(Year 3 Class at Canberra Girls' Grammar School)
1. Identify a literacy challenge or goal in your classroom or
educational setting and how you identified it.
The learning goals for the children in my class include instilling
a love of learning and making transdisciplinary connections by
transferring knowledge to new contexts as they deepen their
understandings. The learning philosophy for the children is to engage in
learning experiences where they are willing to take risks that enable
them to make connections of knowledge. This is made easier if the
children are having fun and being playful as they learn.
2. Briefly explain how you addressed this challenge--what
strategies did you use?
We embarked on a Science/English Inquiry Unit based on the central
idea 'People use light to communicate and make meaning'. We
integrated ICT, drama, visual literacy (analysing film and picture book
illustrations), poetry and music. The class was immersed in sessions on
Refraction, Reflection, Colour, Light and Shadows. They listened,
observed, experimented and discussed. After the sessions they reflected
on their learning and recorded what they had learned for the class
inquiry board to share their learning with others.
3. What was the process involved in implementing the strategies?
The students' ideas were transformed into small group dramatic
presentations. The challenge for each group was to select five ways
light is used to communicate and portray these in drama. Some of the
dramatisations depicted; a lighthouse directing ships, an ambulance
racing to the scene of an accident, burglars choosing a house where the
lights are off, people getting into trouble (with a torchlight!) at the
movies, a car trip with lots of corners and blinkers indicating a change
The Central Idea is the big understanding the participants in the
inquiry develop. Through their dramatic performance the children had
demonstrated understanding about how light is used to communicate and
make meaning. Next we turned to film and picture book illustrations to
explore how light adds meaning in those modes.
The use of a Learning Federation Learning Object 'Lights,
Camera, Action' allowed the children to explore how lighting
effects are used in films to add meaning. The Learning Object introduced
the metalanguage of film lighting. It demonstrated how lighting
techniques can communicate a time of day, by replicating natural
lighting and shadow formation. It also explained how light is used to
increase dramatic tension, to create feelings such as excitement, humour
4. How did the students respond?
The students took over. They engaged in a student initiated visual
analysis. They were eager to apply their knowledge about how light and
colour added meaning. As a result of the light inquiry the students were
reading and viewing films, with critical awareness about text
construction and the deliberate choices that were made to affect an
5. What were the outcomes or results?
As poetry was a Term 2 syllabus requirement, the students were
challenged to use their knowledge about how light conveys information in
poems. They were invited to write Light Limericks, which were to be
produced as digital photostories and published on the school's
online management system Studywiz. The students deconstructed limericks,
identified rhyming pattern and counted syllables to come up with the
Limerick Formula. Students applied the formula, but with a shift in
purpose of the text--no longer a nonsense poem written to entertain, but
to describe how light conveys information. Using the original
brainstorming of ideas--students were asked to select an idea and use it
as the topic of a light limerick.
There was lots of experimentation and play as we developed the ICT
skills required to create the narrated photostories. Using Sound
Recorder and microphones, the children learned how to record their
voices. This was an effective self assessment tool as they reflected on
accuracy, expression & fluency of their reading.
Photostory 3 software was used to create digital photostories. To
develop the ICT skills students used our class song 'The
Climb' by Miley Cyrus, and illustrated it with general class
photographs as they experimented and developed expertise.
To further highlight the transdisciplinary nature of this unit of
inquiry during Religion and Philosophy lessons the children explored how
light is used in worship and celebrations in many religions and how
hymns and religious songs frequently include reference to light. The art
lessons were linked to colour and the emotions they express. The
students observed that without light we cannot have colour and that
colour is created through light. A discussion about the affects of
colours on emotions showed how this leads an artist to the choices they
make in an artwork. The music teacher orchestrated a light medley, with
each of the three Year 3 classes contributing a chorus line of a light
related song. My class sang 'Light Surrounding You' by
They performed at the whole school end of term chapel, which was
very exciting and a lot of fun.
I see the light surrounding you
So don't be afraid of something new
'Cause I see the light surrounding you
So don't be afraid of what you're turning into