Assignment 2 – Initial Ideas

   by  Bokeh & Travel 

For assignment 2 we are required to create a unit plan that incorporates the use of ICTs to amplify and transform student learning.

I have chosen Year 3 English as my curriculum focus and am basing my unit on the following learning objectives from The Australian Curriculum:

Constructing Knowledge objectives

• Understand how different types of texts vary in use of language choices, depending on their purpose and context (for example, tense and types of sentences) (ACELA1478)
• Identify the effect on audiences of techniques, for example shot size, vertical camera angle and layout in picture books, advertisements and film segments (ACELA1483)

Transforming objectives

• Plan, draft and publish imaginative, informative and persuasive texts demonstrating increasing control over text structures and language features and selecting print,and multimodal elements appropriate to the audience and purpose (ACELY1682)

I am thinking of using the theme of advertising to build my unit around. I have looked at a unit that I found online, which has students creating their own chocolate bar and then creating an advertising campaign for it (after first exploring popular ads for slogans, graphics, colours and language choices). This is where I will draw inspiration for my unit. I think the chocolate bar idea is a good one. At first I thought it may have been a poor choice as it might promote junk food to young children which is obviously a little irresponsible for a teacher to do, but after thinking about it further I realised that the unit could have the potential to make students aware of how they are targeted by advertising to want products that might not good for them – hopefully helping them to be less naive consumers. Having said all that though, I might still go with something else, just so I can make it more ‘my own’.

I have also found another resource called “wonderful words”, which I accessed through Scootle. It looks like a good tool for orienting students to thinking about how using more descriptive language can change a boring sentence into an exciting and perhaps persuasive one.

All in all, I’m just thrilled to finally have a starting point! If you have any suggestions, comments or questions – ask away!