City life: Unit Standard 12412
Teacher Catherine Braddock - Unit Standards Writing Group (Teacher Professional Development, Victoria University)
| Year
|
NCEA Level
|
Suggested duration
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| 11
|
1
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2-3 weeks
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Guidelines for use
This activity allows students to meet the performance criteria for one of the two tests required for unit standard 12412
: Explore language and think critically about poetic written text. Students will explore language and think critically about a provided text that describes an experience of city life. Other texts with a similar focus could also be included as material for further close reading activities.
Links can be made to:
Conditions
Teachers must be satisfied that the close reading work is the student's. Students should complete close reading activities under teacher supervision. If the close reading activity is to be used for summative assessment, teachers should ensure that the extent of teacher input does not compromise assessment validity; in other words, it is the work of the student.
Teachers may guide students actively through the initial tasks. When completing close reading activities for summative assessment, students can compare their answers to those in the initial tasks to ensure that their close reading answers are at an appropriate level.
Students should have several opportunities during the year to develop their close reading skills.
Resource requirements
-
The New Net Goes Fishing
by Witi Ihimaera.
Heinemann Education 1977 ISBN 0 86863 6827
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A Sonnet for the City by Diana Noonan.
McIndoe Publishers 1992 ISBN 0 86868 140 7
Possible local adaptation
Where local adaptations are made, teachers and schools should ensure that they have:
- checked that the adapted assessment validly assesses the standard;
- checked the copyright status of any material imported into the assessment resource;
- complied with all internal and external quality assurance requirements
Teacher background reading
Teaching and learning activities
Select and adapt these learning activities to best meet the needs of your students, and to fit the time available.
Student instructions
In this activity you will read texts that describe experiences of the city. After working through some activities and studying close reading exemplars, you will complete a first close reading on an extract provided.
Before you begin this activity, you will read a number of poetic texts that describe different experiences of city life. A second close reading activity could be based on a text extract from one or more of these readings.
You will be assessed on how well you:
- identify one main idea in the text, supported with at least one relevant section of the text
- explain the significance of the main idea [significance could be linked to a social, historical, cultural, physical, political or personal context]
- identify three language features using appropriate terminology and describe the effect of each example [language features could include figures of speech, sound devices, choice of words, punctuation]
- identify and explain a technique used to shape the text [eg: through structure or narrative technique], supported with at least one relevant section of the text.
Your teacher will guide you on how much time you have for this task.
Assessment
Students complete a close reading of an extract from A Sonnet for the City by Diana Noonan.
AssessmentTask (RTF 18KB)
AssessmentSchedule (RTF 24KB)
Successful completion of this task will fulfil part of the range statement [one of two close readings] for the Level 1 Unit Standard 12412: Explore language and think critically about poetic written text.
Other texts [or text extracts] with a similar focus selected for Task 1 could also be included as material for a second close reading activity to complete the range statement for this unit standard. The questions from the extract, A Sonnet for the City, could be adapted as required.
