Year 8 English Unit Plan

Autobiography / Biography
Content

Teaching and Learning Activities

Key ideas:
-Each person has their own
unique story
-A reader/ viewer can be
positioned using a variety
of techniques
-Auto / bio are an
expression / reflection of a
human experience
-this text type has
elements of chronological
structure and are retell /
recount

Introductory activities could include: getting to know you games / activities, surveys,
similarities and differences, family histories, lists- things I likethings I hatethings
I think are funny.favourite films favourite foods. Things Im good at.things I
need to improve

Language

Students to examine a variety of autobiographical / biographical extracts and

consider who the potential audience/ audiences might be and how language might
be used to appeal to that group. Student are to examine the idea that everyone has
their own unique story and engage with others in a variety of ways to share that
story.

Language of interaction
*Understand how
conventions of speech
adopted by communities
influence the identities of
people in those
communities (ACELA1541)
*Understand how
rhetorical devices are used
to persuade and how
different layers of meaning
are developed through the
use of metaphor, irony and
parody (ACELA1542)
Expressing and
developing ideas
*Recognise that
vocabulary choices
contribute to the

Curriculum Links

ACARA links
embedded in all
tasks
ACELA1540
ACELA1544
ACELA1549
ACELY1732

ACELA1545

ACELT1767
Individual human stories occur all the time and some are more interesting appealing
than other for particular groups. Students are asked to rate their engagement with
an extract and consider reasons why the extract resonates with them or why it
might resonate with other demographic groups.
Students are to examine a variety of biographical extracts and consider the validity
or bias that the author might attribute to the text. Students are also to consider the
language of power and how a single perspective may not always be the only
perspective. How might individual viewers of an instance describe the event
differently- e.g witness statements to an accident, different perspective of a
schoolyard fight from the victim/ perpetrator and witnesses, how might the landing
of Captain Cook be viewed differently by first Australians, the letters from Gallipoli
soldiers and the reports by Army officers

ACELA1766
ACELT1626
ACELT1628

ACELT1630

specificity, abstraction and

style of texts (ACELA1547)

Literature
Literature and context
*Explore the ways that
ideas and viewpoints in
literary texts drawn from
different historical, social
and cultural contexts may
reflect or challenge the
values of individuals and
groups (ACELT1626)
*Explore the
interconnectedness of
Country and Place, People,
Identity and Culture in
texts including those by
Aboriginal and Torres Strait
Islander authors
(ACELT1806)
Examining literature
*Recognise, explain and
analyse the ways literary
texts draw on readers
knowledge of other texts
and enable new
understanding and
appreciation of aesthetic
qualities (ACELT1629)
Creating literature
*Create literary texts that
draw upon text structures
and language features of
other texts for particular
purposes and effects
(ACELT1632)

Literacy

Students to examine how a text can position a viewer/ reader/ listener and the
devices used to create a response eg amuse, create exaggeration, understatement,
hyperbole, irony, parody, innuendo..
ACELY1736
Students to explore, write and evaluate language that creates past, present and
future tense
Students create posters, displays, surveys. to share information about themselves
and gather information about their peers. Students to examine what is private and
what is public information and how particularly social media is blurring the lines
between the two

ACELY1738

Create a list of personal metaphors eg if I was an animal Id be a .because.

Use the internet to compile a interesting facts about a range of historical / known
figures
Build vocabulary by allocating character traits to yourself and peers.
Assessment task- Write a recount of an event to remember of personal significance
that engages a reader / listener creating imagery through language
Assessment task Create a multi modal biography
Assessment task- Create an auto biography in three chapters that recounts events in
your life as if you were looking back from the age of 70.

ACELA1548

Interacting with others

*Plan, rehearse and deliver
presentations, selecting
and sequencing
appropriate content,
including multimodal
elements, to reflect a
diversity of viewpoints
(ACELY1731)
Creating texts
*Experiment with text
structures and language
features to refine and
clarify ideas to improve the
effectiveness of students
own texts (ACELY1810)