Exploring timeless messages in traditional and modern stories
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Introduction
In this set of interconnected learning experiences, students engage in reading folktales to discover the powerful messages they contain. They explore the ethical concept of kindness and how acts of kindness can bring unexpected rewards. They explore modern stories to find the messages they contain and to discover the techniques storytellers use to create tone and mood and to evoke emotions. Students also examine how folktales and stories are structured and create meaning. They demonstrate their learning by creating a modern day narrative or audio story with a moral for young people.
By engaging students with stories that have a clear moral message, these learning experiences support students to develop ethical understanding. Students explore the nature of ethical concepts and how these concepts can contribute to humanity. They develop an awareness of the influence that acts of kindness can have on themselves and others.
These concepts are foundational for students to become active and informed citizens.
Achievement standard
By the end of Year 9, students interact with others, and listen to and create spoken and multimodal texts including literary texts. With a range of purposes and for audiences, they discuss and expand on ideas, shaping meaning and providing substantiation. They select and experiment with text structures to organise and develop ideas. They select and experiment with language features including literary devices, and experiment with multimodal features and features of voice.
They read, view and comprehend a range of texts created to inform, influence and/or engage audiences. They analyse representations of people, places, events and concepts, and how texts respond to contexts. They analyse the aesthetic qualities of texts. They analyse the effects of text structures, and language features including literary devices, intertextual references, and multimodal features.
They create written and multimodal texts, including literary texts, for a range of purposes and audiences, expressing and expanding ideas, shaping meaning and providing substantiation. They select and experiment with text structures to organise, develop and link ideas. They select and experiment with language features including literary devices, and experiment with multimodal features.
Content descriptions
Literature
Analyse the representations of people and places in literary texts, drawn from historical, social and cultural contexts, by first nations australian, and wide-ranging australian and world authors. (AC9E9LE01)
Analyse texts and evaluate the aesthetic qualities and appeal of an author’s literary style. (AC9E9LE04)
Analyse the effect of text structures, language features and literary devices such as extended metaphor, metonymy, allegory, symbolism and intertextual references. (AC9E9LE05)
Create and edit literary texts, that may be a hybrid, that experiment with text structures, language features and literary devices for purposes and audiences. (AC9E9LE06)
Literacy
Analyse how representations of people, places, events and concepts reflect contexts. (AC9E9LY01)
Listen to spoken texts that have different purposes and audiences, analysing how language features position listeners to respond in particular ways, and use interacting skills to present and discuss opinions regarding these texts. (AC9E9LY02)
Analyse and evaluate how language features are used to represent a perspective of an issue, event, situation, individual or group. (AC9E9LY03)
Use comprehension strategies such as visualising, predicting, connecting, summarising, monitoring, questioning and inferring to compare and contrast ideas and opinions in and between texts. (AC9E9LY05)
Plan, create, edit and publish written and multimodal texts, organising, expanding and developing ideas, and selecting text structures, language features, literary devices and multimodal features for purposes and audiences in ways that may be imaginative, reflective, informative, persuasive, analytical and/or critical. (AC9E9LY06)
Teacher resources
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The wealth of sharing
The North Wind and the Sun
The North Wind and the Sun
The act of giving and meaning of wealth
It’s all in the tone
Student learning resources
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The trouble with helping out
Structure of a short story
Year 9 short story writing task
Suggested activity sequence
This sequence is intended as a framework to be modified and adapted by teachers to suit the needs of a class group. If you assign this activity to a class, your students will be assigned all student resources on their 'My learning' page. You can also hand-pick the resources students are assigned by selecting individual resources when you add a work item to a class in 'My classes'.
For this activity you will need post-it notes.
Part A: Exploring ethical principles
Solo and pair thinking
- Display the quotes on kindness and giving on the quotes visualiser and invite students to think about what they mean.
- Students share their thinking with a partner and decide on a real-life example, or an example from literature that exemplifies the meaning of each quote. Students write their example on a post-it note to display on the classroom wall.
- Students read the examples of other students.
Exploring folktales
Explain the following:
Discussing ethical concepts
- Read the fable The North Wind and the Sun aloud to students.
- Ask:
- What human qualities does the North Wind have?
- What human qualities does the Sun have?
- Why is kindness more powerful than force?
- Can you give an example of the power of kindness?
Part B: Deconstructing stories
Modelling deconstruction
- Read the fable The North Wind and the Sun using the deconstruction visualiser. As you read the story, give students time to answer the questions on each page and share their answers.
- Discuss the moral and how it relates to students’ own experiences. Possible prompts include:
- the difference in your behaviour when you are treated kindly compared with when you are treated harshly
- the difference an act of kindness has made to your behaviour
- how you have felt when you have carried out an act of kindness.
Deconstructing a story in groups
- Use a grouping strategy to organise students into pairs.
- Explain that the story they are about to read is an African American (Suriname) Tale.
- Ask students to search for ‘trouble with helping out tale’ in their browsers or display the story The trouble with helping out on a screen for students to read.
- Students use the graphic organiser to identify the structural elements of the story.
- Pairs of students connect with another pair to compare their responses on how the story is structured.
- Display the trouble with helping out slide on the focus questions visualiser.
- Groups discuss responses to the questions on the visualiser.
- Discuss group responses.
- Brainstorm stories (such as fairy tales) from other cultures with a similar message.
Part C: Exploring modern stories
Solo and pair thinking
- Display the quotes on the meaning of wealth from the quotes visualiser and invite students to think about what they mean.
- Students share their thinking with a partner, decide on a real-life example and write it on a post-it note to display on the classroom wall.
- Students read the examples of other students.
Responding to an audio story
- Play: It’s all in the tone. This is a story of life in a mining camp.
- Display the slide it’s all in the tone on the focus questions visualiser.
- Use a grouping strategy to organise students into groups of 4.
- Groups replay the story as many times as they need to discuss responses to questions on the visualiser.
- Display the final slide on the focus questions visualiser.
- Groups discuss each statement.
Choose a discussion strategy to promote collaboration and participation, such as talking cards.
- As a class, discuss group responses.
Part D: Independent writing
Writing a narrative
Students complete the short story writing task. They should be given at least 2 lessons to write their stories and one lesson to publish their stories using information and communication technology (ICT) or record them as audio stories.