Overview+and+summary+of+unit+of+work

=**Assignment 2: Wiki Resources and Associated Lesson Sequence**=

by Sophie Cameron, Jeanice Corso, Natasha Groves, Melinda Stergiou and Madelon Williams

=Overview and Summary of unit of work=

Resources Used:
See Resource 1 - Introductory English Lesson Resource 2 - visual grammar Resource 3 - written grammar Resource 4 - how a multimodal text works Resource 5 - scaffolding the multimodal text

=10 Lesson Sequence=

Lesson One: Experimenting with water: liquid and solid
This lesson introduces students to two of the three states of water (solid and liquid), which are most easily recognised by students. The teacher begins the lesson by asking students what they know about water and ice, and create brianstorms on the board. Then, in groups, students examine what happens when ice is taken from the freezer and left to melt within containers. Students weigh the ice and melted water, and discover that they weigh the same. At the end of the lesson students replace their melted ice into the freezer, to show that the process is reversible. The teacher refers these processes back to the world, and discusses the amount of ice and water on the earth’s surface.

Lesson Two: Experimenting with water: liquid and gas
In this lesson students are introduced to the third state of water – vapour. This is accomplished through an experiment whereby two each group is allocated four containers with equal amounts of water. Two containers are left with their lids on; one in the shade, and the other in the sun. The remaining two containers have their lids removed; once again one placed in the shade and the other in the sun. Students record the amount of water (by weight or by measurement in mL) at set time intervals, and record their results. The teacher asks students what they think has happened to the water that disappeared from the containers without lids. Which container lost the most liquid? The class then discuss the containers with lids, and students observe that beads of water have appeared on the lid and sides of the container, and discuss why these beads are here. This helps to explain that water can turn into vapour, and then back into liquid form again. The teacher relates these processes to the water cycle.

Lesson Three: Theatre play
This lesson has students performing a Readers' Theatre play on the processes involved in the water cycle. It helps students understand that the water cycle is a continuous process involving many different components, and that the water we drink today has been around even before the dinosaurs. There is a script and list of different characters students can play [|here]. This script can be used as a guide to creating a unique class script where each child contributes to the writing and performance of. Each students is given a role and must work with their groups to create dialogue. Students will be thinking about the relationship between the elements of the water cycle (i.e. sun with water, plants with precipitation), and will write a script accordingly.

Lesson Four: Intro lesson, Narrative
This lesson uses a picture book (The Snow Flake: A Water Cycle Story) to convey content to students on how Water Cycles work in an engaging and interactive manner. It will give students the background knowledge needed to create their multimodal text on Water Cycles and ensure that they have a comprehensive understanding of the relative scientific concept. The unique nature of the text aims to provoke interest and creativity within students on the topic and move away from conventional charts and diagrams that are used to teach Water Cycles. Students are then to write a narrative story based from the perspective of the Snow Flake based on a different month of the year. To see the lesson plan, click here.

Lesson Five: Visual grammar lesson
==== In this lesson students are introduced to the visual grammar involved in creating a scientific diagram. Students explore the components of the visual grammar in a diagram of the lifecycle of a frog, which links to their previous learning. In groups, students use the lifecycle of a frog diagram to model their own water cycle diagram. Students are stimulated by photographs of various scenes within the water cycle, upon which they base their diagrams. Students are reminded that in these types of diagrams, space is used in a condensed manner, in order to show all stages of the cycle, and setting is not used in a realistic way, appearing somewhat reduced. The subject matter is presented in a balanced layout, in semi-naturalistic, and semi-scientific way, complete with labels. Movement is shown through arrow vectors. In groups, students then present their diagrams to the class. To see the lesson plan, click here. ====

Lesson Six: Written grammar lesson
This lesson focuses on teaching students the structure of writing a sequential explanation. Students will use their knowledge and understanding of the water cycle to re-arrange sentences depicting the order of the water cycle. The teacher is focusing on outcome **WS2.10** //Produces texts clearly, effectively and accurately, using the sentence structure, grammatical features and punctuation conventions of the text type//. They will mainly focus on the structure of explanations and how sequential connectives can be used to connect ideas and assist in the flow of the text. To see the lesson plan, click here.

**Lesson Seven: How multimodal texts work**
In this lesson, students are introduced to the term "multimodal" and will look at the different modes (audio, visual, linguistic, gestural and spatial) which can be used to create multimodal texts. Students will explore an Interactive Water Cycle Game which is an example of a multimodal text that uses a combination of modes (audio, visual and linguistic) to explain the process of the water cycle. Students will be given the opportunity to explore how multimodal texts work by closely looking at how the three modes used in this interactive multimodal text work together to create meaning. To see the lesson plan, click here.

** Lesson Eight: Scaffolding the multimodal text (visuals) **
In this lesson students are to draw upon their knowledge of visual literacy to begin work on what will be their final multimodal text. By asking the students to storyboard their ideas on the types of images to use in their water cycle animation they must be able to consolidate their understanding of creating meaning through the use of images. Students are to first collaborate in small groups on ideas of types of images to use and brainstorm ideas on the way their animation will look. They then use PowerPoint to create their story boards sequencing found images and writing brief explanations of why they chose those images and the meaning they are hoping to portray. To see the lesson plan, click here.

Lesson Nine: Scaffolding the multimodal text (text, voice, sound)
The students are to continue their work from the previous lesson. With their explanation texts previously written in this unit the students will use them as a basis to add text to their storyboards and to add comments to the PowerPoint on any voice overs that will be used whilst view each image. Students are to collaboratively agree upon and write the text and speech that will be used in their animations. They will then search a bank of music provided by the teacher for any music they may wish to play throughout the animation. By the end of this lesson each small group will have a complete storyboard that outlines their animation in terms of visuals, text and audio (both voice and music). They will also be able to explain their choices for their selections based on the intended meaning they are trying to create through the animation.

Lesson Ten: Creating the actual water cycle multimodal text
In this lesson, students will be working in small groups to create their own rich multimodal text to represent the water cycle. They will be applying their knowledge and skills developed in the previous nine lessons to create their own representations of the water cycle using a program called Jaycut. They will be using the story boards they developed in the previous two lessons on PowerPoint to create their short animation represeneting the process of the water cycle, incorporating the use of sound effects, visual and written texts. At the conclusion of the lesson, each group of students will take turns showing the rest of the class their short animation and will assessed by their peers and given immediate feedback.