Resources

__ **Resource 1** __



"Staying Healthy, Eating Right" by Alice McGinty (1997) is a short factual text book which looks at healthy lifestyles through healthy eating. The text is a valuable resource for students to learn about the various features which make up a factual text (RS2.8 Discusses the text structure of a range of text types and the grammatical features that are characteristic of those text types) while learning about nutrition, as a part of the "Personal Health Choices" strand of the stage 2 PDHPE syllabus ( PHS2.12 Discusses the factors influencing personal health choices).

I chose this particular factual text for its basic demonstration of the various features of a factual text; Title page, contents, subheadings, visual images, glossary and index. Using this resource when introducing factual texts to a class, teachers can read through the text clearly identifying and discussing each characteristic and their purpose. Students are able to gain an understanding of how factual texts differ from non factual texts in terms of layout and presentation of information.

The text is stage appropriate as the language and vocabulary is of a stage 2 level and the content is presented in a concise, clear way (Spence, 2006). The use of technical terms and phrases e.g. "nutrients" "fiber", emphasises the informative nature of a factual text to students while they learn about more scientific terms for the idea of "being healthy". Furthermore, the information is densely presented and divided by use of subheadings, allowing opportunity for students to unpack and discuss the information given in specific sections to synthesize and consolidate what they have read (Bryce, 2011).

The visual images contained in the text allow students to build upon their skills in reading and interpreting factual texts by connecting meaning given through text with meaning portrayed through visual images (Winch, Johnston, March, Ljungdahl & Holliday, 2006, p 54). Students learn that factual texts contain visual images that help illustrate meaning within written text. However, some images presented do not contain information relating to what is being said in the text, thus students are required to build upon skills of analysing visuals in order to prevent misunderstanding of the texts overall concepts (Spence, 2006).

References:
 * Bryce, N. (2011). Meeting the reading challenges of science textbooks in the primary grades. //The Reading Teacher//, 64(7), PP. 474 - 485


 * Board of Studies NSW. (2007). //English K-6 syllabus. // Sydney: Author


 * Board of Studies NSW. (2006). PDHPE K-6 syllabus. Sydney: Author


 * Spence, B. (2006). Designing challenging reading strategies for students in the middle years. In Ewing, R. (Ed.) //Beyond the Reading Wars//, PETA: Australia, pp. 111 - 122


 * Winch, G., Johnston, R.R., March, P., Ljungdahl, L. & Holliday, M. (2006). //Literacy: Reading, Writing and Children’s Literature. // New York: Oxford University Press

__ Resource 2 __

[|Website 'Writing Fun' by Jenny Eather] ‘Writing Fun’ by Jenny Eather (2004) is an excellent website that guides students through the structure, forms and techniques of writing in different text types. This resource is valuable for the students to structure their writing to the correct audience ( WS2.9 Drafts, revises, proofreads and publishes well-structured texts that are more demanding in terms of topic, audience and written language features) in order to write their information booklet

Students are to create an information booklet as a multimodal text on healthy living.  In order to do so, students will need to be familiar with structural and grammatical features of information reports in order to do it successfully. I chose this particular website resource as it clearly demonstrates the structural and grammatical features that are needed for writing information reports. It also provides examples and worksheet proformas as well as offering interactive features which will enhance student engagement.

Using information and communication technologies (ICTs) as a stimulus for learning how to write is a powerful tool in the classroom. Teachers need to look at ways in which the emerging technologies can blend with traditional methods to influence and enhance student’s writing and learning (Winch, Johnston, March, Ljungdahl & Holliday, 2006, p. 316). I believe the colourful layout and interactive features of the ‘Writing Fun’ website is a motivating approach to teaching structural and grammatical writing for different text types.

The ‘Writing Fun’ website would be highly appropriate for introducing the writing and grammatical structures involved in information reports. It addresses the genre approach to writing as it distinguishes the recognizable characteristics of different text types (Winch et al., 2006, p.336). Additionally, it supports the genre approach to writing by guiding the teacher to explicitly teach the function, structure, organization and grammatical patterns of a particular genre (Winch et al., 2006, p.336). With its simple step-by-step writing guide and interactive components that highlight grammatical features, the website is a highly appropriate resource.

As addressed in Droga and Humphrey (2003), one of the most important resources for organization is paragraph previews (p.85). The ‘Writing Fun’ website takes students through the organization of paragraphs with proforma guidelines and students’ written examples that highlight the paragraphing structure. Additionally, the website enables you to be able to type in the proformas provided and print your own work. This enables students to be able to use ICT when writing their information reports which is beneficial in students writing (Winch et al., 2006, p.317). For example, students can reflect on their writing and easily make changes by cutting and pasting, it provides possibility for multimedia creations and enables students to edit their own work (Winch et al., 2006, p.317).

This resource is excellent for the students to prepare their skills in writing information reports which will ultimately enhance their skills in creating an information booklet on healthy living. It is to be used as an introduction to the text type, as well as a resource to print off helpful writing proformas, or as a resource to type up your information report. In this case students will be looking at writing about PDHPE outcome ( PHS2.12 Discusses the factors influencing personal health choices) to further enhance their knowledge and understanding of healthy living, as well as informational report text structure to ultimately enhance their skills to create their multimodal text.

References:


 * Board of Studies NSW. (2007). //English K-6 syllabus.// Sydney: Author


 * Board of Studies NSW. (2006//). PDHPE K-6 syllabus//. Sydney: Author


 * Droga, L., & Humphrey, S. (2003). //Grammar and meaning: An introduction for primary teachers.// Target Texts: NSW


 * Winch, G., Johnston, R.R., March, P., Ljungdahl, L. & Holliday, M. (2006). //Literacy: Reading, Writing and Children’s Literature.// New York: Oxford University Press

__**Resource 3**__ media type="youtube" key="JgrVR8BGWuU" width="425" height="350" align="center"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JgrVR8BGWuU&feature=mfu_in_order&list=UL The multimodal text that is to be produced by the students is a factual text on healthy lifestyles. It is suggested by Callow (2006, p. 8) that there is an increasing need to develop students’ understandings of visual texts, including those that are considered more traditional forms, such as information books.

The resource I have chosen is a video clip from youtube.com titled ‘Lifestyle and Behaviour’. It combines visual, written and spoken text in an information report format to discuss factors that contribute to human health. The resource helps students to interpret and become familiar with the interrelated visual and language elements of multimodal texts (Board of Studies NSW, 2007, p. 8) and to provide an example of linguistic structures and features of written and spoken text which is important for students to become producers and users of texts for particular purposes (Santoro, 2004, p. 57).

The resource is very stage appropriate as it is clear and easy to understand, but also introduces language that is technical and that perhaps would not be familiar to all the students. This was used to build on the vocabulary needed of the students to produce their own texts and provided a rich opportunity to scaffold the understandings of unfamiliar terms and concepts in a real purposeful setting. When the relationship between words and their meaning is missing, students are unable to construct meaning from a text ( Winch, Johnston, March, Ljungdahl & Holliday, 2006, p. 125 ) which will be useful when the students conduct their own research on the topic. The images used in the resource also helped to aid understanding of particular terms used and would be useful in providing students with ideas as to visual elements that could be used to support their own texts.

I chose this resource particularly to explore elements of literacy that focused on the production of information reports, as this is the text type that will be expected of the students in their end product. The resource had a clear structure that included an introduction and sub-categories that can easily be linked to the structure of written information report texts. This was identified and related to a previous lesson the students had completed on information reports.

Although the resource relies predominantly on spoken language to present the information, its modality is very written like and therefore used many of the same grammatical features as a written information report text. This could also be linked to talking and listening outcomes of the English Syllabus (Board of Studies NSW, 2007). The grammatical feature of the resource that was used as a focus was that of the types of noun groups used. This was to demonstrate the use of general and technical nouns in information text types (Droga & Humphries, 2010, p. 135). However, there were multiple language features that could have been demonstrated through this resources, particularly: nominalisation (ie. immunised è immunisation); types of text connectives and their purpose (‘conversely’, ‘these include’, ‘another’); and, use of topic sentences at the start of paragraphs with the topic as the Theme of the clause (Board of Studies NSW, 2001, p. 223).

__ Reference List: __

Board of Studies NSW. (2001). //English K-6: Modules.// Sydney: Author.

Board of Studies NSW. (2007). //English K-6 syllabus.// Sydney: Author.

Callow, J. (2006). Images, politics and multiliteracies: Using a visual metalanguage. //Australian Journal of Language & Literacy, 29//(1), 7-23.

Droga, L. & Humphrey, S. (2010). //Grammar and meaning: An introduction for primary teachers.// Sydney: Target Texts.

Santoro, N. (2004). Using the four resources model across the curriculum. In A. Healy & E. Honan (Eds.), //Text next: New resources for literacy learning.// (pp. 51-67). Newtown: PETA.

Winch, G., Johnston, R.R., March, P., Ljungdahl, L. & Holliday, M. (2006). //Literacy: Reading, Writing and Children’s Literature.// New York: Oxford University Press. __ **Resource 4 ** __

**Google Images ** <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 16px;">The website ‘Google Images’ is a website that offers the user an amazing amount of visual representations of just about everything. It is a very easy to use website and most students should have had some experience of it whether it be though self exploration or through seeing someone else using it, if not it is easy to introduce and very user friendly. The website is a data base of images that are available to look through as thumbnails and to then select and download the image for future use. One feature that makes this website so useful in the primary classroom is that it is extremely simple to use. Simply type in a word or combination of words and the site displays a large selection of images which match the search criteria. Another feature that makes this website suitable for children is the ability to put it on a ‘strict’ setting when searching images which filters the content so that inappropriate images do not come up.

<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 16px;">This website has numerous positives in terms of how it can be used to address students understanding of visual literacy. The site can be used to source images that display all aspects of visual literacy in a variety of ways. When focusing on the KLAs of English and PDHPE ‘Google Images’ can help students visualise exactly what it is you want them to learn. Students benefit from multiple sources of information when learning, combining text with visuals helps students both decode and understand the meaning as well as providing another way for them to remember what they have learnt, visual images can both support text and contain stand alone information (Winch, Johnston, March, Ljungdahl & Holliday, 2006, chap. 28-29). When focusing on health issues in the PDHPE syllabus content using visuals is a useful and effective way to help students see the importance of the area of learning. This website can provide teachers with images that serve a variety of purposes from examples of healthy living posters, advertising campaigns, diagrams and instructions for exercises as well as many more. In terms of the English syllabus content the visual images contained on the site are so varied that they can be used to teach every aspect of visual literacy. Different images can easily be found that show how the different forms of visual meaning and structure are used in different visual images to communicate ideas and information (Callow, 2006, pp. 7-23; Unsworth, 2001, chap. 3). As visual literacy is an important part of becoming literate teachers need to allocate an appropriate amount of time to teaching it and sites such as ‘Google Images’ are fantastic resources to assist with students’ understanding.
 * <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 18.6667px;">References **
 * <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 16px;">Board of Studies NSW. (2007). //English K-6 syllabus.// Sydney: Author
 * <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 16px;">Board of Studies NSW. (2006). //PDHPE K-6 syllabus//. Sydney: Author
 * <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 16px;">Callow, J. (2006). Images, politics and multiliteracies: Using a visual metalanguage. //Australian Journal of Language & Literacy, 29//(1), 7-23.
 * <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 16px;">Winch, G., Johnston, R.R., March, P., Ljungdahl, L. & Holliday, M. (2006). //Literacy: Reading, Writing and Children’s Literature.// New York: Oxford University Press
 * <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 16px;">Unsworth, L. (2001). //Teaching multiliteracies across the curriculum: changing contexts of text and image in classroom practice.// Buckingham, England: Open University. (Chapter 3: Describing Visual Literacies. pp. 71-112)