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EDST2003 – Assessment 2 Lesson Activities and Analytical Paper PART I: Lesson activities Opportunities to develop students’ literacy and numeracy abilities abound within secondary school classrooms. These opportunities must be cultivated so that students can become numerate and literate citizens with a range of important skillsets. In this paper, I outline and evaluate a literacy-related activity, as well as a numeracy-related activity. The activities are examples of how literacy and numeracy support can be embedded within content teaching. The tasks are designed for Year 9 English classes of a comprehensive secondary school in NSW and accommodate the learning needs of the students who are from a multiplicity of learning backgrounds, including low-literacy and English Language (EL) learners. Both activities take place when students are in the process of learning about immigrant and refugee experiences within the module: Life Worlds of Teenagers around the World (Woods, Comber & Iyer, 2015, p. 62). In this module, students engage with Anh Do’s The Happiest Refugee (Do, 2010). The literacy and numeracy activities that follow are aimed at providing students with opportunities to think critically when engaging with different texts and their representations. I. A. Numeracy-related activity Having recently read The Happiest Refugee, students are familiar with the modules’ specialised vocabulary, including the differences between refugees, asylum seekers, and migrants. They have an understanding of Do’s experiences as a refugee, as well as the themes the novel addresses. The numeracy activity aims to supplement students’ existing understanding through text comparison. Specifically, it allows students to “interpret data EDST2003 – Assessment 2 displays” when comparing the articles and “evaluate media statistics and trends by linking claims to data displays” (Australian Curriculum, Assessment and Reporting Authoring (ACARA), 2020a). After completing this activity, students will have an increased understanding of how data informs and shapes meaning, and the necessity of using a critical lens when interpreting how data is used in media texts. The activity is as follows: In pairs, students find and choose three news articles that focus on refugee arrivals and communities in Australia, by visiting the following news page: https://theconversation.com/au/topics/refugees-318. NOTE: Students are informed that, after completing the table, their findings will be shared with the class. Using the table provided, students compare the three articles based on: o How each text uses statistics to support claims made o Their reactions to the statistics provided o Their opinion on the effectiveness of the articles’ statistics Having completed the table in pairs, student share their findings with the class. The teacher acts as a scribe, and guides discussion by asking probing questions that focus on how students’ interpretations of the news articles were shaped by the statistics presented therein. EDST2003 – Assessment 2 I. B. Literacy-related activity The literacy activity I have developed for this module aligns with the following ACARA Literacy content description and its elaboration: Content Description: Analyse how the construction and interpretation of texts, including media texts, can be influenced by cultural perspectives and other texts. Elaboration: Identifying, comparing and creating relationships between texts (including novels, illustrated stories, social issue cartoons, documentaries, multimodal texts). (ACARA, 2020b) The scope for literacy development in this description is vast, as well as the closely associated and necessary development of students’ multiliteracies. The task is as follows: In the same pairs as the previous activity, students choose one of three news articles they found. Students fill the provided Venn diagram to compare Do’s The Happiest Refugee and their chosen online news article. Therein, students compare: o Each text’s language features o How the writer’s contexts shape the texts and their messages o Their understanding of the texts’ messages Using their completed Venn diagram, students create a short video of approximately three minutes. In the video, students must discuss: o The representations of refugees in each text o Their reactions to the texts’ representations of refugees EDST2003 – Assessment 2 o A reflection on what has shaped their previous understanding of refugee experiences, and how/why this has changed over the course of the term’s module These videos are uploaded to the class’s Google Classroom page, to be shared with peers and the teacher. EDST2003 – Assessment 2 EDST2003 – Assessment 2 EDST2003 – Assessment 2 PART II: Analytical Paper The outlined literacy and numeracy activities aim to develop specific literacy and numeracy skills and abilities in students. The extent to which they are effective can be evaluated by drawing upon well-researched findings relating to sound pedagogical practices for addressing the literacy and numeracy needs of students. The numeracy activity is a rich learning task that encourages students to evaluate statistical information for the development of their critical numeracy skills. The literacy activity aims to develop students’ oracy through the partnered creation of a video. II. A. Numeracy-related activity (i) Numeracy activity strength one. Investigative thinking contextualises numeracy and legitimises personal interests. The numeracy task allows students to discuss texts that they have chosen and that resonate most with them. In effect, students are provided with a chance for investigative thinking, which promotes a student-led search for ideas and patterns (Sellars, 2018). Since learners are asked to find and compare three articles and the kinds of statistics used therein, they are granted a guided freedom which is effective in engaging their investigative abilities and maintaining interest (Sellars, 2018). It is, therefore, a rich learning task for numeracy since it demonstrates to students how statistics can effectively enhance research investigations in any subject area and aid in the evaluation of information (Sullivan, 2011, p. 23). Furthermore, the numeracy perspective of analysing texts in this task enriches students learning as it encourages them to “see the world EDST2003 – Assessment 2 in quantitative terms”, effectively equipping them with skills of finding, interpreting, and evaluating statistical information when engaging with real-life media (Sullivan, 2011, p. 23). The activity moves beyond notions of mathematical skills as decontextualised (Burke, Sharpe & Field, 2018). In effect, students begin to foster an appreciation of numeracy as “personally purposeful” (Sellars, 2018, p. 24). (ii) Numeracy activity strength two. Displaying students’ ideas as a collaborative whole. Students will have collated a wide range of statistics that were used in the articles they found and chose to examine. As a result of this variety, many ideas would be generated and discussed in students’ partner-groups. The task then requires that students share their findings through whole-class discussions. Such discussion creates a learning community, wherein students engage with content through contributing and sharing ideas (Sullivan, 2011). They also learn from each other, and how the teacher synthesises the ideas shared on the board. This co-construction of knowledge reflects the nature of numeracy, as a sociocultural conception of mathematical concepts (Sellars, 2018). Specifically, the table provided to students asks that they reflect on their reactions to the statistics in the news articles. Sharing specific examples of their responses – which might include shock, disappointment, sadness, gratitude, and more – is valuable for generating ideas about the role of statistical data, and how it shapes meaning in many contexts. Finally, filling the table as a whole class (through the use of a whiteboard or interactive whiteboard) generates a large sample of statistical data and how it is used, that individual students would otherwise not be exposed to in the same amount of time. Using this collated EDST2003 – Assessment 2 data, the class – as a learning community – can more comprehensively evaluate statistical representations of refugees in Australia. (iii) Numeracy activity strength three. Newspaper numeracy and multimodality. In this activity, students critically engage with numeracy through the use of media texts (Watson & Neale, 2012). The articles are examples of multimodal texts since they combine various modes of meaning, including written language, visual and spatial meanings (Cloonan, 2019). These multimodal texts effectively integrate mathematical components, particularly the statistics students are asked to examine (Burke, Sharpe & Field, 2018, p. 168). As a result of information being represented in numerical forms, students can become increasingly numerate in English as they interpret the presented statistics thoughtfully and critically. These multimodal opportunities for critical thinking allow students to become aware of “the ways in which mathematics is used to generate particular kinds of meanings for particular purposes” (Brown & Hirst, as cited in Burke, Sharpe & Field, 2018, p. 170). Student engagement with multimodal news articles can, therefore, develop their critical attention to how statistics and other mathematical features are used in everyday media texts to shape reader perceptions. In effect, the activity is an appropriate example of enacting a multiliteracies pedagogical framework (Chun, 2009). This is particularly useful for students since they interact everyday with countless pieces of information, through media texts. (iv) Numeracy activity limitation one. Potential difficulty in engaging with new English texts. EL learners will offer many excellent musings in relation to the content of this task. However, although the task is situated well into the module ‘Life Worlds of Teenagers around EDST2003 – Assessment 2 the World’, and builds on the understanding students have previously developed of the module’s vocabulary, they may be prevented from gaining and sharing insights due to difficulties with reading and decoding the online news articles. This can potentially arise because the registers of news articles differ greatly to the registers of a novel, since literacy is not universal and must be developed in many contexts and practices (Hammond & Gibbons, 2001; Unsworth, 1999). As a result, EL students’ potential to find and analyse statistical data might be inhibited by difficulties with initial code breaking and text participation (Unsworth, 1999, p. 71). To overcome these barriers, teachers must not simplify the task itself, but employ a number of scaffolding strategies to allow learners to complete the task (Hammond & Gibbons, 2001, p. 18). To support EAL/D students’ decoding of the text, the teacher can point out various textual features, such as the news articles’ headlines and key words. The teacher should also clarify any new vocabulary that EL students come across. In this way, opportunities for students to become text analysts are maximised (Gibbons, 2009). This will allow learners to be critical of their chosen articles and their statistical features. In effect, they will become increasingly familiar with how to evaluate texts critically, detect bias or point of view, and understand how audiences are positioned through specific textual features (ACARA, 2011). In effect, all learners – no matter their English language abilities – will be engaged with the cognitive challenge of interpreting statistical information and evaluating their effects (Hammond & Gibbons, 2001). (v) Numeracy activity limitation two. Resistance to whole-class discussions. After having examined three online articles in pairs, the numeracy task requires that students share their findings about how statistical information shapes meaning in their chosen EDST2003 – Assessment 2 articles, so that a whole-class brainstorm can be created. However, many students find whole- class discussions intimidating, culminating in lower participation (William, 2014). This can be alleviated through a “no hands up” questioning technique (William, 2014, p. 17). This assertive questioning technique might take the form of going around along the table rows of students and calling on one person from each pair to share the statistics and findings they collated. In this way, no student dominates the discussion, nor are any students’ voices left unheard. The task aims to reduce any anxiety students have when speaking in larger groups, through its design that students work and discuss in pairs (William, 2014). The paired task ensures that students have the opportunity to contribute their ideas before larger group-sharing. The latter may not prove as effective if students were required to fill the table individually. Students are also informed before completing the research task that their findings will be shared with the class. This should be accompanied by the teacher asserting the value of each student’s contribution, for a cooperative learning atmosphere. In such an environment, students who are less confident users of spoken English are made to feel more comfortable and prepare themselves to share with the class (Gibbons, 2009, p. 39). As such, students with restricted codes of English have a chance to practice vocalising their ideas with their partner, so that their capacity to fully participate is not inhibited (Burke, Sharpe & Field, 2018, p. 186). EDST2003 – Assessment 2 II. B. Literacy-related activity (i) Literacy activity strength one. Scaffolding through graphic organisers. The literacy task requires that students interpret meaning through “comparing and creating relationships between texts” (ACARA, 2020b). The provided Venn diagram that students are to fill most directly addresses this literacy focus on the “construction and interpretation” of the novel and chosen news article (ACARA, 2020b). It explicitly scaffolds the otherwise very open-ended nature of this task, which requires that students reflect on the role of representations. This is evident on the student worksheet, wherein the comparison of the texts is scaffolded to focus mainly on textual features and associated messages or ideas. Here, students are required to extrapolate meaning and assess how representations of refugees are constructed in various ways, as dependent on texts’ field, tenor, and mode (Hammond & Gibbons, 2001). The Venn diagram helps students to organise these intersecting ideas. Scaffolding student thinking through this graphic organiser also ensures that the open- ended nature of the task is most effectively cultivated. This is important because investigations and responding to open-ended research tasks promotes “higher-level thinking, cooperative effort, extension, and communication” (Sullivan & Lilburn, as cited in Muir, 2016, p. 499). The Venn diagram provides students with a means of organising their ideas and is, therefore, an effective implementation of a high-challenge and high-support task (Hammond & Gibbons, 2001). EDST2003 – Assessment 2 (ii) Literacy activity strength two. Development of oracy through co-construction of knowledge. Oracy is an often-neglected aspect of literacy that must be fostered through classroom pedagogy. The literacy activity provides students an opportunity to develop their speaking competencies, as they are required to create a short video in which each student appears and reflects on the meaning they have induced from textual comparison. It is designed as an informal opportunity to develop their speaking skills, to overcome associations students often have of speaking in the classroom merely with formal speech assessments. Through the video, students are encouraged to “talk their way to understanding” and to share their unique insights with peers, effectively aligning with the Vygotskian notion that “learning occurs between individuals”. (Hammond & Gibbons, 2001, p. 23; Hammond & Gibbons, 2001, p. 13). This kind of dialogic talk, as students plan, discuss and record their videos, is valuable in developing learners’ oral literacy and ensures that deep learning occurs (Davison & Ollerhead, 2019). It also becomes a tool for increasing “literate talk” to aid later problem-solving and critical thinking across the curriculum, and beyond (Hammond, 2012, p. 225). The creation of the video is also crucially embedded in this task as a means for students verbally reflect about the real experiences of refugees and how they are portrayed. This aligns with a multiliteracies approach to literacy and, more specifically, oracy, wherein students apply their knowledge and engage in reflective practices (Chun, 2009). These strengths of collaborative discussions align the task with the National Literacy Learning Progression – in particular, the inclusion of “a range of alternative viewpoints in spoken texts” “which explore issues drawn from research or learning area content” (ACARA, 2020c). This constructive opportunity for literate talk also allows EAL/D students to use oral language as a means of negotiating meanings in and about English (ACARA, 2011, p. 88). EDST2003 – Assessment 2 (iii) Literacy activity strength three. Building on student identities. The literacy activity requires that students reflect on how their historical and sociocultural backgrounds shape their personal understanding of refugee experiences. This is a design characteristic of “permeable curriculum”, wherein students are encouraged to draw upon their existing knowledge and experiences from their micro-worlds (Woods et al., 2015, p. 48). Connecting students’ own life experiences – particularly when making their videos – to the “construction and interpretation of texts” is an effective strategy of helping students understand the role of context in the shaping of meaning (ACARA, 2020b). Through this situated practice, students’ own life experiences are drawn upon and valued in the creation of their short videos (Chun, 2009). They are seen – and see themselves – as contributors of knowledge (Henderson & Exley, 2015, p. 31). This is a sound pedagogical framework for the inclusion of all students and their identities in content work, and particularly resonates with EAL/D students since they are encouraged to articulate and share their cultural and linguistic knowledge and experience with peers (ACARA, 2011, p. 94). The activities, therefore, foster identities of competence, which are crucial for student engagement (New South Wales Department of Education and Training (NSW DET), 2006). As a result, all students begin to place meaning and find relevance of textual representations within their own life-worlds. This promotes students’ dispositions towards the deconstruction of texts for meaning (Geiger, Goos, Forgasz, Bennison & Dole, 2013). Students’ subsequently ground their interpretations of the novel and chosen news article using an increasingly critical lens. This allows students to evaluate their own and others’ perspectives and develop a “reflective and reflexive stance” towards the knowledge they acquire: a manifestation of successful critical practice (Woods et al., 2015, p. 60). EDST2003 – Assessment 2 (iv) Literacy activity limitation one. Speaking demands. The literacy activity focuses on the development of oral English-language competencies. Given the nature of the task, some students – particularly, EAL/D students – may encounter difficulties with oral expression. Students who are at the “developing English” level of the EAL/D learning progression are still developing control over grammatical structures and vocabulary specific to English modules (ACARA, 2011, p. 57). For this reason, some might shy away from speaking on camera, whilst others might not. Regardless of their confidence in front of a camera, the teacher should ensure that students are engaged in apprenticeship learning between experts and apprentices of the English language, to overcome student resistance to expressing their ideas verbally (Gibbons, 2009, p. 33). This might involve pairing EAL/D students with English-speaking peers, as opposed to L1 peers, effectively accounting for students’ varying confidence and abilities of presenting orally (NSW DET, 2006, p. 56; ACARA, 2011, p. 99). Another important consideration to overcome this task’s limitation is that of implementing scaffolding that includes “affective strategies”, particularly for EAL/D students (Michell & Sharpe, 2005, p. 49). These strategies provide students with encouragement from the teacher when facing speaking difficulties. Another scaffolding strategy could include the teacher modelling and deconstructing a sample video or set of ideas that could be included in students’ videos. This would, in turn, ensure that students are provided with literacy scaffolding through modelling and organising the language features of this task (Gibbons, 2009, p. 115). Lastly, the task does not require extremely formal language, nor language features usually associated with academic writing, such as nominalisations (Unsworth, 1999). As such, EDST2003 – Assessment 2 the activities must be supplemented by other literacy-focused tasks that develop academic writing literacies, too. (v) Literacy activity limitation two. Potentially confronting memories. The literacy task is embedded within the Year 9 Module that focuses on migrant and refugee experiences. There exists the potential that students who have experienced similar circumstances to those presented in the texts might be confronted by having to share their personal experiences and stories. This should be addressed before students engage with the task – and perhaps the module itself – by explaining to the class that all students’ “funds of knowledge” uniquely position their learning experiences (Davison & Ollerhead, 2019, p. 6). An emphasis should be placed that students can share only as much as they feel comfortable, but that, regardless of how much they do share through their videos and with their peers, their life experiences help shape their understanding and heighten their critical evaluation of representations of refugees. This encouragement can lead to students more willingly investing their identities in classroom learning as a means of developing academic expertise (Gibbons, 2009, xi). As a result, students will be positioned as the people they might become, rather than focusing on past and current obstacles to their formal education and learning (Gibbons, 2009, p. 39). Conclusion These numeracy and literacy tasks draw on a range of pedagogical strategies to enhance student learning. Both activities aim to meaningfully engage students and convey to them the communicative potential and purpose of various texts. Though each activity addresses a different cross-curriculum priority, they are both relevant in the English course content, EDST2003 – Assessment 2 through their explicit focus on how texts are constructed – using specific statistical evidence and linguistic features – and position their audiences accordingly. These activities demonstrate that the Australian Curriculum for English encompasses endless opportunities for students to develop both their literacy and numeracy skills. They counter the view that literacy and numeracy are diametrically opposed to one another, and the often-perpetuated notion that numeracy is not relevant in the teaching and learning of English. The critical thinking skills these tasks develop will remain relevant and prove valuable beyond the classroom context. They aim to develop learner literacy and numeracy capabilities, since these are becoming increasingly important social practices across the curriculum, and across life experiences. EDST2003 – Assessment 2 References ACARA. (2020a). Numeracy learning continuum. Retrieved from https://www.australiancurriculum.edu.au/media/1077/general-capabilities-numeracy- learning-continuum.pdf ACARA. (2020b). English: Year 9. 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