DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION AND CHILDREN’S SERVICES
Unit plan
Name
C2C
English
Year Level
3
Teacher
Unit
2
Class
Duration
5 weeks
Investigating character and characterisation
Unit Outline
In this unit students listen to, view, read and explore short narratives, simple chapter books or digital stories to explore the use of descriptive language in the construction of
character. Students deliver a short spoken presentation about a character, expressing a point of view about a behaviour or action made by the character.
Curriculum intent:



Content descriptions
Language/Cultural Considerations
Teaching Strategies
Language
Literature
Literacy
Language variation and change
Literature and context
Texts in context
Understand that languages have different written and
visual communication systems, different oral traditions,
and different ways of constructing meaning.
EAL/D students may be bilingual as they already
communicate, orally or in writing, in at least one other
language. Maintenance of their first language is
important to their English language learning.
Ask students to share different words from their first
language as a common practice through the year.
These can be displayed in the classroom and used for
comparative study.
Discuss texts in which characters, events and settings
are portrayed in different ways, and speculate on
authors’ reasons.
Speculation requires the use of hypothetical language
structures (for example ‘I think the author chose this
because’ …). EAL/D students in the Beginning and
Emerging phases will not be using these structures.
Provide alternative options for EAL/D students in the
Beginning and Emerging phases to respond to literature
(for example through drawing).
Provide oral and written models of speculative sentence
structures for EAL/D students in the Emerging and
Developing phases.
Provide sentence stems to scaffold EAL/D students’
use of hypothetical language structures.
Identify the point of view in a text and suggest
alternative points of view.
Identifying a point of view requires students to be able
to analyse the word choice and how this affects the
reader/viewer/listener. EAL/D students in all phases of
their English language learning will find this variously
challenging.
Language for interaction
Examine how evaluative language can be varied to be
C2C adapted with permission by NT DET © The State of Queensland
1 of 15
Allow EAL/D students to engage with this task in ways
commensurate with their EAL/D learning progression.
Some will be able to decode, others to analyse, and the
more able will identify the point of view. Use oral, visual
and digital texts to practice this skill.
www.det.nt.gov.au
more or less forceful.
Text structure and organisation
Understand how different types of texts vary in use of
language choices, depending on their purpose and
context, for example tense, mood, and types of
sentences.
Understand that paragraphs are a key organisational
feature of written texts.
Identify the features of online texts that enhance
navigation.
Responding to literature
Interacting with others
Draw connections between personal experiences and
the worlds of texts, and share responses with others.
Develop criteria for establishing personal preferences
for literature.
Listen to and contribute to conversations and
discussions to share information and ideas and
negotiate in collaborative situations.
Plan and deliver short presentations, providing some
key details in logical sequence.
Use interaction skills including active listening
behaviours and communicate in a clear, coherent
manner using a variety of everyday and learned
vocabulary and appropriate tone, pace, pitch and
volume.
Examining literature
Discuss how language is used to describe the settings
in texts, and explore how the settings shape the events
and influence the mood of the narrative.
Expressing and developing ideas
Interpreting, analysing, evaluating
Understand that verbs represent different processes
(doing, thinking, saying and relating) and that these
processes are anchored in time through tense.
Identify the effect on audiences of techniques, for
example shot size, vertical camera angle and layout in
picture books, advertisements and film segments.
Learn extended and technical vocabulary and ways of
expressing opinion including modal verbs and adverbs.
Understand how to use sound-letter relationships and
knowledge of spelling rules, compound words, prefixes,
suffixes, morphemes and less common letter
combinations, for example ‘tion’.
Recognise high frequency sight words.
Identify the audience and purpose of imaginative,
informative and persuasive texts.
Read an increasing range of different types of texts by
combining contextual, semantic, grammatical and
phonic knowledge, using text processing strategies, for
example monitoring, predicting, confirming, rereading,
reading on and self-correcting.
Use comprehension strategies to build literal and
inferred meaning and begin to evaluate texts by drawing
on growing knowledge of context, text structures and
language features.
Creating texts
Plan, draft and publish imaginative, informative and
persuasive texts, demonstrating increasing control over
text structures and language features, and selecting
print and multimodal elements appropriate to the
audience and purpose.
Write using joined letters that are clearly formed and
consistent in size.
Use software including word processing programs with
growing speed and efficiency to construct and edit texts
featuring visual, print and audio elements.
C2C adapted with permission by NT DET © The State of Queensland
2 of 15
www.det.nt.gov.au
General Capabilities and Cross-curriculum priorities
Students will have opportunities to:
 comprehend texts through listening and reading
 compose texts through speaking, writing and creating
ICT capability
Students will have opportunities to develop skills in:
 creating with ICT
 communicating with ICT
 managing and operating ICT
Critical and creative thinking
Students will have opportunities to develop skills in:
 inquiring – identifying, exploring and clarifying information
 analysing, synthesising and evaluating information
 generating innovative ideas and possibilities
 reflecting on thinking, actions and processes
Ethical behaviour
Students will have opportunities to develop skills in:
 Understanding ethical concepts and issues
 reflecting on personal ethics in experiences and decision making.
 exploring values, rights and ethical principals
Personal and social capability
Students will have opportunities to develop:
 self-management
 self-awareness
Intercultural understanding
Students will have opportunities to develop skills in:






recognising
interacting
reflecting
empathising
respecting
being responsible
C2C adapted with permission by NT DET © The State of Queensland
3 of 15
www.det.nt.gov.au
Relevant prior curriculum
Students require prior experience with:
 comparing opinions about characters, events and settings in and between texts
 rehearsing and delivering short presentations on familiar and new topics.
Eight Learning Management Questions (LMQs)
When planning teachers make critical decisions around the Eight Learning Management Questions.
C2C adapted with permission by NT DET © The State of Queensland
4 of 15
www.det.nt.gov.au
Supportive learning environment
Differentiation
LMQ 1, 2 & 3: What do your learners already know, do and value? Where do the learners need and want to be? How do the learners best learn?
What do your students already know and what do your students need to learn? Consider the individual needs and values of all students, including EAL/D, Gifted and Talented
and Special Needs, and provide learning experiences that are accessible to and respectful of the diversity of students’ cultural backgrounds.
Start from where your students are at and differentiate teaching and learning to support the learning needs of all students. Plan and document how you will cater for individual
learning needs.
The learning experiences within this unit can be differentiated by increasing the:
 frequency of exposure for some students
 intensity of teaching by adjusting the group size
 duration needed to complete tasks and assessment.
For guided and/or independent practice tasks:
 student groupings will offer tasks with a range of complexities to cater for individual learning needs
 rotational groupings that allow for more or less scaffolding of student learning.
Feedback
LMQ 8 How will I inform learners and others about the learner’s progress?
Feedback is information and advice provided by a teacher, peer, parent or self about aspects of someone’s performance. The aim of feedback is to improve learning and is
used to plan what to do next and how to teach it.
Teachers and students use feedback to close the gap between where students are and where they aim to be. Teachers use self-feedback to guide and improve their teaching
practice.
Feedback to students
Establish active feedback partnerships between students, teachers and parents to find out:
 what each student already knows and can do
 how each student is going
 where each student needs to go next.
Ensure this feedback is timely, ongoing, instructive and purposeful.
Feedback may relate to reading, writing and speaking throughout the unit. In this unit this may include:





inferential reading comprehension skills where information about characters in the text and prior knowledge needs to be integrated
students’ reading behaviours: re-reading, predicting, using context clues, drawing on prior knowledge, use of grapho-phonic knowledge, self correcting
reading texts to identify noun groups and verb groups
use of evaluative language to express a point of view
spoken presentation skills.
C2C adapted with permission by NT DET © The State of Queensland
5 of 15
www.det.nt.gov.au
Use feedback to inform future teaching and learning.
Reflection on the unit plan
Identify what worked well during and at the end of the unit for future planning. Complete a reflective list for future planning.
Reflection may include:






activities that worked well and why
activities that could be improved and how
assessment that worked well and why
assessment that could be improved and how
common student errors that need, or needed, to be addressed (e.g. grammar, spelling, punctuation)
differentiation and future student learning needs.
Assessment
LMQ 7 How will I check the learners have made progress?
Assessment is the purposeful, systematic and ongoing collection of information as evidence for use in making judgments about student learning.
Principals, teachers and students use assessment information to support improving student learning. Feedback from evaluation of assessment data helps to determine
strengths and weaknesses in students’ understanding.
Students should contribute to an individual assessment folio that provides evidence of their learning and represents their achievements over the year. The folio should include
a range and balance of assessments for teachers to make valid judgments about whether the student has met the achievement standard. Refer to Year level plan for more
assessment information.
C2C adapted with permission by NT DET © The State of Queensland
6 of 15
www.det.nt.gov.au
Lesson overviews
Examining language in texts
Building knowledge of characters (1 of 5)
 Share prior knowledge of characters in books:
favourite, traditional, good/evil characters, etc.
 Examine how a character is portrayed in an ebook,
Mr Grim’s Tower (language used).
 List language used by author to describe Mr Grim.
 Examine the use of verbs and verb groups to show
Mr Grim’s character.
 Share your point of view about Mr Grim’s
personality and behaviour .
Spelling

Beginning silent-letter consonant patterns
‘wr’, ‘gn’, ‘kn’.
Handwriting
 Revise joining letters with exits to letters with
rounded entries.
 Revise joining letters with exits to lower case ‘e’.
Identifying character traits (2 of 5)
 Examine main characters traits, actions, behaviour
and feelings through the use of the language used
in a variety of picture books.
 Identify character traits in characters in Amy’s
Monster by Jenny Wagner.
 Draw inferences about characters’ behaviour from
clues and language the author provides and about
their change over the course of the book.
 Create a table about characters’ behaviours,
actions or decisions using the authors language as
evidence: finding out about characters.
 Answer questions about characters with partner.
Spelling
Meeting characters (3 and 4 of 5)
 Introduce novel; look at cover, prior knowledge of chapter
books and characters.
 Read chapters 1 and 2 and identify main characters and
some of their traits, actions and feelings.
 Draw a picture of Matty and label with evidence from text.
 Analyse dialogue between the children on pp. 10–12 and
draw inferences about relationships between characters.
 View structured overview of author’s language used to
describe characters.
 Explore edStudio: ‘Forever Friends’ character profiles.
 Students enter their first character profile blog entry in
edStudio: ‘Forever Friends’.
Spelling
 Beginning silent-letter consonant patterns ‘wr’.
Handwriting
 Beginning silent-letter consonant patterns ‘gn’, ‘kn’.
Handwriting
 Joining more letters with exits to tall letters, e.g. ‘eb’, ‘il’, ht’.
 Introduction to joining letters with exits to tall
letters, e.g. ‘ul’, ‘ch’, ‘et’.
Refine, review and extend (5 of 5)
 Use this lesson to refine, review or extend content,
concepts, ideas and processes covered in the first
four lessons this week.
Spelling
 Beginning silent-letter consonant patterns ‘wr’, ‘gn’,
‘kn’
Differentiation LMQ 1,2 & 3
C2C adapted with permission by NT DET © The State of Queensland
7 of 15
www.det.nt.gov.au
Resources LMQ 4 What resources are at my disposal?
Examining language in texts
Text Harvey, D 2009 Mr Grim’s Tower, Oxford Owl, UK Wagner, J 1990 ‘Amy’s Monster’, Viking, Victoria
Text Fensham, E 2010, Matty Forever, University of Queensland Press, St Lucia, QLD
ebook http://www.oxfordowl.co.uk/Reading/ - go to ‘quick book search’ and enter ‘Mr Grim’s tower’
A variety of picture books, short narratives, traditional tales and digital stories which use descriptive language to portray characters.
Helpful information
Poster http://www.qsa.qld.edu.au/ - search for ‘in the book or in your head’
Bear, DR, Invernizzi, M, Templeton, S and Johnston, F 2008, Words their way: word study for phonics, vocabulary, and spelling instruction, 4th edn, Pearson, Upper Saddle
River, New Jersey.
Find and prepare:
Word slide using ‘wr’ as the onset
Create similar snap cards for ‘gn’ (Sample words: goat, gnome, gnat, girl, go, gate, gnarl, gnaw)
C2C adapted with permission by NT DET © The State of Queensland
8 of 15
www.det.nt.gov.au
Examining language to develop characters
Identifying noun and verb groups (1of 5)
 Read and respond to chapter 3.
 Analyse the language the author uses to construct
the two main characters.
 Explore noun and verb groups which describe
Matty’s home and family.
 Identify noun and verb groups for Bill’s home and
family. Compare with Matty’s and infer how this
affects Bill (write sentence).
Spelling

Ambiguous vowels: a vowel sound (dipthong)
represented by a variety of different spelling
patterns, e.g. ‘ou’, ‘ow’, ‘ough’ ‘au’, ‘aw’, ‘augh’.
Handwriting

Joining more letters with exits to tall letters, e.g.
‘mb’, ‘ll’, ‘lb’.
Identifying verbs and verb groups (2 of 5)
 Read and respond to chapters 4, 5 and 6.
 Continue analysis of traits and behaviours of main
characters through answering questions, language
used and relationships developed.
 Examine verbs which describe how Bill felt about
before, during and after doing the four tests of
endurance (write on chart).
 Identify language from text to fill a graphic
organiser about Bill in Bill’s tests of endurance.
Spelling
 Ambiguous vowels: a vowel sound (dipthong)
represented by a variety of different spelling
patterns, e.g. ‘ou’, ‘ow’, ‘ough’
Handwriting
Understanding verb tense (3 and 4 of 5)
 Read and respond to chapters 7 and 8.
 Explore inferences about characters’ qualities.
 Continue analysis of traits and behaviours of main
characters and their relationships with each other.
 Develop understanding of verb tense and rewrite passage
of text in past tense.
Spelling
 Ambiguous vowels: a vowel sound (dipthong) represented
by a variety of different spelling patterns, e.g. ‘au’, ‘aw’,
‘augh’.
Handwriting
 Joining letters with exits to lowercase ‘o’, e.g. ‘ao’, ‘do’, ‘ho’.
 Joining more letters with exits to tall letters, e.g.
‘nk’, ‘th’, ‘tt’.
Building literal and inferred meaning about
characters (5 of 5)
 Read and respond to chapters 9 and 10.
 Build understanding of characters’ traits through
comprehending inferred and literal information.
 Complete a character profile of Isabelle.
Spelling
 Ambiguous vowels: a vowel sound (dipthong)
represented by a variety of different spelling
patterns, e.g. ‘ou’, ‘ow’, ‘ough’, ‘au’, ‘aw’, ‘augh’
Differentiation LMQ 1,2 & 3
C2C adapted with permission by NT DET © The State of Queensland
9 of 15
www.det.nt.gov.au
Resources LMQ 4
Examining language to develop characters
Text Fensham, E 2010, Matty Forever, University of Queensland Press, St Lucia, QLD
Website Four QAR posters for display in ‘Resources and preparation’ section of lesson.
Helpful information
Article http://www.readinglady.com/ - enter ‘QAR’ into search engine, choose ‘question answer relationship strategy: teaching children where to seek answers to questions’
Bear, DR, Invernizzi, M, Templeton, S and Johnston, F 2008, Words their way: word study for phonics, vocabulary, and spelling instruction, 4th edn, Pearson, Upper Saddle
River, New Jersey.
Find and prepare
Year 3 ambiguous vowels: ‘ou’, ‘ow’, ‘ough’ ‘au’, ‘aw’, ‘augh’ spelling word list
Set of word cards with the missing vowel sound (dipthong): ‘ou’, ‘ow’, ough (e.g. eyebr____)
A set of dice with ‘ou’, ‘ow’, ‘ough’ repeated on each side for each group
Set of word cards with the missing vowel sound (dipthong): ‘au’, ‘aw’, ‘augh’ (e.g. d___ghter)
Set of dice with ‘au’, ‘aw’, ‘augh’ repeated on each side for each group
C2C adapted with permission by NT DET © The State of Queensland
10 of 15
www.det.nt.gov.au
Comprehending language and texts
Making inferences about character traits (1 of 5)
 Read and respond to chapters 11 and 12.
 Build understanding of QAR reading comprehension
framework.
 Make inferences about characters based on the
characters’ actions as well as their own prior
knowledge.
 Continue analysis of traits and behaviours of main
characters.
Handwriting
Joining more letters with exits to lowercase ‘o’, e.g. ‘ko’,
‘lo’, ‘to’.
Inferring characters’ feelings and motivations (2 of
5)
 Read and respond to chapters 13 and 14.
 Role-play dialogue between characters based on
inferences made about characters’ feelings or
motivations.
 Justify their choices of dialogue based on their
inferences.
Spelling
Expressing thoughts about text and characters (3 of
5)
 Read chapters 15 and 16.
 Discuss the students’ overall impression of the book
and its characters, i.e. what was their favourite
part/character, who did they like the least, etc.
 Have students select a character they admire the
most and complete the characters online profile.
Spelling
 Contractions formed by verb + not, word + is, and
pronoun + verb.
Handwriting
 Contractions formed by verb + not, word + is, and
pronoun + verb.
 Revise joining letters with exits to tall letters.
 Revise joining letters with exits to lowercase ‘o’.
Reading and responding to characters (4 of 5)
 Introduce new book, Charlie Pasta cook master.
 Read and respond to characters in the book.
 Identify the noun and verb groups which relate to the
main character, Charlie, and another character,
Angelica.
 Write a sentence to compare Charlie and Angelica’s
behaviour,
Spelling
Identifying language used to develop characters (5
of 5)
 Read and respond to book, Charlie Pasta cook
master.
 List words used to describe Charlie; verb and noun
groups.
Spelling
 Contractions formed by verb + not, word + is, and
pronoun + verb.
 Contractions formed by verb + not, word + is, and
pronoun + verb.
Handwriting
 Experiment and be introduced to drop-on joins to join
letters with exits to shoulder letters, e.g. ‘a’, ’c’ ,’d’ ,’g’,
‘q’.
Differentiation LMQ 1,2 & 3
C2C adapted with permission by NT DET © The State of Queensland
11 of 15
www.det.nt.gov.au
Resources LMQ 4
Examining language in texts
Text Harvey, D 2009 Mr Grim’s Tower, Oxford Owl, UK Wagner, J 1990 ‘Amy’s Monster’, Viking, Victoria
Text Fensham, E 2010, Matty Forever, University of Queensland Press, St Lucia, QLD
ebook http://www.oxfordowl.co.uk/Reading/ - go to ‘quick book search’ and enter ‘Mr Grim’s tower’
A variety of picture books, short narratives, traditional tales and digital stories which use descriptive language to portray characters.
Helpful information
Poster http://www.qsa.qld.edu.au/ - search for ‘in the book or in your head’
Bear, DR, Invernizzi, M, Templeton, S and Johnston, F 2008, Words their way: word study for phonics, vocabulary, and spelling instruction, 4th edn, Pearson, Upper Saddle
River, New Jersey.
Find and prepare:
Word slide using ‘wr’ as the onset
Create similar snap cards for ‘gn’ (Sample words: goat, gnome, gnat, girl, go, gate, gnarl, gnaw)
Examining language to develop characters
Text Fensham, E 2010, Matty Forever, University of Queensland Press, St Lucia, QLD
Comprehending language and texts
ebook Charlie Pasta, cook master (optional audio)
Text Fensham, E 2010, Matty Forever, University of Queensland Press, St Lucia, QLD
Helpful information
Website Four QAR posters for display in ‘Printouts’ section
Website Guided Comprehension: Self-Questioning Using Question-Answer Relationships
Learning object Game http://www.sadlier-oxford.com – enter ‘phonics’ into search engine, go to ‘phonics – student online components’, then ‘grade 2’ then select ‘fly-by
contractions’
Bear, DR, Invernizzi, M, Templeton, S and Johnston, F 2008, Words their way: word study for phonics, vocabulary, and spelling instruction, 4th edn, Pearson, Upper Saddle
River, New Jersey.
Find and prepare
Computers for student use during group rotation activity
Concentration/memory cards using contractions
Activity with words written in full and students write the contraction
Multiple copies of a reading text with contractions
C2C adapted with permission by NT DET © The State of Queensland
12 of 15
www.det.nt.gov.au
Preparing and drafting text for presentation
Using comprehension strategies (1 of 5)
 Read and respond to book, Charlie Pasta cook
master.
 Apply reading, use comprehension strategies to
write answers about the character, Charlie, in
Reading task.
Spelling
 Words that end in ‘dge’ and ‘ge’.
Handwriting
 Revise using drop-on joins to join letters with exits
to shoulder letters, e.g. ‘a’, ’c’, ’d’, ’g’, ‘q’
Understanding the assessment task (2 of 5)
 Introduce assessment task.
 Read assessment task and clarify students
understanding of task.
 Discuss characters explored in the unit.
 Read and scan through variety of texts with strong
characters.
 Choose a character from a narrative and write two
or three sentences describing him or her and their
behaviour or action.
Spelling
Sharing opinions and expressing judgments about
characters’ behaviours (3 of 5)
 View and discuss exemplar text of spoken presentation.
 Read narratives and with partner share/write notes about:
 characters’ action and behaviours in significant events
 give opinions for actions and behaviours of characters by
using language which expresses judgement: In my opinion,
I think, I don’t agree, He shouldn’t have …
 suggest alternative actions, behaviours or decisions using
language which expresses different views.
Spelling
 Words that end in the soft ‘g’ sound, using ‘dge’
after a short vowel and ‘ge’ after a long vowel, e.g.
edge and stage
Handwriting
 Words that end in the soft ‘g’ sound, using ‘dge’ after a short
vowel and ‘ge’ after a long vowel, e.g. edge and stage.
 Revise using drop-on joins to join letters with exits
to shoulder letters i.e. ‘a’, ’c’ ,’d’, ’g’, ‘q’.
Planning for spoken presentation and drafting a
structured text (4 of 5)
 View audio exemplar of task.
 Choose character and behaviour for spoken
presentation.
 Plan own text using Task template for spoken
presentation.
 Understand paragraphing for this text.
 Draft text using evidence from book.
Spelling
Write, reread and edit text (5 of 5)
 Edit own and other’s texts using checklist for text
and language features checking meaning,
appropriate structure, grammatical choices and
clear sequencing of ideas
 Words that end in the soft ‘g’ sound, using ‘dge’
after a short vowel and ‘ge’ after a long vowel ,e.g.
edge and stage.
Handwriting
 Revise using drop-on joins to join letters with exits
to shoulder letters, i.e. ‘a’, ’c’ ,’d’ ,’g’, ‘q’
C2C adapted with permission by NT DET © The State of Queensland
13 of 15
www.det.nt.gov.au
Differentiation LMQ 1,2 & 3
Resources LMQ 4
Preparing and drafting text for presentation
Text Fensham, E 2010, Matty Forever, University of Queensland Press, St Lucia, QLD
Narratives as selected by the students for their task
A variety of picture books, short narratives, traditional tales and digital stories which use descriptive language to portray characters.
Helpful information
Poster http://www.qsa.qld.edu.au – search for ‘in the book or in your head’
Bear, DR, Invernizzi, M, Templeton, S and Johnston, F 2008, Words their way: word study for phonics, vocabulary, and spelling instruction, 4th edn, Pearson, Upper Saddle
River, New Jersey.
Find and prepare
List of ‘dge’ and ‘ge’ words
C2C adapted with permission by NT DET © The State of Queensland
14 of 15
www.det.nt.gov.au
Presenting a spoken presentation
Planning and recording a spoken presentation (1, 2 and 3 of 5)
 Revise the conventions of a formal oral presentation.
 Prepare and practise spoken presentation.
 Demonstrate use of software.
 Record and publish presentation using digital software and upload to a shared site.
Spelling
Sharing spoken presentations (4 and 5 of 5)
 Listen to peers’ recordings online.
 Reflect on own and peers’ presentations.
Spelling
 Review, revise and extend
 Review, revise and extend
Differentiation LMQ 1,2 & 3
Resources LMQ 4
Presenting a spoken presentation
Find and prepare
Ensure that digital presentation technologies are available for students to present their spoken presentation, including speakers
Audacity software (available free to download)
Student computers
Teacher to organise a space on the school intranet for student files
Digital audio recording devices (e.g. microphones)
Assessment task Investigating character and characterisation task sheet (teacher to devise own rich task)
Helpful information
Audacity documentation and support (manual and tutorials)
Learning experiences related to spelling can be selected or adapted from this practice test or drawn from spelling ideas from those used in previous lessons.
Test preparation – literacy
Helpful information Year 3 Naplan Spelling List p. 78
References
http://www.australiancurriculum.edu.au/ Australian Curriculum Version 3.0 dated 23 January 2012
https://portal.ntschools.net/SITES/LEARNINGLINKS/default.aspx
http://www.scootle.edu.au/ec/p/home
C2C adapted with permission by NT DET © The State of Queensland
15 of 15
www.det.nt.gov.au