Junior Literacy

USING THE TEACHING & LEARNING CYCLE & MENTOR TEXTS IN YEAR 1 & 2

This week the Year 1 and 2 students have been looking at the spelling rule ‘o’ as in mop. The short vowel ‘o’ sound can be found in 1, 2 and 3… even 4 syllable words as the 1s and 2s discovered this week.

They have looked at a variety of vocabulary, created word lists, made cvc words and texts with the ‘o’ sound in it including the text, the sunflower that went flop by Joy Cowley. To further develop their vocabulary and rich content knowledge the child have been ‘Building the field’ in writing.

Building the field is the first stage of the Teaching and Learning Cycle and focuses on building deep content knowledge through language-rich experiences that involve a lot of discussion and exploration. Building the field occurs throughout each stage of a topic, but it is placed as the first stage in the Teaching and Learning Cycle model to emphasise the foundational importance of meaning-making and to provide a context within which students can develop their literacy skills and knowledge about language.

The following steps for the Year 1s and 2s are for teachers to guide the children through the next few phases of The Teaching and Learning Cycle:

2. Deconstruction - exploring the purpose, structure and language features of the text

3. Joint Construction - scaffolding and modeling writing strategies

4. Independent Construction - students writing their own narrative

To really provide deeper content knowledge the children have been busy looking at Van Gogh’s sunflowers painting and writing about them. They have explored the inspiration and variations behind the still life paintings as well as relating the imagery back to their narrative about the sunflower that went flop by discussing the story setting and used describing words to write sentences about the sunflowers.

Senior Literacy

Over the past fortnight the our senior students have been integrating their Inquiry unit into their Literacy sessions to create some very interesting pieces of writing about some very influential leaders in History.

Students were tasked to find a great leader, either locally or internationally and create a character profile of them. Students focused on outlining the chosen person's leadership qualities, the actions they took or are currently taking to show leadership and the impact they have had on their community or the world at large. All students provided insightful pieces of work with some even deciding to choose leaders that closer than you may think!

My Brilliant Leader

Julia Gillard

Julia Gillard has red hair and hazel eyes. She was born in Wales, England on 29/10/1961. She is currently 61 years of age and lives in Adelaide. She came to Australia when she was 4 years old. Her family wanted to move to a warmer country because Julia had a lung disease called bronchopneumonia, which meant she could not go outside in the cold weather. Her family were poor but wanted her to have a good education so she tried hard at school and went to university and became a lawyer. After being a lawyer she became a politician, and she is best known for being one of Australia's prime ministers.

Julia Eileen Gillard was the first female prime minister of Australia. Because Julia Gillard was the first female prime minister, things were hard for her and she was judged a lot because of her appearance. Most of the other members of parliament were men and they were not judged by their appearance, so things were very unfair. Until one day Julia Gillard stood up for women and made one of her most famous speeches, she said

‘I will not be lectured about sexism and misogyny by this man. I will not.’ -Julia Gillard.

That speech is one of the many reasons why Julia Gillard is famous.

While Julia Gillard was prime minister she created a national disability insurance plan, introduced new funding for education, a clean energy bill and more. As prime minister there are a lot of other jobs that you have to do. For example, making laws, meeting with other members of parliament and leaders from other countries.

Julia Gillard was a great speaker and leader, she showed courage and was brave to speak up about problems. She believes in right and wrong, fairness, justice and people to be treated equally. That is why she is a very good role model and a brilliant leader.

Delilah C Yr5

Winston Churchill

Winston Churchill was a British man who turned out to be the U.K. prime minister. This man became prime minister exactly two days before World War ll; Churchill replaced Neville Chamberlain, and then took charge of leading the U.K. through World War ll. He had a large commitment to self improvement and, like many others, liked to learn from his mistakes.

Churchill liked to wear frock coats in his days and had light blue eyes along with ginger hair. He was a brave, intelligent man. His leadership ruled for five years and again took power in 1951 to 1955. World War II lasted for about six years and Winston Churchill led Britain for almost all of it.

Winston Churchill is a stand out for me because he is from the U.K. and so am I. He is also a great leader because he was trying to get through world war ll while trying to lead his own family through it and then leading a whole country at the same time.

Charlotte B Yr5

My Brilliant Leader

Miss Corio

Miss Corio may not be world famous but she definitely is an amazing leader at St James she is also loved as a teacher & a principal.

She is such an awesome leader in so many ways. A few of them are she shows courage, kindness, respect, inclusion & excellence but she's also someone you know you can trust.

Right now she's acting principal & she's doing a fantastic job, she supports us & cares for us which makes her a great principal. She’s someone you can talk to and trust if something has happened. If you've made a mistake or don't understand your work she will help you and won't make you feel like you can't do it she will encourage you and help you until you can understand it. No matter the number, the equation, the difficulty, the word, or the work she will always help you.

Miss Corio works really hard to ensure everything goes to plan. She makes sure we are in the right classes with the right teacher but not just that, she also has to do paperwork, have staff meetings, organize assembly with the other teachers, make announcements, send out emails and so much more. It may be hard work but she does it. If we didn't have Miss Corio the school would be falling apart. You may think it's easy to do what she does but I'm sure it's not.

As a principal, Miss Corio has many responsibilities. Do you agree? Well I do,

In conclusion I hope you agree that Miss Corio is a brilliant leader because she is hard working, smart, kind, responsible, encouraging and more. She is a great leader because of all these reasons & more. This is my opinion. What's yours?

By Valentina R-D Yr5

Antoinette Ferrari and Mandi Joplin

Literacy Leaders

Teaching and Learning

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