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Intended Learning Outcomes
Intended Learning Outcomes
To critically respond to three short written texts confines of three short formal essays, integrating evidence
To use a text to understand the world around us more confidently
Section 1: Overview
Section 1: Overview
What is this?
What is this?
Unfamiliar text is an external examination that asks you to close read TWO texts. It is worth FOUR credits and these also count towards the reading credits that you need for University Entrance Literacy.
For this external, you will be given a resource booklet and an answer booklet. The resource booklet will have two unfamiliar texts (*unfamiliar means that you won't have seen them before or studied them in class).
You need to do two things with each text - firstly, you need to read the texts and analyse each one for how they are put together.
Secondly, at Level Two, you need to compare and contrast them.
Have a look at The Studyit website to see what the achievement criteria is and get access to other resources. Check out the cheat sheet to the right as well!
What does it look like?
What does it look like?
Here's the standard,
the 2019 exam question booklet, the 2016 resource booklet, the excellence exemplar, the merit exemplar, the achieved exemplar
L2-Unfamiliar-Cheat-Sheet.pdfLEARNING TASK
LEARNING TASK
MAKE YOUR OWN COPY OF THIS LEARNING WORKBOOK
Read the standard, exam paper, exemplars and the assessment report
Write down in 20 words or less what is being asked of you in this assessment
Write down the reasons that an excellence gets an excellence, a merit a merit and an achieved an achieved.
Section 2: How to attack the question - use the process
Section 2: How to attack the question - use the process
Unfamiliar text always seems daunting, but if you follow this clear process, then it will be simple and easy. For this paper, process is everything.
Step One: READ FOR THE FIRST TIME, the first text. When you have finished reading it, write down FIVE words that describe how it made you feel. For example, happy, sad, shocked, etc. This is the author's tone and mood that you have described.
Step Two: Now read the question. What clues about the tone and mood can you pick up from the question?
Step Three: Now that you have figured out what the author wants you to feel, READ FOR THE SECOND TIME, and pick up on what they want you to think about (their message, theme, lesson *all of these words mean the same thing). During this reading, look for the main characters, what issues they face and how they change. Note, during this reading, any changes in tone and mood as well.
Note: your text should be covered in circles and underlines and highlights and annotations.
Step Four: READ FOR THE THIRD TIME. This reading is about figuring out the language features that the author has used to put the text together. So underline things like hyperbole, alliteration, imagery, adjectives.
Step Five: Put together a little plan for your writing, using all of your notes from step 1-4- remember, each point you make should be backed up by a link to the theme and at least one specific named example, such as, 'the author uses the hyperbole "freeze your Rastafarian nenes off" to highlight how cold it is for the reader.' You also need to talk about at least TWO language features (they might call these aspects, language conventions etc but it all means the same thing)
Step Six: Repeat steps 1-5 for the second and third text.
Have a look at these YouTube tutorials to get a better understanding.
LEARNING TASK
LEARNING TASK
Read the process above carefully and watch the videos above
Write down the process for answering Unfamiliar Text in your own words
Write down piece of advice that you would give to your best friend about how to attack unfamiliar text questions
Section 3: Going deeper with your understanding
Section 3: Going deeper with your understanding
It's really important to be able to think critically about your texts in the exam. Thinking critically means to:
think about different viewpoints (your's, other readers', the author's, the characters'); including those that are missing
think about your own and the author's / characters' assumptions, metaphors, analogies and viewpoints
Critical thinking is about seeing multiple sides and coming to your own conclusions and recommendations
For Unfamiliar Texts, it's about having a set of questions that you can use in the exam. Questions such as:
What is the intention of the author? Why did they write this text? What are they trying to teach people and why?
What other viewpoints could this text be read from? How do they differ to your viewpoint or the author's viewpoint? Whose viewpoints are missing and why?
How has the author used text conventions / language techniques to help get their point across?
How are the characters symbols for larger ideas in the world around you?
How good a job has this author done at getting their point across?
The questions in the infographic to the right may also be helpful.
*Warning - not all of the infographic questions will be applicable to your text
LEARNING TASK
LEARNING TASK
Come up with a list of FIVE critical thinking questions that you can use in the exam. Trial them out on things you can read on the Stuff opinion page.
Section 4: Collecting all of your tools for the exam
Section 4: Collecting all of your tools for the exam
You will need to have in your mental toolbox going into the exam:
A good understanding of language features / techniques / conventions. These language features are the tools that authors use to build up their ideas. You've been learning these along the way as you go, but it's always a daunting task and the list of language features is really long (seriously, think thick book long). You could try using flashcards to learn them: either digitally or on good old fashioned paper or using sites like Kahoot! and then searching Unfamiliar Text - a whole bunch will come up and just have a play to see what your gaps are and what your strengths are.
Some examples include:
Imagery - the author uses words to build up a picture of what they want to show, for example, 'the long tendrils of snow weighed the tips of the ferns heavily to the ground. Nothing moved, nothing spoke.'
listing - a list of things to convince the audience of the point being made, for example,
A set of essay connectives and sentence starters that you have in your head to make your writing more exciting to read (you might to have read of this essay connective page from the University of Melbourne)
A list of four or five key critical thinking questions to help you dive deeper on your readings.
LEARNING TASK
LEARNING TASK
Write down a plan for how you are going to organise yourself for the exam.
Come up with a list of at least TWENTY language features/ conventions / techniques / aspects
What resources do you need?
How are you going to study actively (rather than just read your notes that will put you to sleep and not help you remember stuff)? ** there are some hints above.
Section 5: Practice makes perfect
Section 5: Practice makes perfect
Practice is the key to success here. Use these questions below to practice. Share your work with your teacher BUT WHEN YOU DO BE SURE TO MARK YOUR OWN WORK AND TELL YOUR TEACHER WHAT YOU THINK YOU GOT AND WHY
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