In this activity students constructing a 3D paper model of The Globe (template on website), reading some information on a timeline and the audience, atmosphere and amenities, and then answering set questions about how the theatre affected performance of Shakespearean plays. I have made reference to Twelfth Night, but you can use this activity for any other play.

Powerpoint lesson. Critical literacy perspective - reader positioning etc. I had segments of the doco in each of the slides but didn't write down what sections to play (ie. 0:41:32-0:56:12) so you will have to figure this out yourself, sorry!

YEAR 9 SOSE This is a mini-lesson and activity sheet based on the environmental concept of 'food miles' - a term used to measure the distance travelled by food products between production and consumption. Calculators required!

Fun, up-to-date teaching resources for modernising Shakespeare. Multimedia lesson includes video and audio. This activity involves students watching a TED talk by hip-hop artist Akala, who highlights links between Shakespeare and hip-hop. Students answer a few questions about this talk, then watch another video - a fictional rap battle between Shakespeare and Dr Seuss. Students then compose their own rap verse (as Shakespeare) to 'speak back' to Thing One and Thing Two.

This is an activity where students have 20 seconds to persuade the teacher to buy any item in their possession (hat, pencil, iPod etc). The teacher will then reward the winning student with a fake million dollar note. This activity helped students to overcome nerves for their final speech, and it encouraged creativity and spontaneity. You will need to add in your own photo to the powerpoint, or just delete my head and use the clip art.

This is a basic resource that can be used for documentary viewing. I used it for a Year 11 class who were learning how documentaries are constructed versions of reality. It must be used after specific scaffolding in terms of camera angles, shot types and sizes, colour choices etc. I used this for Super Size Me but it is equally applicable to any other biased documentary.

Year 10 English Unit and lesson overview with resources built around teaching students to be critical readers of media, including summative assessment task. Focus on Muslims as depicted in the media, using documentary Reel Bad Arabs as a parent text.

This ranking activity is designed to get students thinking and discussing the definition of poetry. (It is very difficult to define!) I used it in a Year 9 class (14-15 year old students) with great success. Use the powerpoint first and discuss the meanings of each quote then allow the students 10-15 minutes to arrrange and discuss their quotes as a group, then share responses with the class. As students completed the activity, I toured the room and challenged their arrangements of the quotes to engage higher order thinking. A great introductory activity for a poetry unit.

Hotel Rwanda is a film based on the true story of the 1994 Rwandan genocide. This slideshow introduces the background and context of the genocide and can be used as an effective introduction to the movie.

This is a lesson using Act 1, Scene 1 and Act 2, Scene 3 from Shakespeare's Twelfth Night (or What You Will). Students will use physical theatre to enact scenes, as a fresh alternatibe to getting caught up in language analysis. Plays were made to be performed, not read! The activities are really fun and get students actively involved in constructing meaning for the scenes. Use the principles within to change this for any other play or text!

This printable worksheet teaching resource explores the visual grammar in Japanese art form 'manga&'. There is a brief guide on visual coding, how meaning is made and narrative representation (from Neil Cohn&';s extensive writings). Students will read through this, complete the activities and then perform a guided analysis of a manga scene (a Twelfth Night adaptation).

This game involves students working at each of the levels of Bloom's Revised Taxonomy. I have based this on Men in Black 2 (for a film study) but the questions can be easily altered to fit any movie or book. Students spin the wheel and it lands on one of the categories, they then select a card from that category&'s card stack and read to the class. Everyone in the class does the activity and then that student selects the next person to spin the wheel. I did this over a 70 minute lesson, with each activity lasting about 5 minutes. Great for consolidating student understanding.

YEAR 12 MODERN HISTORY Studies of Power This is a unit outline with three lessons and resources developed. Lesson 9 involves showing the film The Killing Fields and filling out a retrieval chart, Lesson 10 is a wikispace/webquest on the 8 stages of genocide, and Lesson 11 interrogates the work of historians who present very different versions of events.

Year 9 SOSE This is a lesson plan I used to address whether (Australian bush ranger) Ned Kelly was a hero or a villian. The evidence I used was photocopied out of books and included photographs, a police record, the Jerilderie letter etc and students performed the evidence analysis in small groups. The activity sheet and lesson plan could be equally applied for any other piece of historical evidence at that year level.

This powerpoint presentation uses the theme of war to demonstrate reader positioning (for and against). Notes are provided below each slide.

Including summative assessment task and criteria sheet, two lesson plans and accompanying resources. Suitable for a Year 8/9 class. Structured in accordance with Queensland Studies Authority SOSE Syllabus 2007.

YEAR 9 SOSE. This lesson plan and PPT presentation has a strong language focus on modality, in order for students to practise writing persuasive essays for their summative assessment task. Detailed breakdown of the language focus and step-by-step how to teach it.

Year 10 History - Australian Curriculum Unit on World War Two A short play that investigates 4 causes of WW2 including The Treaty of Versailles, Hitler’s Actions, Appeasement and the failure of the League of Nations. Students volunteer to read as characters but can remain seated. The intermission after each act allows them to complete a retrieval chart that summarises the key information from the script. Powerpoint adds a visual element and the script signals with double arrows when to skip to next slide. Fun for a class of confident readers.

Year 8 English This is a unit outline and three lessons working towards students constructing their own digital story as a personal narrative. The developed lessons focus on an introduction to oral storytelling, semiotics, and verbal punctuation. There is a fair amount of performative work in this unit.

Great starter to a media unit - in small groups, students to rank the quotes in order of most to least significant/truthful according to their own personal opinions. Encourages group discussion and gets students thinking about the role media plays in society.

How can educators effectively manage the implications of the relationship between gender and student motivation? A research report examining the relationship between gender and student motivation by critiquing three journal articles on the topic.