Novel Study:

War of the Worlds by H. G. Welles

Achievement Objective / Conceptual Understanding:
Level 5 NZ Curriculum

Integrate sources of information, processes and strategies purposefully

and confidently to identify, form, and express increasingly sophisticated
ideas.
Key aspects of learning:

Year Level: Year 10

Unit Duration: 25 26 lessons

Processes and strategies:

1. Selecting and reading text for enjoyment and personal fulfilment
2. Recognises, understands and considers the connections between oral, written and visual language
3. Integrates sources of information and prior knowledge purposefully and confidently to make sense of
increasingly varied and complex tasks
4. Selects and uses appropriate processing and comprehension strategies with confidence
5. Think critically about texts with understanding and confidence
6. Monitors, self-evaluates and describes progress, articulating learning with confidence.
Speaking, writing, presenting:
7. Uses an increasing understanding of the connections between oral, written, and visual language when
creating texts.
8. Creates a range of increasingly varied and complex texts by integrating sources of information and
processing strategies
9. Seeks feedback and makes changes to texts to improve clarity, meaning and effect
10. Is reflective about the production of own texts: monitors and self-evaluates progress, articulating learning
with confidence.
Working towards:
NCEA 1.1 (AS90849) Show understanding of specified
aspect(s) of studied written text(s), using supporting
evidence.

Values:

Innovation, inquiry and curiosity

Community and Participation

Integrity

Strands:
Listening, Reading, Viewing:
Integrate sources of information, processes, and strategies purposefully and confidently to identify, form, and
express increasingly sophisticated ideas.

Purposes and audiences

o Show an understanding of how texts are shaped for different purposes and audiences.

Ideas
o Show a developed understanding of ideas within, across and beyond texts.

Language Features
o Show an understanding of how language features are used for effect within and across texts.

Structure
o Show an understanding of a range of structures.
Speaking, Writing, Presenting:

Purposes and audiences

o Show an understanding of how to shape texts for different audiences and purposes.

Ideas
o Select, develop and communicate purposeful ideas on a range of topics.

Language Features
o Select and use a range of language features appropriately showing an understanding of their effects.

Structure
o Organise texts, using a range of appropriate, effective structures.
Key competencies:

Thinking
o Using creative, critical, and metacognitive processes to make sense of information, experiences, and
ideas.

Using language, symbols and texts

o Working with and making meaning of the codes in which knowledge is expressed
o Understanding symbolic systems for representing and communicating information, experiences, and
ideas

Relating to others
o listen actively, recognise different points of view, negotiate, and share ideas
o Awareness of how words and actions affect others

Participating and contributing

o Capacity to contribute appropriately as a group member, to make connections with others, and to create
opportunities for others in the group

Assessment:
Formative:
Assessment through feedback in class, completion of learning activities, participation in group work,
development of written essay style.
Summative:
Final exam in November

Literacy Learning Progression: Year 10

Reading
When students at this level read, respond to, and think
critically about texts, they:
1. find, select, and use a range of texts for
specific learning purposes in different areas of
the curriculum, making decisions, as they read,
about the usefulness of the text for the
purpose (e.g., by using a variety of criteria to
evaluate the readability, accuracy, relevance,
and status of the information and ideas they
find);
2. read flexibly to find and/or understand
information that is not readily accessible
and/or that is organised in unfamiliar ways;
3. have control of a repertoire of comprehension
strategies that they use deliberately and
flexibly, depending on their purpose for
reading;
4. monitor their understanding as it develops
during their reading, and adjust their strategies
to address any comprehension problems;
5. use strategies to analyse ideas and information
and to reflect critically on the meaning they
are gaining from their reading;
6. evaluate writers purposes and consider how
they have used structure and language to suit
these purposes.
They draw on knowledge and skills that include:
7. decoding words, including unfamiliar words,
quickly and automatically;
8. applying their knowledge of the features of a
wide variety of text types and text forms and
of how these text types and forms are used in
different subjects and curriculum areas;
9. recognising different grammatical
constructions (e.g., constructions that express
cause and effect) and using this knowledge to
understand dense and complex text;
10. having a large vocabulary that is connected to
their own knowledge of the world and that
includes academic, subject-specific, and
technical terms;
11. using strategies such as skimming, scanning,
note- taking, annotating, mapping, coding
information, and rephrasing in order to locate,
evaluate, analyse, and summarise information
and ideas within texts and across a range of
texts.

Writing
The texts that they create often include:
1. a complex range of ideas expressed concisely
(e.g., in short answers);
2. description or explanation of concepts,
processes, phenomena, theories, principles,
beliefs, and opinions (their own and other
peoples);
3. specialised vocabulary that relates to a range
of topics within and across curriculum areas,
including vocabulary that expresses abstract
concepts;
4. a variety of grammatical constructions in more
complex and varied sentences and with greater
paragraph elaboration;
5. features and structures that are appropriate to
specific text types, such as instructions and
arguments;
6. rhetorical patterns, such as: classifying;
comparing and contrasting; defining; and
describing cause and effect;
7. clearly marked sections and paragraphs that
use headings and subheadings (where
appropriate) and that also use other organising
devices, such as topic sentences.
By the end of year 10, students use language and text
forms flexibly to meet the demands of different
curriculum areas. They interpret the requirements of a
writing task and select an appropriate process for their
purpose.
8. select from their repertoire of planning
strategies according to their purpose;
9. deliberately use their writing to develop their
ideas;
10. use their writing to explain concepts,
processes, phenomena, theories, principles,
beliefs, and opinions (their own and other
peoples) that are relevant to the curriculum
task;
11. use language, text structures, and media that
are appropriate for their purpose;
12. understand a complex notion of audience (e.g.,
the teacher and an imagined audience) and
know how to write for such an audience,
selecting appropriate voice, tone, and register;
13. review their text to ensure that it meets its
purpose (e.g., by identifying and addressing
problems, adding detail, or modifying tone);
14. use a range of strategies for editing and
proofreading their text to check meaning,
accuracy, legibility, and conformity to any
expected standards.

Learning Outcome (WALT)

Use prior knowledge to

predict what might
happen in a text
Identify how I might
act/react in a challenging
situation
Develop understanding of
how technology has
changed the way we
access information
(empathic understanding
of character)

Read texts critically

Identify relevant
information in a text
Enhance our vocabulary
by using new words in
context
Develop our writing skills
by practicing different
sentence styles
Evaluate text for accuracy
Work with peers to
develop understanding
Answer questions using
full sentences

Suggested Activities
Pre-reading:
Imagine and predict:

War of the Worlds title activity

o Students explore what the title suggests the book may be
about

News as it happens
o Students reflect on how news is accessed in their
experience
o What media do you use to access news? What "breaking
news" have you seen? How did you react to the initial
news? What / where did you go to find out more
information?
o How might this have been different if there was no
internet? No TV? No cell phones?
o Examples: September 11, Christchurch Earthquakes,
Boxing Day tsunami
Radio play:

Context:
o 1939 what do you know?
What did people do at night time? How did they entertain
themselves? How do you think people would react to a
radio play?
o After listening:
Why do you think people reacted so strongly?

Orson Wells: War of the Worlds (1938)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xs0K4ApWl4g
Reading:
Each chapter has it's own close reading guide with literacy based
activities focussed on development of comprehension skills.
Chapter 1 2

Cloze activity

True / false statements

Proof reading for factual information

Skills
(Practical and thinking)

Resources

Student
workbook
Chapter 1 - 2

Chapter 3 4

Cloze activity

Memory test

Choose correct word

True / false statements

Identifying correct word

Chapter 5 6

Cloze activity

Writing

Re-ordering information

Describing speech

Student
workbook
Chapter 3 4

Chapter 7 8

Student
workbook

Student
workbook
Chapter 5 6

Relating to self and others

Prediction
Thinking
Listening with understanding and
empathy
Gather data through all senses

Vocabulary building
Recall of knowledge and plot
Evaluation
Thinking flexibly
Striving for accuracy
Vocabulary building
Working with peers
Sentence building / syntax
Evaluation
Persisting
Thinking interdependently
Vocabulary building
Sentence building
Developing "explanation" skills
Recall / logic
Thinking and communicating with
accuracy and precision
Vocabulary building


Cloze activity

Explaining character actions

Questions

Questions for recall

Choose best answer

Chapter 9 10

Cloze activity

Match sentence beginning / endings

Correct endings to sentences

Character questions
Chapter 11 12

Cloze activity

Complete sentences

Choosing correct word

Chapter 13 15

Cloze activity

Perspective of character

Choose best word

What happens next?

Gather evidence about

key aspects of a written
text
Develop good study
practice
Take structured notes for
study purposes
Identify key elements of a
text

Amazing note taking:

At the end of each chapter, students complete "Amazing note taking"
chart for chapter (see unit resources)
Student led need to be overt regarding purpose of note taking ie to
provide notes to study from at later date
Character:

Which characters were in this section of the text? What character trait
did they show?

What was the nature of their relationship to other characters? What

was the motivation for this behaviour?
Setting:

Relating through:
o Genre:
Codes and conventions of science fiction (remember that sci-fi
was not a recognised genre when this text was written)
o Time period:
Develop understanding by comparing 21st Century and 19th
Century technology, particularly social media / word of mouth
and access to news.
o Place: (Location)
Map in front of book
Style:

Writing style

Development of text through language features

o Students can develop paragraphing for language features by
accessing scaffolded language feature explanation sheet
o Teacher to provide additional language features as appropriate
eg Pathetic Fallacy (Chapter 5)
Theme:

Chapter 7 8

Student
workbook
Chapter 9 10

Student
workbook
Chapter 11 12

Student
workbook
Chapter 13 - 15

"Amazing note
taking" as
relevant to
chapter.

Reflection, developing
understanding and empathy
Answering with full sentences
Recall
Sentence building
Vocabulary building
Sentence building
Recall
Understanding character
relationships
Vocabulary building
Sentence building
Recall
Vocabulary building
Prediction
Developing understanding and
empathy
Sentence structure
Recall
Thinking flexibly
Striving for accuracy
Developing "explanation" skills
Applying analysis to text
Synthesising information
Thinking interdependently
Remaining open to continuous
learning
Questioning and problem posing
Thinking about thinking
(metacognition)
Persisting

Understand what the

question is asking
Write SEXY paragraphs

Summative assessment

Understanding main themes (see teacher guide) and discovering

where these are developed in text

Character:
How character shows the theme, how/why character reacts to
theme, quotes to identify theme
Assessment: Formative
Breaking down essay questions

Students use previous exam questions to understand assessment

criteria; what the question is asking; how to answer the question

Students create an 'essay map' to assist in answering questions.

Peer review of essay map and plan

SEXY Paragraphs also on powerpoint

Write essay for homework email to teacher

Peer review of anonymous work in groups

Assessment: Summative

Part of formal school exam period

Paragraphing
powerpoint
Previous exam
questions

Summative
Exam: Response
to texts

Structured essay writing