Picture book
Literacy Lesson 1
Graphic texts: purpose, audience and form
Introduction
Watch the video below for an introduction to the lesson.
Understanding the tasks
Rating the tasks
This lesson contains a few activities. Each activity will have one or more tasks. These tasks have been given a rating.
Some of the tasks in this lesson are must do. These are important to help you understand the introductory ideas or skills.
Have a go at the should do tasks and reach out to your friends or teacher if you need some advice. These will usually take a bit longer to complete than must do tasks.
Could do tasks will probably take you some extra time and might need you to get creative or problem solve. We strongly encourage you to try these.
Activity 1 - Exploring graphic texts
Task 1 - Reflection
This week you are going to create and design your own double page spread for a graphic text. You may already know a lot about graphic texts.
Open the Graphic texts KWL Google Slides.
Click on the image to open a new tab and view the Google Slides.
Click on the Use Template button to create a copy for you to edit.
Record what you ‘Know’ about this topic in the KWL chart. You might include the titles of some of your favourite picture books, graphic information texts or texts you may have studied in class, e.g. The Rabbits by John Marsden.
What do you think you might need to learn this week to help you become a writer and illustrator? Complete the ‘Wonder’ column on the KWL chart.
Note: We will be completing the 'What I learned' column later in the week.
Task 2 - What is the purpose of a text?
The purpose of a text is to entertain, inform or persuade different audiences in different contexts. We can often work out the purpose of a text by reading a title/heading or looking at a cover or excerpt from a text.
Using your powers of deduction, can you identify the purpose of the texts in the following activity?
Task 3 - Who is the audience for a text?
The audience of a text are the intended readers, listeners or viewers.
An author uses their knowledge of their intended audience to create their text.
They may consider their audience's age, gender, culture, background and history.
Look closely at the picture book cover for ‘There’s a Sea in my Bedroom.’
Can you work out the intended audience?
Hint: Look for clues in the images.
Complete the See, think, wonder Google Slides activity – an example has been started for you.
Click on the button above to open a new tab and view the Google Slides.
Click on the Use Template button to create a copy for you to edit.
Front cover of There's a sea in my bedroom (c) Penguin Books Australia. Used with permission.
Task 4 - Purpose and audience
While ‘Refugees’ is also recommended for children aged 4 and up, its subject matter is more serious.
Watch the video reading of 'Refugees'.
Use information from the video to complete the interactive writing task below.
Refugees
Duration 4:12
Task 5 - Exploring the 'Form' of a text
The form of a text refers to the physical appearance and structure of a text. E.g. film, letter, script, picture book.
Each text form has its own particular ‘conventions’ or features which an author follows. For example, a letter has the writer’s name and address at the top, begins with a greeting (salutation) and is signed by the writer.
Can you match the text conventions to the correct text form in the activity below?
Click the blue Submit button to check your answers.
Activity 2 - Analysing graphic texts
Task 2
Explore the front and back cover of the picture book, 'How many mice make an elephant?'.
Visit all the hot spots and and see how the author and illustrator have used language and visual features to target their audience.
When you feel confident that you can work out the purpose and audience of this book, check your understanding by completing the interactive quiz below.
Task 3
Let's use some of our new skills to read the ‘How many mice make an elephant?’ double page spread (2 pages) that is embedded in the Google Slides below.
When you feel confident, check your understanding by completing the quiz below.
Use the blue Check button and arrow at the bottom to move from question to question.
Want to check your written answers for Activity 2?
Activity 2, Task 2:
Question 5 - Who do you think is the target audience? Provide at least two examples to support your answer.
Suggested Answer:
Primary age children are the target audience of the graphic text ‘How many mice make an elephant?’. The bright engaging colours and cute images of animals would appeal to this age group. The language in the blurb would be too challenging for infants or younger children, so it is more suitable for years 3-6.
Activity 2, Task 3:
Question 4 - Why might the image of the mice filling up the elephant entertain and inform the reader?
Suggested Answer:
The image of the tiny mice climbing up the ladder to ‘make’ an elephant is cute and humorous which would engage and entertain Primary age children. The image is also informative as it helps the audience imagine the large number of mice it would take to fill an elephant, and perhaps even start to calculate an answer.
Activity 2, Task 3:
Question 5 - Read the opening sentence about how an elephant uses its trunk. All five examples are informative, but one in particular creates a very cute image – which one do you think it is?
Hint: which one would make the audience go ‘awwwww’?
Suggested Answer:
The example ‘giving other elephants a cuddle’ creates a very cute image.
Handing in your work
Don't forget to hand in the work you completed today!
Your teacher will have told you to do one of the following:
Upload any digital documents you created and any photos you took of your written work to your Learning Management system (MS Teams, Google Classroom for example).
Email any digital documents you created and any photos you took of your written work to your teacher.
Make sure you keep any handwritten work you did in your exercise book or folder as your teacher may need to see these when you are back in class.