English Units:Years 7-8
Oral language units
Playing around with poetry
A unit for teachers and students to explore and have fun with different forms of poetry, to listen, read aloud and perform for an audience.
Speech making
A Speech Contest is a great part of Intermediate School life. This unit explores great ideas to motivate, maximise learning, personal esteem and development of students.
The storyteller
An oral language unit in which students use story telling techniques to read and retell a range of stories to an audience. This unit could be adapted for any level.(Descriptions)
Who? What? When? Where?
A unit designed to help students develop the skills to explore the structure and content of a range of narrative texts.
(Narratives, Recounts)
Writers @ work
This unit is designed to help students find out more about the life and the writing style of an author of their own choice. Students research their writer and use multimedia to present their information.
(Reports)
Visual language units
Advertisements and you!
A unit in which students can explore static images, analysing the ways in which verbal and visual features are combined in an advertisement for particular purposes and audiences.
(Arguments, Descriptions)
Communicating with cards
This unit introduces students to static images and the use of figurative language in their writing of a Mother's Day card. The unit could be adapted to generate cards for other occasions, eg. birthdays, farewells.
Creating cartoons
A visual language unit which introduces students to the exciting world of cartooning. They study the features and purpose of cartoons and then use computer technology to create their own.
Persuading others
In this unit students explore television advertisements, looking at who they target, their verbal and visual features and stererotypes. Students use this understanding to produce their own TV advertisement using a video camera.(Arguments)
Verbals on visuals
A unit based around the language and visual features of picture books. Students present a picture book using computer technology.
(Narratives)
What's in a video?
Students will develop a vocabulary about videos and analyse ways in which effects are used to create a variety of meanings. They will create a video combining a variety of effects.
(Descriptions)
Who cares? We do!
A unit designed for students to explore and investigate a community issue or concern. The students use a range of technologies and media to gather, analyse and present a possible solution based on researched evidence.
(Explanations)
Words and images: Visual responses to literature
In this unit students explore ways in which static images may be used to convey mood/themes from literature. After critically analysing a series of static images, students combine visual and verbal features to create an original static image in response to their reading.
Written language units
A toy story
Students study the features of narrative by viewing and reading about toys, culminating in a piece of narrative writing for publication. Students view and analyse the movie A Toy Story as motivation for their writing, focusing on key ideas about characterisation, emotions, relationships and key events in the story.
(Narratives)
Antarctica
In this unit students take part in discussions on issues facing Antarctica and write a personal viewpoint on the future of tourism in Antarctica.
(Arguments)
Between the lines
A unit in which students develop close reading and poetic writing skills through a study of narratives. It looks at the features of narrative texts and the language used to convey meaning to the audience. Using these features, students then write their own narrative.
(Narratives)
Calamities and catastrophes
In the first part of this unit, students will read about six major New Zealand disasters, then discuss and rewrite using different contexts. In the second part students will choose their own disaster to research and present it in an imaginative way to the rest of the class.
(Explanations, Reports)
Camp thrills, chills and spills
A unit designed to capture the joys, excitement and challenges of school camp through personal recount. This unit could easily be adapted to other contexts where students have a personal experience to share.
(Recounts)
Communicating with cards
This unit introduces students to static images and the use of figurative language in their writing of a Mother's Day card. The unit could be adapted to generate cards for other occasions, eg. birthdays, farewells.
Dr Livingstone, I presume?
An integrated English/Social Studies unit. Students identify the experiences and challenges that people face as they explore and find out about new places. They are encouraged to explain why and how explorers have undertaken journeys.
(Descriptions, Reports)
Endangered species
A unit designed for students to explore and investigate endangered animals. The students will use a range of technologies and media to gather, analyse and present a report and a multimedia presentation based on researched evidence.
(Reports)
Guilty/Not guilty
In this unit students will identify the features of an argument and the purpose of oral and written arguments. The unit is based around a well known fairy tale.
(Arguments)
Investigating light
In this integrated English/Science unit students demonstrate their understanding how light travels by predicting, investigating and observing in practical classroom situations. Students will write explanations based on the information from their investigations.
(Explanations)
Investigating weather patterns
In this unit students investigate major factors and patterns associated with weather and are encouraged to explore relevant Web sites collecting, analysing, predicting, hypothesising and presenting data.
(Explanations)
Land of the Long White Cloud
In this unit students research and write a report on the reasons people came to live in New Zealand.
(Reports)
Speech making
A Speech Contest is a great part of Intermediate School life. This unit explores great ideas to motivate, maximise learning, personal esteem and development of students.
Tales of Mystery and Suspense
A creative writing unit based around the theme of mystery and suspense. Many of the activities can be adapted for use with other creative writing.
(Narratives)
Titanic
This unit is designed for students to listen to, read, research and explore the Internet find information about the sinking of the Titanic. The students respond by writing their own diary of events including a personal viewpoint.
(Recounts, Reports)
Unsolved mysteries
Students use close reading and transactional writing skills to investigate an unsolved mystery and write a report on their own conclusions.
(Explanations, Reports)
What a character!
In this unit students will explore strategies for creating and analysing characters. The character sketch is a component of a story and may be developed in a variety of ways through the reading and writing programme.
(Descriptions)
Who? What? When? Where?
A unit designed to help students develop the skills to explore the structure and content of a range of narrative texts.
(Narratives, Recounts)
Writers @ work
This unit is designed to help students find out more about the life and the writing style of an author of their own choice. Students research their writer and use multimedia to present their information.
(Reports)
