YEAR 8 ENGLISH

The Year 8 English course aims to consolidate and build on the literacy skills students have developed in Year 7.

More specifically, it is designed to build students' knowledge, understanding and skills in listening, reading, viewing, speaking, writing and creating.

By engagement with a range of text types (fiction, non-fiction, print, visual and multi-modal) students will have opportunities to refine their capacity to read and interpret texts in increasingly in-depth and sophisticated ways. As part of this process, they not only work to comprehend meanings in a text but to also appreciate how the deliberate construction and use of generic conventions within a text is a response to context, intended audience and purpose.

The program will also provide explicit teaching and focussed practice around the parts of speech and punctuation.

Through modelling and active learning strategies students will be given support to create imaginative, informative and persuasive texts using deliberate language and textual choices, including the leveraging of digital technologies to achieve their purpose.

One standout task will be an oral presentation (Talkfest) that involves the skilful recital of a selected poem and a short speech (informative, interpretative and/or persuasive) to a student audience.

Assessments are strategically devised to ensure students may draw on both critical (analytical) and creative thinking strategies to enjoy suitable growth and success.

Text types include:

• Literature (novels, short stories, poetry)

• Informative/interpretative (speeches)

• Persuasive (print advertising)

• Media (feature film)