Learning Intention:

• Social skill - To actively participate in the activities, sharing ideas and listening to other students.
• Understanding - To discuss and write about people who are extraordinary because they have made a difference in other people's lives.

This learning module focuses on the following questions:

What makes an ordinary person, extraordinary?

What grammatical and structural choices do writers make in information texts?

What reading strategies improve my comprehension?

How do you give constructive feedback?

How do you write an information report?

Think about someone you know or know of who has made a difference in people's lives or names of ordinary people who have done something extraordinary. It could be a famous person in history, science, education, medicine or politics etc. It could be a friend, parent, grandparent, teacher, coach, leader etc.

View the short YouTube clip Ordinary people doing extraordinary things.

You can surf the internet for inspiration. Bookmark any images or video clips you find as you might be able to use them in your published information text.

On your part of the placemat write down examples of what you found.

Share your ideas in your group. In a circle time noisy round robin share your ideas with the class. After sharing, discuss who you think you may select to research.

Comment: Write 2 - 3 sentences telling us who you are thinking about researching and why. Add a link to some interesting information about the person.

Introduction_to_Circle_Time_Handout.pdf

Learning Intention:

• Social skills - To actively research and discuss your article. To share and listen to ideas being shared.
• Understanding - To understand what makes an ordinary person extraordinary.

Each group will have one article to read. Individually read through the article. As you read the text, think about what makes Eddie Mabo an ordinary person and what you think makes him extraordinary. To do this effectively, you will have to use the inferring reading strategy.

Inferring is when you use evidence from the text to work out its deeper meaning and what is not stated directly by the author/illustrator. Complete this chart.

• What the text says (evidence) about Eddie Mabo
• What I infer about Eddie Mabo

Discuss your inferences in your group, finding evidence in the text, and also inferring what you learnt about Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander culture and the author's point of view about Mabo.

Move to your new group. There should be 3 students in your group, and each person should have read a different text. Share the main points of your article, comparing and contrasting what the three texts say and finding evidence in the text to support your opinion.

As a group create a concept map that demonstrates how Eddie Mabo was an ordinary man who did an extraordinary thing. In a gallery walk share your concept map with the class.

Consider the following questions in your discussion:

• Is the information consistent?
• Are the sources credible?
• Are the authors' points of view similar or different?

Comment: Post a comment to Community (on Scholar) sharing one aspect of your discussion. Comment on 2-3 other students' comments. Start with @Name so they know you are commenting on their comment.

Lets_Talk_Mabo.pdf

LA_2-_Eddie_Mabo__the_man_who_changed_Australia.docx

Fig. 2: Eddie Mabo

Learning Intention:

• Understanding - To develop your vocabulary and use of spelling strategies.

Scan the three texts about Eddie Mabo again. Scanning involves moving your eyes quickly down a page searching for key words, facts or phrases. In this activity you are scanning for words that you don’t know the meaning of and/or would find difficult to spell. Add these words to the “Interesting Word Chart’ in your spelling journal. Add more words as you complete this module, identifying spelling strategies to help you learn the words. Work with a peer and do partner testing. Remember to try and use some of these words in your writing.

Comment: In Community, share a definition and a spelling strategy for a word from your ‘Interesting Words’ file. Sometimes you can have more than one spelling strategy for a word. Add an alternative spelling strategy for some of the words posted by other students.

Fig. 3: Reading

Learning Intention:

• Social skills - To actively participate in Think/Pair/Shares. To contribute to online discussions.
• Understanding - To create a list of qualities that define extraordinary people.

As a class watch the TED talk - Hero: A lesson from a volunteer firefighter (Mark Bezos).

In a Think/Pair/Share, discuss what do you think the message is? What qualities do extraordinary people possess?

Share your idea with the class. The teacher will record these on the board.

Look back at the person you are thinking about as the focus of your research; do they possess these qualities?

Comment: Post a comment detailing the message of the TED talk. Comment on 2 - 3 students' comments. List the qualities. Try not to double up on ones that have been listed by other students. Do you disagree with any listed? Discuss online with the student.

Fig. 4: Mark Bezos (TED Talk)

Learning Intention:

• Social skills - To actively participate in class activities. To share ideas with classmates.
• Understanding - To question people's motivation in helping others.

Read through The use of force by William Carlos Williams.

After reading, use post-it notes to write down your first reactions. Share these with the class in a noisy round robin.

"The use of force" is a short story by the American author William Carlos Williams first published in 1938.

The story is narrated in first person by a doctor, who is answering a house visit to see a sick girl. Fearing that she may have diphtheria, the doctor decides to check her throat. However, she refused to open her mouth and the doctor uses force to restrain her and examine her throat with a spoon, which makes the girl mad. The doctor finds that, against her own self-interest, the girl has hidden the symptoms of diphtheria from her parents and the doctor.

What do you think this story has to do with ordinary people?

Fig. 5: Short Stories by William Carlos Williams based on his real life experiences as a doctor

Read A bed for the night by Bertold Brecht.

Again after reading, use post it notes to write down your first reactions. Share these with the class in a noisy round robin.What do you think this story has to do with ordinary people? In a circle time discuss your thoughts and ideas.

In pairs look at the following questions.

• Would you help someone who doesn't want to be helped?
• Do you think extraordinary people are always well liked?
• Do you think ordinary people who do extraordinary things do it for fame?

Using the questions above as a guide think of 2 - 3 questions of your own. Share with your partner. Together negotiate, edit and create 8 questions. Find another pair, share your questions. Again negotiate and edit until you have the best 8 questions. Write these in the lotus diagram.

Find another pair. Nominate one person to be the scribe, another the interviewer and the other two will be the interviewees. The interviewer asks questions, the scribe records the interviewees' answers on the lotus diagram. Repeat this until each person has attempted to answer the questions.

In a circle time share your questions with the class. Discuss the answers.

Comment: Pick one question. Write a PEC paragraph summarising you thoughts and ideas. Read other students' paragraphs and comment on at least one, giving them written feedback. Start with @Name.

The_Use_of_Force.docx

A_BED_FOR_THE_NIGHT.docx

LOTUS_DIAGRAM.docx

Lotus_Diagram_Information_Sheet.pdf

Learning Intention:

• Social skills - To read and respond to other students' blog posts.
• Understanding - To listen and respond to one or more TED talks.

Watch a data set of TED talks.

What I saw in the war Janine di Giovanni

How I built a windmill William Kamkwamba

The tribes we lead Seth Godin

On a complicated hero Samantha Power

Mother and daughter doctor-heroes Hawa Abdi and Deqo Mohamed

Why I'm rowing across the Pacific Roz Savage

Teach every child about food Jamie Oliver

Dance to change the world Mallika Sarabhai

As you watch them, record some notes in your book. You can use the following questions/statements to help support your writing:

• What video/s are you talking about?
• What was your gut reaction to this talk?
• What did the person talk about?
• How did they demonstrate an ordinary person who led an extraordinary life?
• What did people do?
• Do you think they were extraordinary?
• What examples of giving were shown?
• What did it make you think about?
• How did it make you feel?
• What can you do?
• Do these videos inspire you to learn something new?
• What image can you find that symbolises the meaning of the talk?

Comment: After watching, write a blog-type post that is a personal reflection about your TED Talk. Read other students' posts and comment on anything that you find interesting in their comments.

Fig. 6: Mother and Daughter Doctor Heroes (TED Talks)

Learning Intention:

• Understanding - To write an information report about an ordinary person who has led an extraordinary life.

Project: Write an informative report on an ordinary person who has lived an extraordinary life because of the ways that he/she has made a positive impact on other people’s lives. Draw on your background knowledge and use text structure tools to create elements, including a reference element in your draft.

Check the Work Request in your Notifications. Click on this link to open the “Untitled Work” in Creator. Then, change the title, and begin a first draft. Go to About This Work => Project => Description for further project information.

For what you need to do in order to write a good informative/explanatory text, go to Feedback => Reviews => Rubric. Keep the Rubric open and refer to it as you write.

Continue to work on your draft as you complete the Community updates that follow. You can go into Creator at any time, add notes to your elements in the Structure Tool, add new elements and start to elaborate on the notes by turning them into sentences and paragraphs.

When you are ready to submit, click “Submit Draft” below the work. This is the version of your work that will be sent to others for review.

Fig. 7: Cathy Freeman is a famous athlete who is involved in many charitable works, including being Ambassador of the Australian Indigenous Education Foundation.

Learning Intention:

• Social skills - To comment and to participate in conversations on Scholar.
• Understanding - To use the reading strategies of inferring, summarising and synthesising to research information.

Research the person who is the focus of your information/ explanatory text. Conduct a web search. Look for books in the library. First, scan each text as you find it. Then read it closely and identify and infer the person’s qualities that have made their life extraordinary. Make sure you summarise the main points and synthesise information from more than one source. Record your notes on a mind map or create an outline. For more information on note taking skills, go to the Note taking Tool.

Summarising is a reading strategy in which you identify the main ideas or say what is important in a text in your own words.

Synthesising involves combining ideas in one text or from two or more texts. It involves putting the pieces of information together, including your inferences, to see them in a new way.

Comment: Share your progress on your research by writing a comment on one of the qualities of your focus person and the evidence that you used to infer this quality. If possible, make your inference based on synthesising information from two or more sources. Comment on other students’ posts, noting similarities and differences.

Fig. 8: John Flynn founded the Royal Flying Doctor Service.

Learning Intention:

• Social skills - To comment and to participate in conversations on Scholar.
• Understanding - To understand how to cite references correctly.

As you research any information about your focus person, make sure you record the references for all the sources you use. Look at the reference to check that the information is reliable and credible.

See examples of how to cite your references, Use this file as a model for citing references for your own information/explanatory text in Creator.

Comment: In Community, post any questions you have about citing references or working in Creator. Post a response if you think you can answer another student’s question.

Fig. 9: Citation Needed

Learning Intention:

• Social skills - To comment and to participate in conversations on Scholar.
• Understanding - To identify the structure and language features of an information text and their effects, and to evaluate the effectiveness of Eddie Mabo, the man who changed Australia.

In this activity you focus on the review criteria and learn more about how to write an effective information text. Go to Feedback -> Reviews -> tab in creator. Have a look at the review criteria that will be used to assess the quality of your work.

Complete the Structure, and Language Features retrieval chart. Refer to Eddie Mabo, the man who changed Australia, to analyse the effects of the author’s choices

Complete the survey Eddie Mabo - Text, structure and language features.

Comment: Do you think the author of the online biography of Mabo has written an effective information text? Why or why not? Post one idea you have and comment on the posts of other students, stating whether you agree or disagree with them and why.

Fig. 10: Eddie Mabo came from Mer - also called Murray Island in the Torres Strait.

Fig. 11: Catherine Helen Spence was a poor Scottish immigrant who was an Australian author, teacher, journalist, politician and leading suffragist. 

Learning Intention:

• Understanding - To use transition words effectively to create cohesion in your writing.

You can create cohesion in your writing through transition words. Cohesion means that the text is unified, has a logical sequence and there are links between and within paragraphs. To learn more about transition words, look at ‘Transitions for Different Purposes’. Try inserting some of the examples in the Mabo biography. With a peer, read the paragraphs again with your insertions and discuss if they are effective. Are they subtle or obvious transitions? Try using some subtle transitions in Creator to create cohesion in your writing.

Comment: You have now completed all the activities on how to write an information text. Post any question, comments, requests for help/advice or questions you would like answered about writing an information text. See if you can help your peers by posting comments to answer their questions.

Transitions_for_different_purposes.docx

Learning Intention:

• Understanding - To understand the phases of draft, feedback, revision and publication in the Creator space of Scholar.

In the Creator space of Scholar, you go through the following writing phases:

1. Draft: This is where you write the first draft of your work.
2. Feedback: You will then be asked to give feedback on works that your peers have written.
3. Revision: Next, you will receive feedback from your peers on your work. This feedback will help you to improve your work when you rewrite it.
4. Publication: Finally, your teacher will review your work and may decide to publish it to your profile page in Community. Once published, other members of your class community will be able to read and comment on your work.

Now, go to the Creator space. Do not create a new work - click on the Notification that will take you to the blank work that has been created for the class project. Have a look around:

• Mouse over the items in the toolbar to see the different things you can do.
• Open the Tools area. In the Info tab, change the title of your work to the title of what you will be writing about. You can also include a subtitle if you wish.
• Open the Feedback area. Have a look at the rubric - this is how the quality of your text will be measured.

See a short tutorial on how to use the Creator Workspace.

Comment: Do you have any questions about how Scholar works? Make a comment in this update. If you think you have an answer to another student's question, please answer it - be sure to name the student you are replying to in your comment.

Fig. 12: A wise writer

Learning Intention:

Understanding - To understand how to use the review criteria and check in Creator in Scholar.

Some things to do as you create the draft of your work:

• Have a look at the review criteria to see what an excellent piece of writing should be like. (Creator -> Feedback -> Reviews -> Criteria)
• Use the Checker to see whether there is anything you would like to do to improve your writing. The checker does not tell you whether you are right or wrong, it makes change suggestions. You have to decide whether these suggestions are helpful or not. (Creator -> Feedback -> Checker)

Scholar saves your work automatically every 15 seconds, so there is no need to save your work as you go. When you have finished, go ahead and save just to be sure you catch your last 15 seconds of work.

See short videos on Starting a Work and Checker in Scholar.

Comment: If you have a question about how to do something in Scholar, comment on this update. Keep looking here for questions from fellow students and respond if you know the answer. Reading questions and comments might help with a question that you want to ask - the answer might already have been given!

Fig. 10: Ordinary Australians come from many different backgrounds.

Learning Intention:

• Understanding - To understand how to include multimodal elements in a text.

Information texts often benefit from having media included. Your writing may benefit from including:

• Images - Be sure to include a caption with a figure number so you can refer to the image in the text if you need to. Also at the end of the caption, name the source. For example: Fig. 7: The Golden Gate Bridge. (Source: ins)
• Web links - So you can refer people to web sources for additional information
• Tables - Be sure you include a table number so you can refer to your table in the text. Include a caption, with the source. For example: Table 3: Population in Different Years. (Source: Author, Title, Publisher, Year.)
• You can also add videos, audio and other files that you might think are relevant to your text.

Fig. 14: Use multimedia to add more information to your writing

Learning Intention:

• Social skills - To comment and to participate in conversations on Scholar.
• Understanding - To understand what is helpful or constructive feedback.

There are three kinds feedback you can give, but only one kind is really helpful:

1. Unhelpful: Critical feedback, which says things are wrong with a work but the person giving the feedback does not suggest how the work might be improved. This feedback may even be hurtful if it uses language that is harsh.
2. Unhelpful: ‘Cheerleader’ feedback, which says things like ‘wow this is great’, but doesn’t explain how or why the reviewer thinks it’s great, or make additional suggestions so the writer can improve their text.
3. Helpful: Constructive feedback, which sympathetically explains the reasons for a judgment and suggests changes that the creator might make to improve their work.

See Reviewing a Work in Scholar.

Comment: Imagine you’ve made a big mistake! What kind of feedback would you find more or less helpful?

• My mistake (imagine what):
• Here is an example unhelpful feedback on this mistake:
• Here is an example of helpful or constructive feedback:

Fig. 15: Effects of feedback

Learning Intention:

• Social skills - To give quality constructive feedback.
• Understanding - To understand what is helpful or constructive feedback.

Look back at the feedback you gave in Update 5. Would this help someone improve? Respond in a Think/Pair/Share.

As a class read through the following sentence:

My Grandmother is a pretty extraordinary lady.

What feedback could you give to improve this sentence? On a post it note write down your advice. Place it on the whiteboard.

The teacher will share the advice. As a class edit the sentence to make it better.

In pairs, read through 3 of the following:

Rosa Parks was tired after a full day at work when she boarded the bus on December 1, 1955. She was so tired that she refused to obey the driver's order to give up her seat in the coloured section for a white person. She was arrested for civil disobedience.

Todd Beamer is a pretty extraordinary person. He and other passengers on the United Airlines Flight 93 realised their plane had been taken over by terrorists and they calmly, courageously fought back.

Would you ever set yourself on fire for something your believe in? Tunisian street vendor Mohammed Bouazizi did just this. His death helped to overthrow the Tunisian dictator. What a man!

Candy Lightner's daughter was killed by a drunk driver. He got away with it. At the time, there was no legal consequence for driving while drunk. Candy transformed American attitudes to drunk driving.

Tank Man is an anonymous man. We don't know his real identity and probably never will. But that man stood in front of tanks in Tiananmen Square in China in 1989. He did this the day after China's bloody crackdown on student protesters. We will never ever ever ever know who this man is but he is an extraordinary man who will forever be recognised as a symbol to government oppression.

J.K. Rowling wrote the Harry Potter books. Why is this extraordinary? Because she inspired a new generation of readers. At the time she was struggling with money after being divorced and a single mum. Now she is known for creating a hero in Harry Potter.

Frank Willis was an ordinary security guard working for the White House in 1972. He was an ordinary man doing his ordinary job and he brought down the President of the United States of America.

Ryan White died from AIDS at age 18. He wasn't gay, he wasn't sexually promiscuous, he wasn't a drug user. He contracted AIDS during a block transfusion. White died fighting for fair and equal treatment for people with AIDS.

Lilly Ledbetter retried from Goodyear after 20 years of service in 1998. After retiring, Ledbetter sued the company for paying her less money than the men she worked with. She didn't win but she did begin a movement and finally 11 years later in 2009 a law was created the 'Lily Ledbetter Fair Pay Act' where it became law to protect women in the workforce and to give them the same pay for the same work. Seems like good sense doesn't it?!

Use post it notes to give feedback. What are some helpful suggestions you can write? Share your ideas with the class.

Fig 16: What is constructive feedback?

Learning Intention:

• Social skills - To comment and to participate in conversations on Scholar.
• Understanding - To understand how to use the Annotations tool in Creator in Scholar.

Scholar also allows you to make annotations, which are comments that are tied to particular words groups of words in a text. You’ll find the annotation tool at Creator -> Feedback -> Annotations. To make an annotation, first you need to highlight the part of the text that you are annotating and click “Create an Annotation”.

There are two kinds of annotations:

• Make a Comment
• Suggest a Change: (and select the kind of change)

As soon as you make an annotation, the creator gets a notification, and they can respond to you if they want to discuss your comment or suggestion further.

For more information, see Reviewing a Work.

When you have finished your annotations and review, go ahead and submit your feedback.

Comment: Take one of the change types in the Annotation tool. Choose one and explain what it means. Some words you may wish to look up in an online dictionary such as dictionary.com. Look at the explanations that have already been given by other members of the class, and try to explain a change suggestion that has not been explained by someone else already.

Fig. 17: Annotations enable you to analyse a text at the word, sentence and paragraph levels

Learning Intention:

• Social skills - To give quality constructive annotations.
• Understanding - To understand what are helpful or constructive annotations.

In pairs you will be given one of the following words:

• temperature
• size
• scary
• speed
• happy
• sad
• angry

Look at the example of 'said'.

On a concept map, using your brain and the thesaurus, write down as many words as you can that mean the same.

Swap your sheet with another pair. Add more words to their list. Swap a third time, adding more words again.

When you have your original sheet back, place the words in order of strong to weak. Meet with a pair who had the same word as you. Were they similar or different?

Comment: Refer back to Update 16. What words could you change to improve the writing?

Fig. 19: Words are powerful

Learning Intention:

• Understanding - To demonstrate, discuss and understand what is constructive and good feedback.

Comment: Individually think about why peer feedback can be helpful and important. Write a PEC paragraph summarising your ideas. Read other students' paragraphs and comment on at least one.

Fig. 19: Is honest feedback good feedback?

Learning Intention:

• Understanding - To provide constructive feedback to your peers.

Check your Notifications for Review Requests: You have received a Review Request. Click on this link to take you to the work you have been assigned to review. Go to Feedback => Reviews => Review Work. Rate the work on each criterion and explain why you gave the work that rating.

Submit your feedback once it is finished at About This Work => Project => Status. You will not be able to submit your review until all requirements set by you teacher have been met. These may include a review, annotations, and/or a publication recommendation.

Fig. 20: Giving feedback in Scholar

Learning Intention:

• Understanding - To understand how to use feedback to improve your writing.

Revision is a very important phase in the writing process. By now, you will have written a first draft and probably also, reviewed others’ drafts. This will mean that you have had to think about the review criteria again while you looked at other people’s work. This might give you some additional ideas about how you can improve your work in this new version. You will also receive feedback from your peers, which should mostly be helpful, if, in fact, it is constructive feedback.

You will receive a notification when feedback is available on your work.

1. Read your reviews carefully. (Creator -> Feedback -> Reviews -> Results)
2. Read your annotations carefully. (Creator -> Feedback -> Annotations).
3. Look again at the review criteria that your peer’s used to evaluate your work. (Creator -> Feedback -> Reviews -> Criteria.)
4. Next, revise your writing, taking on board as much feedback as you can. You don’t have to agree with everything your reviewers suggest. However, at the very least, you need to take their suggestions seriously.
5. Now write a self-review of your latest version. (Creator -> Feedback -> Reviews -> Review). How have you improved your work in this version? Which reviewer comments and annotator change suggestions did you take on board? How were they useful? Which ones did you not take on board, and why? When you have finished your self-review, submit (at the bottom of the Review area).
6. When you have finished revising your work and you think it is ready for your teacher to check and perhaps publish, submit it.

See The Revision Phase for more information.

Comment: What did you find most interesting or helpful about giving and getting feedback.

Fig. 21: Writing a self-review

Learning Intention:

• Social skills - To comment and participate in conversations on Scholar.
• Understanding - To identify what is successful writing.

In Community, read some of the published works of your peers.

Comment: Write about the most interesting thing you learned from reading other people’s writing, or the aspect of their writing that you enjoyed most. Mention the creator and title of the other work, and make a link to that page so the person reading your comment can jump to the page quickly.

Fig. 22: Through publication, many more people can read your work.