Our Goals

In Words Can Change Minds, students will explore how texts are constructed to manipulate a reader’s way of thinking. By engaging with a range of texts and learning to write discursively, students will learn to create written responses that change an audiences’ perspective on personal, local and global issues.The purpose of this unit is to develop students' understanding of how an author’s personal perspectives are a product of historical and cultural contexts.

In this unit, students will evaluate how texts can position audiences to accept, challenge or reject particular perspectives of the world, and reflect on this in their own texts. They will also analyse how elements of an author’s personal, cultural and political contexts can shape their perspectives and representation of ideas, including form and purpose.

Students will analyse how an engaging personal voice in texts can represent a perspective or argument and communicate a sense of authority, and experiment with these ideas in their own texts. Students will research, select and sequence appropriate evidence from texts and reliable sources to construct cohesive and authoritative arguments.

Finally, students will examine the way an author’s distinct personal style shapes meaning in their work and apply this understanding by constructing their own discursive responses.