Literacy development through linking a fictional story to a geographical, historical or citizenship learning context.

During the next two week our class will be working to develop their literacy skills through a citizenship learning context. The students will be reading and reflecting on the book ‘I’m Australian Too’, written by Mem Fox. This book is a great tool for raising questions about the societal makeup of Australia.  These questions will enable students form new ideas and knowledge about who we are as Australians, and continue to broaden their perspectives of the global contexts that relate to our nation. Reading and learning about this book will be developing skills that enable the comprehension of texts. This is done though listening and responding with questioning during reading time. The book is interactive with the students as it poses the inquiry question throughout ‘how about you’. This will be an opportunity for our students' to celebrate all the differences that people have in our class. The citizenship context of this set of lessons enables our students to develop questions for their ongoing investigation into the society in which they live (Australian Curriculum Assessment and Reporting Authority [ACARA], n.d.).

As a class we will be discussing all the places where our classmates are born, and where their grandparents and parents were born. From there we will be making a world map, and plot on the map all the different places people came from. This will eventually form a class display that our visitors can view. The children will then move into small groups and chose from the Australian places mentioned in the book and find those places on a map of Australia, also locating where we are on the map too.

As we develop our understanding of how our society works and the roles that we can have within it as individuals and in groups in our citizenship learning, it is important to find avenues for enriching literacy development too (Gilbert & Hoepper, 2014). This sequence of students work seeks to develop word knowledge identified through their developing vocabulary, text knowledge, and their ability to comprehend texts (ACARA, n.d.).

One of the activities for students will be to write a short story from the point of view of the refugee child in the book. They will take time and choose appropriate language generated by the class brainstorm, writing about the feelings, hopes and dreams of the refugee child. We hope that this activity will give the children some insight into how life is for other people around the world and give them the chance to reflect on our society, and develop a sense of empathy and understanding of other people. This task will be used for assessment as we measure their developing ability to interpret information based on the evidence they find (ACARA, n.d.).

Throughout the learning, students will be given many opportunities to answer inquiry questions that relate directly to the new information gathered during the lessons. These questions which are prompted and developed by the investigations the children make, relate to the significance of people and how events and developments in society bring about change, and how they as individuals can bring about change (Brett, 2019). In this context of learning, inquiry is an evolving process as new questions will constantly be presented and require creative and critical thinking to develop a deeper comprehension (Marsh, 2005). We hope you can come in to view our work and witness the students developing appreciation for global issues and how they impact us in Australia.

References

Australian Curriculum Assessment and Reporting Authority. (n.d.). The Australian Curriculum: all subjects (Version 8.3), all years, all curriculum elements, all curriculum dimensions. Retrieved from https://www.australiancurriculum.edu.au/download/

Brett, P. (2019). Citizenship through Geography. Retrieved from https://echo360.org.au/media/39a2872b-4a58-4db5-99ee-cd3cda376ef9/public

Gilbert, R. Hoepper, B. (2014). Teaching Humanities and Social Sciences, History, Geography, Economics & Citizenship in the Australian Curriculum. (5^th ed.) South Melbourne: Cengage Learning Australia

Marsh, C. (2005). Teaching Studies of society and Environment (4^th ed.) Frenchs Forest NSW: Pearson Educations Australia