This course includes both reading and writing. Students will engage in a comprehensive exploration of texts, emphasising reading comprehension and critical thinking skills. They will learn about different text types and purposes, and apply what they learn in their reading texts to their writing.
In this Extension course, the expectation is that students will be able to comprehend material more easily, discuss ideas with greater analysis, and write at a more advanced level. The lesson materials will include additional questions or activities, or more difficult materials, or engage students at a higher cognitive level. This course assists in the preparation for Selective High School Placement and Scholarship tests.
Course objectives
Week 1: Inferencing character, narrative plot structure: Freytag’s Pyramid, compare-and-contrast text analysis
Week 2: Starting a story, narrative point of view, character types, text analysis and comprehension
Week 3: Persuasive essay introduction, body paragraphs and conclusion, brainstorming arguments, identifying the main idea, subheadings
Week 4: Vocabulary: using context clues, persuasive techniques, linked extracts, sentence gap-match, main idea summary
Week 5: Newspaper report: inverted triangle concept, adding quotations, grammar: changing direct quotations to indirect quotations, reporting verbs, poetic devices, poetry comprehension
Week 6: Literary descriptions: setting, figurative language, sensory imagery, poetry comprehension
Week 7: Diary: language features, text analysis, understanding irony, reading comprehension
Week 8: Narrative analysis and comprehension, linked extracts, dialogue punctuation, visual metaphors
Week 9: Reading and writing assessments & review, purple prose
Week 10: Idioms, compare-and-contrast science fiction and fantasy, text analysis and comprehension, quick writes