 4

Kathy Rushton and Joanne Rossbridge explore the important concept of Critical Literacy. They explain why it is essential for teachers (in both primary and secondary classrooms) to use critical literacy to ensure student engagement, to teach our students how to properly analyse all text and to allow them to develop a wider view of, and critical understanding of, the world . . .

The aim of critical literacy is a classroom environment where students and teachers together work to (a) see how the worlds of texts work to construct their worlds, their cultures, and their identities in powerful, often overtly ideological ways; and (b) use texts as social tools in ways that allow for a reconstruction of these same worlds.

Luke (2000) Critical Literacy in Australia: A matter of context and standpoint. Journal of Adolescent and Adult literacy. Vol. 43/5 448-461 p.453

Teachers in the middle years, Stages 3 & 4, are supporting students in their transition from the primary to secondary years. This transition often requires students to interrogate more challenging texts and respond to and compose more sophisticated texts of their own. Teachers, therefore, need to develop their own critical analysis and curation of texts for use in the classroom and to develop a range of appropriate teaching and learning strategies to support the development of critical literacy for their students. The theoretical perspectives that inform this perspective relate to issues of race, gender and ethnicity and also how these issues impact on language choices.

Designing learning with a critical literacy perspective

Defining critical literacy can be facilitated by reviewing the four reading resources (Freebody & Luke, 1990) particularly the Text Analyst role which supports students to question and analyse texts. Students can be supported in the development of critical literacy if teachers are able to identify links to critical literacy in English and History Syllabus documents. These links can then be exemplified for students by, for instance, elaborating on cross curriculum priorities and general capabilities.

In practice teachers can analyse features such as context, author background, date and place of publication and then support their students to discuss different perspectives and contestability. This is most easily done in a modelled reading lesson accompanied by strategies to support students before, during and after reading. Before reading, viewing and analysing images can support the development of field knowledge and provide a starting point for developing vocabulary related to the subject. Strategies such as verbal ping pong, which is often used to develop debating skills, can engage students in developing arguments for or against a topic as an initial strategy for developing field knowledge or following a modelled reading to elaborate on aspects of the topic. Similarly, a drama strategy such as conscience alley can be used before, during or after reading to help develop empathy for a character, historical or imaginary, when they face a critical event. (Dutton et al, 2018; Rossbridge & Rushton, 2011 & 2015)

By encouraging a focus on language choices, students are also supported in their analysis of perspectives. Some students may find that they are excluded from the texts which they are required to read or produce in the school (Bishop, 2003). Alton-Lee (2000) exemplifies this by reporting an incident in which a teacher in New Zealand accidentally excluded an Indigenous student “from the ‘we’ of the classroom” (p.26). It is easy to see how this situation could be replicated in any English or History classroom if the texts that are used do not analyse the “we” and identify the perspective from which they are written. For instance, texts written from the perspective of Aboriginal Australians may position non-Aboriginal readers as visitors to sites or ceremonies or as outsiders or invaders in events from the past rather than as actors ‘discovering’, ‘describing’ or ‘evaluating’ the same sites and events.

Selecting texts to develop critical literacy

If texts are viewed from a critical literacy perspective, a range of texts can be selected to represent a variety of perspectives in contemporary Australian society. Especially in History, texts should be considered in terms of contestability and empathetic understanding as well as how they develop and challenge understandings about contemporary issues and the past. To support students to engage critically in response to texts, teachers can identify, deconstruct and analyse language features to support critical analysis. In particular questioning perspectives based on context, author background, date and place of publication will support this process. In this way students will be supported to describe and assess the motives of individuals and groups within historical contexts and in literary texts. Supporting students to develop the ability to interpret, explain and identify perspectives in a range of texts in both English and History will support the understanding of subject matter and literacy. Intercultural understanding will also be supported through comparison of texts especially those written from an Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander perspective. The table below suggests some questions which could be used to interrogate and analyse a text and to develop the role of the Text Analyst.

Table 1. (click here to view table)

Guiding questions for selecting and curating texts: Developing the Text analyst role
How do you interpret the perspective of this text? How does the context of the text differ from your own context? What assumptions does the author make about the audience? What perspective is assumed by the author? Who do you think might disagree with the author’s stance? Why? Is the text relevant to contemporary Australia? Why? Is the text authoritative or does it explore the subject and allow you to think critically about it? Whose voices are silent or whose interests absent?

Guiding questions for selecting and curating texts: Developing the Text analyst role

How do you interpret the perspective of this text?

How does the context of the text differ from your own context?

What assumptions does the author make about the audience?

What perspective is assumed by the author?

Who do you think might disagree with the author’s stance? Why?

Is the text relevant to contemporary Australia? Why?

Is the text authoritative or does it explore the subject and allow you to think critically about it?

Whose voices are silent or whose interests absent?

Working with texts to develop critical literacy

Developing a critical literacy approach to teaching is truly dependent on the curation of a range of texts that define perspectives such as Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander or Asian perspectives and texts which also promote intercultural understanding. To develop empathetic understanding, teachers can identify and compare features from a range of texts. A sequence of teaching and learning strategies to support critical responses to texts can also be developed by critically analysing perspectives and making connections. Reading and writing in the subject area will also be supported if the critical literacy practices outlined in the English and History Syllabus documents and the cross-curriculum priorities and general capabilities are properly considered.

Writing from a critical literacy perspective

Writing is a way of investigating perspective and interpretations of History and responding to ideas and representations in texts in English. After exploring multiple texts across the English and History subject areas with a focus on historical events and perspectives, students can then be supported in writing. Of great importance is the establishment of a context for writing. As when reading form a critical literacy perspective, writers will also need to consider the identity or role of the writer, the audience, the mode of publication, the time of writing and the values and beliefs of the time. This will determine whether the writing is to be imaginative or more informative or argumentative as well as the overall purpose of the text. A focus on historical content might be based on significant historical events or significant individuals. Consider the contextual choices below and how they might construct different perspectives and empathetic understanding regarding the subject matter.

(click here to view table)

Subject matter	Time of publication	Author	Audience	Mode of publication
early contact between Indigenous people and the colonisers	1788	journalist	colonisers in the Sydney area	newspaper article
daily life of a free settler	1795	female free settler	writer/family discovering diary 125 years later	diary
friendship between an Indigenous British child	2020	Australian author	children in contemporary Australia	comic or picture book

These contextual features will influence the language choices of a text. Any shift in these features will impact on the text features. Consider how a newspaper article about early contact between the Indigenous people and the colonisers would differ when published in 1788 compared to 2020.

Once a clear context for independent writing is established, teachers will need to think about similar texts to use as models to show students how to develop a critical literacy response through written language. Models for writing may be selected from those texts that students have already investigated from a critical literacy perspective or models can be written by teachers. Students will need to see such models and be guided through how text choices create or challenge a particular perspective. This will involve an explicit focus on language choices. For example, if writing an historical narrative, a focus could be placed on choices related to whose voice is included, how people are named and described and who is constructed as an actor or sensor (Rossbridge & Rushton, 2015). After modelling students could then participate in a joint construction where the writing process, development of ideas and talk of language choices is handed over to students with the teacher taking on the role of facilitator. The teacher will need to continue to support students in thinking about how their choices construct a particular perspective often through thinking aloud during the text construction. Once students are confident with discussing texts using modelled metalanguage they may move in to independent construction. The provision of clear criteria around perspectives and empathetic understanding will support them in drafting and reviewing their texts with a critical literacy approach.

References:

Alton-Lee, A. (2003). Quality teaching for diverse students in schooling: Best evidence synthesis.
Wellington: Ministry of Education. Retrieved from http://www.educationcounts.govt.nz/publications/series/2515/5959

Bishop, R. (2003) Changing Power Relations in Education: Kaupapa Māori Messages for “Mainstream” Education in Aotearoa/New Zealand. Comparative Education, 39, 2, (27), 221-238Retrieved from http://www.jstor.org/stable/3099882.

Dutton, J., D’warte, J., Rossbridge, J. & Rushton, K. (2018) Tell me your Story. PETAA: Sydney

Freebody, P. & Luke, A. (1990) Literacies programs: Debates and demands in cultural context. Prospect,5.pp /7-16

Luke, A. (2000) Mediating Adolescent Literacies. Journal of Adolescent and Adult Literacy 43:5,448-461

Rossbridge, J. & Rushton, K. (2015) Put it in Writing. PETAA: Sydney.

Rossbridge, J. & Rushton, K. (2011) Conversations about text 2: Teaching grammar using factual texts.

Newtown: PETAA

Kathy Rushton has worked as a literacy consultant, ESL and classroom teacher with the DoE (NSW), and in a range of other educational institutions. She is interested in the development of literacy, especially in socio-economically disadvantaged communities with students learning English as an additional language or dialect. Kathy is currently a lecturer in the Faculty of Education and Social Work at the University of Sydney.

Joanne Rossbridge is an independent literacy consultant working in both primary and secondary schools and with teachers across Sydney. She has worked as a classroom and ESL teacher and literacy consultant with the DoE (NSW). Much of her experience has involved working with students from non-English speaking backgrounds. Joanne is particularly interested in student and teacher talk and how talk about language can assist the development of language and literacy skills.

Building Confidence and Success in Stage 6

Khya Brooks suggests an approach to the HSC which can reduce everyone’s anxiety…

On the day my first HSC classes’ results were released, I was nervous and excited. However, I did not expect the reactions that I witnessed.

Many people turned to me and said “Congratulations. You did so well”, as though I had just sat the tests myself. Meanwhile, some of my colleagues were sitting with their head in their hands saying “I didn’t even get one band 6. What happened?” The rest of the day was spent listening to colleagues criticise their own practice and try to justify their classes’ outcomes to themselves; “Oh, I should have focused more on this area in the syllabus…” and “If only I had thought to revise this case study more thoroughly”.

What I learnt that day was to internalise the HSC results as though they were my own. I learned that my classes’ success somehow translated into how valuable I was as a teacher. The day was not spent celebrating, it was spent critically reflecting. Sure, this is great practice for long-term improvement, but what I have found is that it has also increased the pressure experienced by teachers. I have noticed that this pressure is then often transferred onto students, resulting in unnecessarily increased anxiety throughout the school.

I argue that this approach is reflective of a growing individualistic and negative culture within society and therefore teaching; which positions individual teachers rather than school systems or society more widely as solely responsible for student outcomes. This anxiety is reinforced by constant questions from the school executive, such as “Did you differentiate enough?”, “Are you providing enough scaffolds?”, “How many band 6s will you get this year?”

There is often too much pressure on many of the adults and, subsequently, many of the children at school.

I thought school was supposed to be joyful!

What to do?

So, I decided to actively address this cultural shift. I wanted students to own their own learning, rather than assuming it was all my responsibility. I began to reshape my programs, assessments and my overall practice. The more confident and successful my students became with their skills, the more confident and successful I felt within my practice. Our collective anxiety melted away and school days became more positive.

I found this new approach enabled me to have a better range of measures to gauge my success as a teacher. Rather than relying on quantitative numbers at the end of the HSC, I established a clearer set of procedures that allowed me, and the students themselves, to better measure our progress.

Below are some practical strategies that have helped me in achieving this cultural shift in my classroom, with a view to empower learners and improve their confidence, and ultimately, their success. I will focus prominently on the strategies utilised with my Society and Culture classes, but they are strategies that are easily transferrable to other subjects.

Please note, I work in a partially-selective public school in South-West Sydney. This means I have a large range of students; from high to lower ability, from advantaged to disadvantaged backgrounds, and from the disengaged through to some ‘over workers’. I have found that these strategies have assisted all of my students. For this reason, they should be applicable in almost any school context.

Strategies to develop a culture of student-driven learning

No summary, no marks

A strategy I have implemented is to withhold marks from students after they initially receive their assessments back. I encourage students to read through their feedback, and write a summary outlining what they need to work on, and how they intend to improve a particular skill in future assessments.

Once they do this, I provide them with their mark. This is a way to maximise student engagement with feedback. Also, students tend to keep these summaries and read over them before submitting future drafts.

Specific student-led feedback

I no longer accept copies of drafts from students seeking copious feedback. I found that quite often I would have read a draft several times before it came to marking it, and it was exhausting, time consuming and students generally still made similar mistakes in later assessments (indicating it was not as effective as I wanted it to be).

As a result, I developed a feedback matrix to use with my classes. The matrix outlines a three-step feedback system where I give specific feedback at set times and students are required to actively engage with it. The steps are outlined in Image below or click here to view.

Image 1 – Feebdack Matrix

There can be many benefits to using the matrix. As students use the marking criteria to develop specific questions for their feedback, they self-identify areas they thought they were not as strong in. For teachers, this means no longer spending copious time fixing tiny issues. Instead, we are able to provide wider feedback that students then identify in their own work. Also, students can easily see if their ‘limitation’ was someone else’s strength, and they can seek more help from one another.

Grouped feedback activities

Following the submission of a formal assessment task, I allocate each student a shape based on the marking criteria. Each shape is representative of a skill they should aim to actively improve. I then dedicate a lesson to improving those skills by grouping students by shape around the room, and each ‘shape group’ completes an activity dedicated to improving that skill. For example, I gave a student a triangle to indicate that they needed to better synthesise their research. I then had a triangle station, where all students that received the triangle worked on an activity where they ‘blended’ primary and secondary information together to identify conclusions. Students then practised writing these conclusions into paragraphs, to improve this skill further.

Strategies to develop specific skills

Writing

To improve student writing, I developed an acronym (shown in Image 2 below) focussed on sentence starters. Whilst there are many popular paragraph structures around, this approach focusses on the sentence level and students tend to find this more visible. Over the course, students begin using different sentence starters, eventually utilising the acronym as an editing checklist rather than a structure. It has been hugely successful across all stages and courses and has also been adopted by various other faculties and schools.

Image 2 – Writing Acronym

Once this acronym is introduced, I often develop an activity where students read various responses and highlight the different elements using different colours. The responses are usually related to course content, so that students actively learn relevant information through the process. We then discuss which responses were better and why, and students rewrite one of the poorer examples using the structure themselves. Often, I will then have students ‘highlight’ one another’s responses to begin to foster a peer marking culture.

I also use the highlighting activity as self-guided feedback through the course. Students learn to highlight their responses and identify whether they have used too much description, or if they need to embed more examples.

Applying concepts

In many subjects, applying concepts is integral. I scaffold this skill in a multitude of ways.

The concepts are colour coded in my classroom, and are all displayed on the wall.
Each lesson, I have students identify the various concepts that were discussed in class. Through this, students learn that a lesson can cover elements of a concept without the teacher explicitly stating it, and so they begin to look for opportunities to make these connections themselves.
I provide students with paragraphs from previous responses. Students identify two concepts that would enhance the paragraph, and rewrite the paragraphs with the concepts applied. They then peer mark one another’s responses.
Randomly, I will pass each student three cards, one with a ‘fundamental’ concept, one with an ‘additional’ concept and one with a ‘related’ concept. Students are then given one minute to prepare, and then discuss a key point of the case study using all three concepts. It helps to revise content, and enhances students’ ability to apply concepts appropriately.

Strategies to build a culture of success in the subject

One of my biggest successes has been developing a good rapport between cohorts. This has enhanced the mentorship my Year 11 students receive each year, and has also contributed to the growing profile and number of Stage 6 classes in my school.

Year 11 markers

Each year, one week before the Personal Interest Project (PIP) major work is due, I spend a day with my Year 11 students deconstructing exemplar PIPs and marking them collectively. This is a positive and voluntary experience, and the focus is about building up each other rather than putting pressure on Year 11 to produce Year 12 level work, or, of criticising older students.

Once students feel more confident in their understanding of the requirements of each section in the PIP, I then have them ‘mark’ draft Year 12 PIPs. This provides an array of advantages, such as my Year 12 students are provided with additional feedback, my Year 11 students have a better understanding of the skills required of them to achieve higher results, and I use the opportunity as a checkpoint to ensure all students have finalised their PIP at least a week prior to submission day.

Q&As

Each year I ask a number of my previous Year 12 students to come and speak to my new Year 12 students. The new group develop questions they want answered and my older group provide hints, tips and pieces of advice. Often, the older students offer to assist with PIP topics or research too.

Student developed questions

Lastly, following each topic, I have students map past HSC questions to the syllabus dot points and concepts. Students then develop a question for the topic, by mixing two dot points and adding a verb or integrating a concept. Finally, students add their question to a shared document and everyone selects three questions to respond to for practise.

This empowers students to develop their own resources for revision (I also get a bank of new question ideas). Often students will then show the question designer their response, and this suggests more collegiality between the students, as the class becomes more focussed on achieving great marks for everyone rather than personal or individual success alone.

Building up each other

It is important to note that I am very explicit with my students about the skills they learn, and how each of these strategies empowers them as learners. What I have noticed after integrating the strategies listed above is that students become less reliant on me to feed them information and are much more active about their own development. This allows each of them to feel confident and ultimately enables them to succeed as a class. It also makes it easier for me to measure how well they develop essential skills. It is this development that I value most in my teaching, knowing my students have come so far, and guiding them to continue to learn and grow more confident even when they are no longer in my classroom.

Khya Brooks currently teaches in Social Sciences at Elizabeth Macarthur High School. She has conducted workshops at the Australian Geography Annual Conference, worked in collaboration with local schools to develop higher-order-programs for the Australian Geography Curriculum, conducted research and had it published on behalf of the Western Sydney University EPIC (Educational Pathways in the 21st Century) program and contributed to educational podcasts. Khya’s students have received awards from the Society and Culture Association for their outstanding accomplishments in examination and PIP components of the HSC course. She has also contributed to the sustained growth and success of Stage 6 classes in her school. Khya is currently refining her approach to higher-order-learning strategies, and is guiding a research cycle of inquiry within her school.

Power, Authority and the New Modern History Syllabus

Jonathon Dallimore offers some reflections on the new HSC Modern History Core due to be examined for the first time in 2019…

The new Modern History Core, ‘Power and Authority in the Modern World’, presents both an exciting and a challenging update to the HSC course. At a time when discussions of populism, authoritarianism and dictatorship abound, students are provided an opportunity to consider a period of history in which politics was radically destabilised, much more than the present day.

There would be little disagreement that issues of power, authority, democracy and globalism (all central to this new Core topic) are important for students of the modern world to explore. Importantly, they also underpin other topics that students can study in the HSC course; in one form or another they are at the heart of most National Studies, Peace and Conflict studies and Change in the Modern World topics. This new Core can, therefore, be leveraged to tie links between other topics that students might investigate depending on the choices a school/teacher makes in setting up the course.

That said, this topic is much larger in scope than the previous Core, World War One, which covered a five-year period and focussed mostly on the Western Front. Power and Authority covers the period 1919 – 1946 (27 years) and requires students to come to terms with a much broader set of issues. This presents a challenge, and a new set of examination specifications will certainly add to the complexity of teaching this new topic for the first few years.

In the reflections that follow, I would like to highlight some key questions and issues that have arisen regularly as I have run workshops, visited schools to assist with program design and generally responded to questions about the new Modern History Core. There is, obviously, much more that could be said on this topic, and my hope is that these ideas might be useful as teachers and students begin exploring this topic over the next twelve months. My observations are based on my reading of the syllabus, and the support materials and the sample questions NESA have published.

Where to begin?

One approach to teaching Power and Authority would be to start with the first dot-point (‘an overview of the peace treaties…’) and move through the following points sequentially. An alternative might be to find a central theme that runs through the topic, such as ‘internationalism and nationalism’, that allows students to make connections between different parts of the topic as they explore the content.

Following the latter suggestion, it might be useful to start the topic by surveying the peace treaties that ended World War One and then introduce the ‘intentions and authority of the League of Nations’ (from the last section of the topic: ‘The search for peace and security in the world’). Not only does this make chronological sense in that the League of Nations was established in 1919 – 1920 during ongoing debates about the closure of the Great War, but it also sets up a theme of internationalism/nationalism that can be referred back to consistently throughout the topic. As the students then explore the Russian, Italian, German and Japanese regimes, they can compare-and-contrast their interaction with the League, why it ultimately failed and then consider how the United Nations developed the ‘intentions and authority’ of the League following the Second World War.

Where do sources ‘fit’ into this topic?

Although it has been a consistent message regarding this new Core topic, it is worth restating that teaching the Power and Authority topic should be grounded in source material relevant to the various content points. Students will obviously need a broad understanding of the ‘facts’ and ‘content’ relevant to each dot-point but they also need to be prepared to work closely with a range of source material.

Importantly, for those who taught the German National Study in the previous iteration of the Modern History course, this means that the more dense and detailed coverage of the Nazi regime to 1939 may need to be amended. Students will not be required to construct 25-mark essay responses for this topic and, therefore, the amount of detailed knowledge they will be required to take into the examination is likely to be less than it was for the previous German National Study.

It is also crucial to point out that the previous emphasis on the three concepts of ‘perspective’ (P), ‘reliability’ (R) and ‘usefulness’ (U) in relation to source material is unlikely to feature in the same way for this new Core. Certainly, those ideas will still be relevant to explore within class and they may appear in some form or another in the examination, but teachers who have taught Modern History for some time will need to move beyond the PRU paradigm for the new Core study. The sample questions published by NESA, the History Teachers’ Association’s ‘Core Papers’ and Nicole Mansfield’s sample assessment task published in the September 2018 edition of Teaching History (HTA NSW, pp. 58 – 71) would provide a good starting point for those looking to broaden the scope of questions asked about source material.

What to do about timing?

The following is one suggestion for allocating the number of lessons to each part of this topic within the teaching unit. It should be noted that the 10% designation for the ‘survey’ is set as a requirement by the Modern History syllabus.

The other weightings provided below are not mandated by NESA but seem to be a reasonable division of the unit’s lessons to ensure that students develop a well-rounded understanding of the topic:

Survey (10%)
Rise of Dictatorships (about 25%)
Nazi Germany to 1939 (about 45%)
Search for Peace and Security (about 20%)

It is possible to integrate some of the content points from the ‘Search for Peace and Security’, for example ‘ambitions of Germany in Europe’, into some of the other major sections of this topic, such as ‘Nazi Germany to 1939’, which may mean that the percentage weightings allocated here are reshuffled slightly.

Some specific challenges

Most of the content-points within this topic are reasonably clear and it is easy to imagine examination questions developed from them. There are two, however, that seem a little awkward when considering how they might be ‘tested’.

The first is the ‘role of prominent individuals in the Nazi state’ dot-point. This obviously reflects discussions about the nature of Hitler’s power and the structure of the Nazi state that have been in the historical literature for many years. It is, however, hard to know how this could be examined given the wording of the point. Questions which arise include:

Can they name a ‘prominent individual’ in a question? (for example, Joseph Goebbels)
If so, since none are mentioned specifically in the syllabus, which ones are ‘fair game’?
If not, how could questions on this point be framed?

Perhaps something like the following could be a starting point:

Other than Adolf Hitler, outline the role of ONE prominent individual in the Nazi state.
Explain how prominent individuals contributed to the Nazi dictatorship between 1933 and 1939.

These are obviously not predictions regarding how these dot-points will be examined but are merely possible options for how they could be examined.

The second dot-point to consider is the ‘intentions and authority of the League of Nations and UN’. The League of Nations is logical in a topic that is largely centred on the ‘interwar crisis’. The United Nations, however, is more difficult to imagine as an examination question. The topic cuts off in 1946 which is barely enough time for signatories to ratify the UN charter and hold the first meeting of the General Assembly (January 1946), so how much might we expect students to know about this organisation? This is especially relevant when compared to the League of Nations, which was in operation for almost the entire period covered in this topic.

Perhaps a lower-mark question on the United Nations in an examination might be:

Outline the intentions and authority of the United Nations.

A higher-mark question drawing on the United Nations might be:

Compare and contrast the intentions and authority of the League of Nations and the United Nations.

Given the imbalance in what the students will learn about the two institutions in a topic covering the period 1919-1946, a compare and contrast question may not be as appropriate but that reaffirms the points: beyond a lower-mark question, how could the United Nations be ‘tested’ in an examination?

Examination notes

The basic examination specifications published by NESA for the new Modern History course are quite clear. For the Core topic, they note the following:

There will be 3-4 questions asked;
‘Analysing and interpreting sources’ and ‘applying own knowledge’ will be required;
One of the questions will be worth between 10 and 15 marks;
All questions in the Core section of the paper must be answered.

These directions and the sample questions provided by NESA for the new Core do, however, leave a lot of issues unanswered regarding this section of the examination. Some of these complexities are explored further in the article ‘Challenge and Response: Setting New Modern History Core Questions’, in the September 2018 edition of Teaching History (Kiem and Dallimore, 2018).

Resources

There are a range of dedicated textbooks now in circulation for Power and Authority. The following resources are very useful and may be good to purchase for school libraries or faculty collections (they are in no particular order):

Stephen Lee’s The European Dictatorships (4th Ed.) – this is a very useful overview of the period covered in this topic and it includes strong coverage of the dictatorships in Russia, Italy and Germany (the fourth edition includes a very small section on Japan).

Bruce Pauley, Hitler, Stalin and Mussolini: Totalitarianism in the Twentieth Century (4th Ed.) – this is a shorter book than Lee’s but it provides a clear overview of the main dictatorships that are the focus of the topic (except Japan). It is also highly readable and appears to be targeted at a younger audience (late high school and early university).

Ian Kershaw, To Hell and Back: Europe, 1914 – 1949 – although this book also covers the Second World War and the early developments leading towards the Cold War, it provides a great insight into key issues of the Power and Authority topic.

Richard Overy, The Inter-War Crisis, 1919 – 1939 – Richard Overy is a very gifted writer and although this book seems aimed at undergraduate level, there are some very useful sections including a source cache at the back of the book (some of which may be too complex for the HSC topic).

Mark Mazower, Dark Continent: Europe’s Twentieth Century – this book covers the entire 20th century but the first several chapters are a highly readable account of the key issues underpinning Power and Authority in the Modern World.

Saburo Ienaga, The Pacific War, 1931 – 1945 – this book will provide useful detail on developments in Japan in the lead up to the Second World War which are covered in this topic.

Professor Richard J. Evans’ Gresham College lecture series ‘The Age of Dictatorship: 1919-1989’ provides excellent overviews of the Russian, Italian and German dictatorships. The first episode of that series (on Mussolini) can be accessed here.

Final thoughts

Although the new Modern History Core sets a different tone for the course, not everything is completely new. Many teachers will continue to explore the same national and conflict studies (some of which include only minor changes). More generally, the new Modern History syllabus strikes me as a positive update in some ways because we now have skills and concepts that run through Stages 4, 5 and 6. This will hopefully allow faculties to develop students’ historical thinking throughout junior courses and Year 11 in the lead-up to the HSC course.

This is the first time I have witnessed a major overhaul of the senior history syllabuses. It is a challenging process, especially when, for most teachers, a full 50% of the course will require change in Modern History (a new Core and an entirely new topic replacing the Personality Study). What makes the process less stressful is the community effort already well under way to produce and share resources and respond to issues as they arise. This, I think, the history teaching community in NSW does particularly well.

Jonathon Dallimore is currently on leave from teaching history at Smith’s Hill High School in Wollongong and is working part-time for the History Teachers’ Association of NSW. He has published a number of new texts for the new Stage 6 Modern and Extension History courses including Contesting the Great War (HTA NSW, 2017), Investigating Modern History (Cengage, 2017) and The History Extension Resource Book (HTA NSW, 2017), The American Civil Rights Movement: 1945 – 1968 (Cengage, 2018) and Conflict in Indochina: 1954 – 1979 (Cengage, 2018). Jonathon also teaches history methods courses at the University of New South Wales and the University of Wollongong.

“I Want to Get Physical, Physical”: Spatial Technologies Inside and Outside Your Geography Classroom

Lorraine Chaffer encourages you to confidently use spatial technologies in your classroom…

What is Geography like in your classroom?

With the new K-10 Geography syllabus implemented in all schools from 2017, it may well be timely to stop and ask ourselves a couple of reflective questions such as: What have the students been doing? What have we been doing? Is it working? What should we try next?

I have been looking inside many Geography classrooms across NSW and I have noticed students using spatial technologies to create digital tours, plot information from fieldwork activities, create digital elevation profiles, contribute to citizen science projects and examine or analyse real-time data.

The students like it. Increasingly, I think their teachers do too.

Outside the classroom, governments, organisations and individuals are using spatial technologies to analyse spatial data, create visual representations and make predictions in fields as wide ranging as urban planning, disaster management, agricultural production and climate change.

Spatial technology is creating significant and interesting employment opportunities in many industries

Spatial technology is creating significant and interesting employment opportunities in many industries, leading to a growing demand for trained technologists with spatial analysis skills. Geography has always been the subject that is relevant to all other fields. Now, the skills of geographers in both the humanities and technical industries are in increasing demand.

Spatial technologies include any technology that enables us to collect data about a location (place) and organise that data to show spatial patterns, usually on a map or satellite image.

We may not realise it but this technology has become an integral part of our lives through the devices we use, such as our computers, tablets and smartphones. All online programs, including social media applications, maps and games, have spatial components built into them.

Despite the prevalence of spatial technologies in our daily lives there remains a range of impediments to their use in the classroom. These include software and data access, hardware availability, computer room access and teacher expertise. This article seeks to build confidence and awareness of some of the practical applications teachers are using successfully now, whilst acknowledging that improved resources will also be essential for effective teaching of many of the positive aspects of our new syllabuses.

What does the Geography K-10 syllabus have to say about spatial technologies?

In the NSW Geography Syllabus 7-10, spatial technologies is one of the tools students use in geographical inquiry to gather, interpret, analyse and communicate geographical information.

The syllabus glossary states:

Spatial technologies include any software or hardware that interacts with real world locations. Examples include, but are not limited to, virtual maps, satellite images, global positioning systems (GPS), geographic information systems (GIS), remote sensing and augmented reality. Spatial technologies are used to visualise, manipulate, analyse, display and record spatial data.

Geography K-10 Syllabus

In the Continuum of Tools, examples of spatial technologies are listed to provide teachers with options when selecting technologies that are content and stage appropriate. For instance,

Stages 1 to 3 – virtual maps, satellite images and global positioning systems (GPS);
Stages 4 and 5 – virtual maps, satellite images and global positioning systems (GPS); remote sensing, Augmented Reality (AR) and Geographic Information Systems (GIS).

Over time it is expected that students will experience a range of these spatial tools in the context of asking and answer key geographical questions. By the end of Stage 5 students should feel confident enough to independently choose a spatial technology application for geographical inquiry tasks.

We still need to ask important questions

At Stage 1, students might experience spatial technologies when examining a digital map or using Google Earth to find their suburb or their house. The aim is not only to have students play with the technology but to learn its value in answering questions they have about their world. These questions may include: Where is it? How are places organised?

Continuing with this rationale in mind, by Stage 4, students could be using Geographic Information Systems (GIS) to answer questions such as: What patterns can be observed? How can these spatial patterns be explained? What relationships can you see between features?

The aim is not only to have students play with the technology but to learn its value in answering questions they have about their world.

The technology can then be used to represent their data as layers of information on a map or image. The layers can be turned on and off, allowing choices to be made about the information relevant to a geographical investigation. For example, a layer that shows areas susceptible to flooding in a local area or where rice is grown on a map of the world could help students understand and plan for questions around water as a resource or the impact of hydrological hazards.

At a basic level, a student will use data sets which already exist in an application such as the different layers in Google Earth or Geographic Map Maker. At a more sophisticated level, students will add their own data to create a layer on a map or image using programs such as Esri Story Maps or Google My Maps.

The big five spatial tools

GPS – a global navigation system that uses satellites and ground monitoring stations to locate places using a system of geographic coordinates. The most common application is the use of GPS in cars.

GIS is the system that captures, stores and manipulates geographical data linked to geographic coordinates. It creates data layers in a visual format, such a map, for analysis. In your car, the GPS data collected from the satellite is plotted onto a map that shows where you are.

Remote sensing is a way of obtaining information about places from a distance, usually using aircraft or satellites as well as instruments such as drones, remote cameras, thermal scanners, atmospheric balloons and ocean buoys.

Augmented reality (AR) provides an enhanced version of reality in which computer-generated images (virtual elements) are superimposed onto real world views. In the Geography classroom, the use of AR allows students to obtain extra information about a place or environment from the augmented image. A good example is an Augmented Reality Sandbox in which contour lines are superimposed over landforms created in the sandbox and rain can be simulated to allow a study of runoff and river flow.

Virtual reality (VR) is a digital recreation of an environment or situation. Users feel like they are experiencing the place or event. In the Geography classroom, the use of VR allows students to experience real environments they may never visit in person by using a headset (goggles) and a smartphone.

Real time data visualisations show environmental change as it happens. Satellites capture and analyse global data instantaneously. This data is used to create real time visualisations. Examples include applications that show the movement of fishing vessels and container ships at sea and monitor weather systems as they occur.

Introducing spatial technologies in the Geography classroom

Confidence is the key to the successful use of spatial technologies in a classroom, but it is also the reality that many students will pick up the skills they need to use these technologies very quickly. For teachers and students, there are free online tutorials for most spatial technology applications used in Geography classrooms worldwide.

My suggestion is to select one spatial tool at a time to develop your skills, and integrate that tool into as many places in your curriculum as possible. Do not feel you need to learn everything a spatial technology tool can do at once; build your skills over time. Most importantly, have a ‘Plan B’ for those days the technology is not working or a problem arises during your lessons.

Importantly, student activities integrating the use of spatial technologies should have a purpose, be planned and have clear links to the syllabus content and outcomes. Use an inquiry question to focus student learning and provide clear instructions for students to follow. A planning template can be useful when developing activities that could be used as Assessments ‘as’ or ‘for’ Learning.

See Attachment 1 for Spatial Technology Activity Planning Document

Getting started or moving forward

To develop your own confidence, try getting together with colleagues to experiment with some of the following examples, beginning with some real-time data visualisations first, then moving on to creating maps using programs with inbuilt layers of data. When your team is more confident, start using applications that require you to add your own data layers. Try one at a time and get ‘bang for your buck’ by trying out your new ideas across your classes for 7-10 or possibly across KLAs for K-6.

And, have some fun together!

1. Real-time data visualisations

2. Applications with inbuilt layers of geographical data:

Google Earth, to create an elevation profile
Geographic Mapmaker Interactive
Global Forest Watch
The Story Map Gallery

3. Application to create a GIS map:

Scribble Maps
Google Tour Builder
Story Map
Getting started with Story Map
Visualize your data on a custom map using Google My Maps
GIS for schools ESRI Australia

The foundations of successful Geography teaching remain a strong emphasis on inquiry and skill development to better understand and affect our world. When we keep strong pedagogy and content knowledge at the heart of our teaching, including a little new technology to investigate some very big questions could well be the next thing we should try.

Lorraine Chaffer has 38 years’ experience as a Geography teacher in NSW public schools and has been heavily involved in the professional development of teachers. Lorraine was a consultant in the development of the NSW Geography Syllabus K-10, has written textbooks for the Australian Curriculum Geography and the NSW Geography Syllabus K-10 and has worked with K-6 teachers across NSW to unpack the new syllabus and develop the essential knowledge, understanding and skills to deliver the syllabus effectively. Lorraine is the President of the Geography Teachers Association of NSW (GTANSW) and a board member of the Professional Teachers Council, and she provides professional learning for teachers of K-10 Geography Syllabus and Stage 6. Lorraine is editor of the GTANSW Geography Bulletin, has written articles for the CPL and presented on the new Geography Syllabus for CPL in 2017.

On Site, On Tour and Online: the State Library of NSW and You

Pauline Fitzgerald welcomes you to the fascinating collection at the State Library of NSW…

No history of Australia, no local or family history, no national debate about Indigenous reconciliation or History Wars, no arguments about origins, attitudes, behaviours or politics can be written – or contested – without reference to archival and collecting institutions, and most require consultation with the Mitchell. Richard Neville, Mitchell Librarian

Supporting you

The State Library of NSW holds a unique collection in excess of 6 million items and valued at $3.15 billion. With 157,000 prints and drawings, 1.5 million photographs and negatives, 12 linear kilometres of manuscripts, 100,000 maps, not to mention 2.5 million books, how does the State Library of NSW support students and teachers?

In 2009 Learning Services was established. For K-12 students and teachers, the key objective has been connecting students and teachers with the extraordinary collections of the State Library – the home of Australia’s history. In the seven years since, a rich and diverse program has been developed to enhance learning opportunities for students and teachers around NSW. Programs are offered on site, online and on tour.

To date 57.51% of schools across NSW have connected with our services.

On site

On site in Macquarie Street, the State Library offers a range of excursions, all of which link to the NSW Syllabus for the Australian Curriculum. Fundamental to the development of our programs is the importance of introducing students to original collection material as we are well aware of the unique and important role the State Library holds as custodians of the documentary heritage of the nation.

Nowhere else in Australia will students have the opportunity to see, first hand, items such as First Fleet journals, Matthew Flinders maps, Henry Lawson’s death mask or Shakespeare’s first folio, to name but a few of our collection highlights.

The power of seeing ‘the real thing’ cannot be overstated.

Examples of our on-site programs include:

British Colonisation, one of our most popular programs, explores the arrival of the First Fleet, early days in the colony and the strength and resilience of Australia’s first peoples. Bringing the 1817-1818 Edward Close image Costumes of the Australasians to life through role play and interaction with original collection items such as James Cook artefacts, Aboriginal language lists, and convict material creates a rich and memorable learning experience for students.

Similarly, Walking into Australia is an immersive workshop providing students with the opportunity to step into the shoes of inland explorers Edward Eyre, Burke and Wills, Kennedy and Jackey Jackey, and Ludwig Leichhardt as they venture into the unknown. The survival zone truly transports the students as they struggle against strong head winds (industrial fans) in oversized gumboots lugging a heavy backpack to recreate a little of the physical hardship faced by early explorers.

Seeking Shakespeare is a particularly popular program and the Library was particularly active in 2016 as we commemorated the 400th anniversary of Shakespeare’s death. The Library collections include the first, second, third and fourth folios and the Library is the only institution in Australia to hold all four folios. The digitisation of the first folio has made it accessible to classrooms across Australia. A visit to the exquisite Shakespeare room is a huge highlight of this program and it is now possible to take a peek inside this special room via a virtual tour.

Support for the HSC

Support for HSC students is core business for the State Library and tickets for our HSC student seminars are highly sought after and quick to sell out.

Co-hosted with Sydney Living Museums, History Extension: The Project gives students the opportunity to develop their research skills and gain valuable advice, resources and inspiration before they embark on their major work.

For English Extension 2, wordeXpress offers a similar program with subject experts and successful ex-students providing guidance in how to get started and maintain focus to achieve a first class major work. The wordeXpress initiative was developed with the NSW Education Standards Authority (formerly BOSTES) and in addition to student seminars we also host the awards ceremony for students featured in the wordeXpress Young Writers Showcase.

On tour

We are particularly pleased to offer wordeXpress student seminars in regional areas and last year we travelled to Tamworth and Coffs Harbour to afford students in regional NSW the same opportunities students in the Sydney region enjoy. The State Library Foundation provides financial support to make this possible and this forms part of our commitment to serve the people of NSW and improve equity of access no matter where in the state you live. Other services targeting HSC students include Introduction to HSC Resources, which is a workshop available both on site and via video conference.

Online

In addition to on-site and regional learning programs a major focus for Learning Services is the development of online learning resources. The State Library launched a new website in February 2016 and Learning is now accessible from the homepage. This increased visibility has resulted in a 250% increase in visits to the site and we have received very positive feedback on the resources we provide.

If you cannot come to us we can always come to you – with a virtual excursion. Our virtual excursions all feature original collection materials and are offered free of charge through DART connections.

Current topics include:

Captain James Cook – watercolour on ivory miniature in circular frame, ca. 1780-1784, a128550

New programs under development are:

Mary Reibey – The woman on the $20 note
On the Move – Migration to Australia
Shakespeare’s Folios

Learning activities currently available address syllabus outcomes for the NSW Syllabus for the Australian Curriculum – History, Geography and English. Learning Activities for Visual Arts are also available.

Our most popular online resources are:

Migration to Australia in the 1800’s

HSC Area of Study: Discovery

The Gold Rush

In addition to learning activities tailor-made for classroom use, other important areas of the website for teachers and students include:

Stories

Here you will find curated collections showcasing people, places and ideas inspired by the collections. You can travel with the Dutch, the Portuguese or James Cook in Voyages of Discovery: the Great South Land or visit the goldfields of Hill End in the Holtermann Collection or delve deep into the stories and lives of Indigenous Sydney before European settlement in Eora . More than 80 stories are currently available and being added to constantly.

DX Lab

We are very proud to be the home of Australia’s first and only cultural-heritage innovation lab that supports new ways of design thinking, experimentation and deep research in the digital humanities. Our DX Lab is where experimentation and research happens and we use the latest technologies to find rich and interesting ways to explore our collections and data sets.

Professional learning and partnerships

We are grateful for the positive working relationship we have, including:

History Teachers Association
Society and Culture Teachers Association
English Teachers Association
School Library Association NSW
NESA, DOE and AIS

These partnerships ensure we are developing resources which meet the needs of students and teachers and lead the way in providing up to date resources which address changes to curriculum.

Professional learning for teachers is another important aspect of State Library services and as an endorsed provider we offer an annual conference and Reach Out! a FREE interactive workshop offered in schools around NSW. Please contact us to find out how you can have a State Library educator run a workshop for teachers in your area.

If you would like further details on any of our programs and resources please contact the Learning Services team learning.library@sl.nsw.gov.au or 9273 1778

The Making of a Teacher: My Love Affair with History

Penny Russell reflects on what she loves about history before she takes up her new post at Harvard University…

I didn’t have to be a historian.
In my late adolescence I had a passion bordering on addiction for historical novels, especially historical romances. I read Jane Austen with an enthusiasm undimmed by endless repetitions. I developed an obsession for epistolary novels, for novels disguised as diaries (usually women’s diaries), and even for actual, historical diaries that had been published as books. All this reading lay in a realm of imaginative pleasure that to my mind seemed far away from the sterner demands of history.

The world of female domestic experience that so appealed to my imagination seemed to have no place in the history I learned at school, which dealt with wars and the rise of nations, economic fluctuations and political processes, only occasionally – in ways I found difficult to grasp – touching on something I would now call social history. So my interests, talents and loyalties lay primarily with literature.

Shock of the old

Not until I began an Arts degree at Monash in 1979 did I begin to discover that the ordinary female lives I found so absorbing could come under the purview of History.

Though ultimately transformative, the discovery crept upon me by degrees. Studying medieval English history in my first year, I was swept for a term into the lives of the Pastons, a Norfolk family caught up in the vicissitudes of English politics during the so-called Wars of the Roses. I was fascinated by the way the rhythms of their family life adapted to the disruptions of the conflict; awed by Margaret Paston’s adept, authoritative handling of crises large and small. And again and again I was jolted by the recognition that – although it appealed to me in the same way – this was not an imagined world.

Again and again the seductive illusion of familiarity, the comfortable aura of fiction, would dissolve to reveal what Tim Hitchcock has called the ‘shock of the old’ – persistent reminders of the real, never fully knowable, but significantly different, world of the past. It was my first encounter with the politics of emotion that Hitchcock associates with ‘history from below’, with its ‘demand that the reader empathise with individual men and women caught in a whirl of larger historical changes’. [i] And it still didn’t feel to me quite like ‘real’ history.

Poet of the revolution

My assumptions about the proper subject matter and methods of History were again challenged the following year, when in a course about the American War of Independence I was set an essay on the poems of Philip Freneau, called the ‘Poet of the Revolution’. Here I could exercise talents I had developed in my literary studies to probe the sentiments and meanings of Freneau’s delightfully banal verse – and at the same time could set his poems into their historical context in ways that my English tutors would have firmly discouraged.

Hitherto, I had found the ‘primary source exercises’ in my History courses dauntingly difficult, lacking the skills that could extract expansive meaning from a laundry list or a wages bill. But wallowing pleasurably in the volumes of Freneau’s verse was different. Here, I felt at home. During that year I had to choose between pursuing honours in History or English. My essay on Freneau was one of the reasons I chose History.

In my third year, I began to specialise in Australian history. Suddenly, traces of the history I was studying were all around me. And the primary sources I drew on for my essays felt real in a whole new way. That was the year I discovered the sensory pleasures of the archives: the tactile joy of opening one of those brown cardboard boxes to delve through the ordered chaos within, the shiver of excitement that comes when you untie the tape around a compact bundle of letters or ephemera, the musty tang that rises from the pages of a crumbling newspaper.

Pleasurable discoveries and unexpected successes

It was also the year that – notwithstanding my earlier enthusiasm for Margaret Paston – I discovered women’s history. When the Australian history course subdivided into specialist themes for a term, I chose the one on ‘Women’, and was thus introduced to the relatively new field of feminist historical scholarship in Australia.

Until then, I had assumed that feminism had little to do with me. Only by studying women’s history did I begin to realise just how precarious, how fortunate, was my right, as a woman, to the education I had taken for granted. And only in those tutorials did I find, at last, the confidence to speak for myself. I found, too, a history of other women for whom it had been difficult to speak in public, difficult to own the confidence or assume the authority that seemed to come so much more easily to men. Through women’s history I found a voice and a purpose.

Discovering the strenuous opposition and misogynist contempt women had encountered when they first demanded a political voice made me a feminist on their behalf, long before I was comfortable with the label on my own account. Realising just how little attention earlier historians had paid to those struggles, or to women’s experience more generally, made me a feminist scholar. I adopted with pride the badge of a ‘feminist historian’: not just a historian of feminism, but a scholar eager to correct the gendered imbalances of history. The rich, complex, largely unexplored terrain of women’s history beckoned to me irresistibly, and my personal politics were forged as I trod these new paths.

I didn’t have to be a historian. Thinking back now – and re-reading some of those formative essays of mine – I am reminded of choices once made and long forgotten, of opportunities seized or left lying, of disappointments that might have turned my path, of pleasurable discoveries and unexpected successes that confirmed it. I am reminded of inspirational, supportive, bracing and downright critical teachers, tutors and lecturers who all played a part as I gradually harnessed my interest in the particular, the personal, the domestic and feminine, and my preference for imaginative, subjective and creative forms of writing to the rigorous disciplinary demands of History – demands for evidence, structured argument, critical thinking, and a sense of the broader significance and patterns to be found in the small stories I so love. And I realise, too, that these days I reach automatically for historical interpretations, so that when asked to reflect on my love of history, I dig back into my own past to trace a story of cause and effect, of the interplay of individual purpose, social forces and historical accident.

I didn’t have to be a historian. But these days, it feels as though I always was.

Penny Russell is Bicentennial Professor of Australian History at the University of Sydney, with a particular interest in gender and colonial society. In 2016-17, she will be at Harvard University as the Gough Whitlam and Malcolm Fraser Professor of Australian Studies, where she will teach courses on emotions in history and the ‘intimate frontiers’ of nineteenth-century Australian society.

Penny Russell was interviewed by Dinoo Kelleghan at the NSW Teacehers Federation: http://education.www.nswtf.org.au/education15/features-1/historians-go-adventuring/

Overview

Course Date and Venue

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Day 1 – Language and Literacy

Day 2 – Language Choices

Day 3 – Creating Cohesive texts

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Kathy Rushton

Joanne Rossbridge

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JPL Articles

Helping Your Students to Become Better Writers

Critical Literacy in English and History: Stages 3 & 4

Joanne Rossbridge & Kathy Rushton share a framework for improved extended response writing…

Introduction

Making appropriate choices – Field, Tenor and Mode Framework for writing

Choices in context: a case study from the ancients

Text 1

Text 2

Writing pedagogy

What a conversation might lead to

Key principles for developing a critical dialogue about text

Nominalisation and theme

Making language more powerful

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About the authors

Me as mentee

Me as mentor

Designing learning with a critical literacy perspective

Selecting texts to develop critical literacy

Working with texts to develop critical literacy

Writing from a critical literacy perspective

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No summary, no marks

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Writing

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Where do sources ‘fit’ into this topic?

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