Year 5

WHO WERE THE EXPLORERS?

Unit Overview
COMPONENTS EXPLANATION/DETAILS LEARNING
EXPERIENCES
(provide the
number)
Unit Orientation To motivate the students to learn the new unit of work, the class teacher will come dressed up in
clothes of an explorer from the first 120 years of European settlement to set the theme and basis for
inquiry questions.

Lesson 1
Building knowledge of
the field
Teacher will help build students background knowledge of the field by firstly guiding their thinking
about the texts topic of Australian Explorers by creating a class mind map and a unit content word
wall. Secondly, the students carry out a number of activities as a class and in collaborative groups to
access information about the types of explorers found in the text and collating their findings using
ICT. Students also begin to learn about the lives of the Australian Explorers and how they lived in
this period of history through accessing different types of informative text such as procedures and
recounts.


Lessons 1-5
Utilising the non-
fiction focus text
Macinnis. P, (2009). Australian Backyard Explorer. National Library of Australia.
This text will be used within the unit to introduce information texts. Within the unit the learning
experiences focus on the language found within the text and how we can use this language to learn
information and gain meaning.

Lessons 1-5, 9-10

Exploring texts These learning experiences focus on the literal inquiry question What do the words say? and
What do the words mean?
They allow the students to use their skills learnt so far of identifying main ideas, events and
characters in journal entries and their ability to point out key vocabulary and text cues to gain
meaning of the authors writing.

Formative Comprehension Task (lesson 8)

Lesson 7, 8
Examining texts
including:
Students begin to recognise that ideas in literary texts can be conveyed from different viewpoints,
which can lead to different kinds of interpretations and responses.


Year 5
WHO WERE THE EXPLORERS?
Unit Overview
COMPONENTS EXPLANATION/DETAILS LEARNING
EXPERIENCES
(provide the
number)
This is planned in the learning experiences allowing the students to explore the focus text, in
particular in Chapter 6. These learning experiences focus on the inferential inquiry question What
does the message mean?
Lesson 9
Text structure
and
organisation
Word identification- students explore meanings of words and sentences found in a journal entry from
Chapter 6. They compare the different types of language use from the past to the present and re-
write sentences from the entry using language devices of the present. The teacher begins to teach
the types of sentences they can write by using examples from other journal entries and discuss how
they can add detail to texts.

Lesson 10
Expressing and
developing
ideas
In this learning experience students participate in literacy rotation activities that focus on
experimenting with noun groups/phrases and adjective groups/phrases. Through these activities
they learn how parts of speech can be expanded in particular ways to provide a fuller description of
a person, place, thing or idea. This is the final learning experience in the instructional phase before
the students begin to plan their own authentic writing.

Lesson 11
Visual and
multimodal
features of
texts
Students use a template as a guide, of how to write a journal entry to help them create authentic
texts reflecting what they did on the September/October holidays. They access their personal
experiences and use meaningful sentences in their writing, accessing all three types; simple,
compound and complex sentences.
Summative Assessment Task is handed out


Lesson 12
Extending beyond the
focus text including:
In these learning experiences, students begin to engage in the writing process by planning, drafting,
revising, editing and publishing their own texts. They also begin to edit their own writing as well as
their peers using the criteria sheet for the Journal of Time assessment task.



Year 5
WHO WERE THE EXPLORERS?
Unit Overview
COMPONENTS EXPLANATION/DETAILS LEARNING
EXPERIENCES
(provide the
number)
Creating texts
utilising print
and multimodal
texts
Students learn about the importance of visuals and how they can add further meaning and
clarification to their writing. The teacher links students prior learning from lesson 4 when they made
water filters, how the procedure they read included diagrams to help them understand the
information in the text. Students are given allocated time to work independently on their Journal of
Time entry in these learning experiences.

Lesson 13-15
Assessment
Formative Journal Entry Comprehension Task

To complete this task, the students demonstrate that they can write three or more sentences to
answer questions, respond to questions by self-questioning, retelling, predicting, or assuming the
role of a character and identify important characters, ideas and events in the entry using the
comprehension strategies they have learnt so far. This task is carried out so the teacher can
measure students progress in the instructional process before continuing their teaching for the
Summative assessment piece.


Carried out in
Lesson 8


Summative
Journal of Time: A Historical Perspective

This assessment task takes place once most learning is completed however incidental learning will
still occur throughout remaining lessons that will guide the students learning to complete the project.
This assessment is used to provide information and feedback that sums up the overall teaching and
learning process. A rubric is developed around the set of standards and expectations. The rubric is
given to the students before they begin working on the assessment piece so that they know what is
expected of them for each of the criteria. The assessment is a piece of formal student writing; a
journal entry from the perspective of an Australian explorer of the eighteenth and nineteenth
centuries, similar to those found in the focus text.

Task set in
Lesson 12

Due in Lesson 15
Year 5
WHO WERE THE EXPLORERS?
Unit Overview
COMPONENTS EXPLANATION/DETAILS LEARNING
EXPERIENCES
(provide the
number)

Significant
demonstration of
learning.
Receptive Modes (listening, reading and viewing)
Comprehension: Use text-processing strategies when viewing and reading, including:
Skimming and scanning texts
Comparing content from sources
Analysing similarities and differences.

Comprehension: Use interaction and communication skills to contribute to and extend discussions
by:
Clarifying ideas
Offering explanations for a point of view
Introducing topics using agreed protocols

Grammar: Identify and describe words and word groups that represent ideas and relationships,
including main and subordinate clauses within sentences new learning area vocabulary to provide
specific meaning.
Productive Modes (speaking, writing and creating)
Text Knowledge: Plan, draft and publish texts using strategies including:
Understanding how writers innovate on text structures
Organising main ideas and supporting details using key questions or graphic organisers
Using features such as text boxes, topic sentences, home pages and subpages to aid
Navigation and usability
Editing for meaning and structure using agreed criteria.


Year 5
WHO WERE THE EXPLORERS?
Unit Overview
COMPONENTS EXPLANATION/DETAILS LEARNING
EXPERIENCES
(provide the
number)
Grammar Knowledge: Communicate intended meaning using punctuation, including:
Commas to join clauses
Accurate use of commas, question marks, capitalisation and exclamation marks within
quotation marks.

Visual Knowledge: Use visual features to enhance and clarify meaning and express and extend
ideas and information.