Assessment 2: Literacy pedagogies in the primary years – Planning, programming and assessment for diverse learners (Critical task)

Assessment type: Five-week integrated unit of work 

Individual/group assessment: Individual 

Word count/time limit: 2,000 words equivalent using template 

Weighting: 50%

Assessment description 

For this assessment, you must design a five-week integrated unit of work to teach speaking/listening, reading/viewing and writing/producing that will support students’ development of a relevant multimodal text product as part of a unit of work for a specific curriculum area (e.g. English, HASS, Science, Health). Within the unit of work, plan a series of five integrated English lessons that support students’ development of a relevant multimodal text in a unit of work for a specific curriculum area (e.g. English, HASS, Science). Outline and describe preferred practice approaches and strategies for scaffolding the learning and assessment of these students to demonstrate an ability to differentiate teaching in ways that support the diverse learning abilities of students. 

Critical Task: This assessment is core to the demonstration of a number of Australian Professional Teacher Standards. To pass this unit, you must attain a score of at least 50% in this task as well as achieve an overall Passing grade. 

Assessment details

This task is designed to assess pre-service teachers’ skills to create an integrated unit of work across a range of curriculum areas, to design a series of lessons, and to identify and critique methods and approaches for scaffolding learning opportunities for diverse learners in the primary school setting. 

Use or adapt the Template provided to lay out your integrated unit of work to include the following elements: 

Brief description of the theme and content of the unit of work. 

English and other KLA outcomes addressed across the unit of work. 

A description of the principles that underpin the unit of work, including key references. 

Concise description of the multimodal assessment task and a marking rubric to be used by students as a scaffold for completing the summative assessment task. 

List of literature and digital resources to be used across the unit of work. 

Learning intention for each week that articulates the focus of the lesson and indicates the link between syllabus outcome and formative assessment. 

Description of differentiated speaking and listening, reading and viewing, writing and producing teaching and learning activities that will be used to build field knowledge and teach vocabulary, text structure, grammar features and visual features.  

Indication of the stage of the gradual release of responsibility model and/or phase of the teaching and learning cycle for writing and composing applied in each lesson. 

Brief description of measurable, observable and purposeful formative assessment for each lesson in the sequence. 

Supporting resources

Literacy for the 21st century: A balanced approach (Tomkins et al., 2019). 

Write ways (Wing Jan & Taylor, 2020).

Chapter 1: Conceptualising classroom talk (pp. 3-21) in Classroom talk: Understanding dialogue, pedagogy and practice (Edwards-Groves et al., 2014). 

Using talk to support writing (Fisher et al., 2010). 

Preparing for the teaching profession (Kavanaugh & Kavanaugh, 2021).