Teaching sequence

Work through this resource material in the following sequence:

10 minutes

Tune In: Card collectors

15 minutes

Find Out: Exploring athlete cards

20 minutes

Take Action: Making athlete trading cards

5 minutes

Reflection

Learning intentions

Students will:

create trading cards for sporting heroes, providing appropriate information and imagery.

Success criteria

Students can:

plan, research, create and edit informative text in a specific context.

Tune In: Card collectors

Step 1

Invite students to share their experiences and thoughts with trading or collecting cards. Students are likely to be familiar with the examples listed below. Use these examples in your brainstorm to activate prior knowledge:

pop culture - Disney, Star Wars or Marvel
sports - AFL, soccer, NBA or NFL
Trading Card Games (TCGs) - Magic: The Gathering or Pokemon

Step 2

Prompt students to discuss how and why people trade and collect cards like these. You may like to direct students to think about why some cards are more valuable than others – generally because they are rare, historic, or relate to popular heroes, characters, and athletes.

Step 3

Cut along the lines of the Card Collectors Activity Sheet to create individual cards. Once cut, select students randomly to come to the front of the classroom 1 at a time to select 2 cards.

Step 4

Ask some students to volunteer to read the athlete's name and sport on their 2 cards. Prompt students to share why they chose these 2 cards. Students may have various reasons for why they chose the cards, such as:

I know of this athlete.
I like this sport.
We share the same name.
I wanted 2 from the same sport.

Step 5

Give students 1 minute to trade their cards with other students. If students find a particular card valuable, they may like to trade 2 cards for 1 as long as everyone has at least 1 card at the end of the game. Students must keep their cards for the Take Action activity.

At the end, ask for volunteers to tell you which card or cards they have and why they made any trades they made. Prompt students' thinking by asking them the following questions:

Does anyone have more than 2 cards?
Does anyone have 1 card?
Did anyone go hunting for a specific athlete or sport?
What trades did you make and why?

Find Out: Exploring athlete trading cards

Step 1

Invite students to think about what information would’ve made it easier to choose an athlete they could connect to. Ask students:

Would it have been easier to make selections and trades if you had more information about each athlete (eg name, position played)?
What information would have made it easier to decide if you wanted to collect an athlete trading card or not (eg their team name, the years they competed or played, medals won – if relevant)?
Would anything else on the card make it more collectable (eg a photo, a team logo, statistics, awards)?

Explain to students that when trading cards have more information, such as interesting facts, people are more likely to want to make a trade or swap. Invite students to think about what they would expect or want to know about an athlete competing at the Commonwealth Games. Start a class list on a whiteboard of information and features to include on an athlete trading card.

Suggested answers:

country represented
interesting facts
medals won and category (gold, silver, bronze)
sport
statistics
years competing

Literacy extension: As a class or in groups, discuss the differences between the informative and text features we expect to see on a team sport (AFL, AFLW) card compared to that of a Commonwealth Games athlete. What is different? How does this reflect the different contexts of these types of cards?

Step 2

Visit the following websites with your students to view examples of athlete trading cards throughout Australian history:

AFLW cards from the first AFLW series (https://collections.museumsvictoria.com.au/items/2216956) (2017) in the State Library of Victoria - images of front and back of the card
AFL card for John Henderson, Collingwood (https://collections.museumsvictoria.com.au/items/1763379) (1967) in the State Library of Victoria - this vintage card shows the information on the back of the card
Australian Sports Museum including 2006 Commonwealth Games collector trading cards (https://collection.australiansportsmuseum.org.au/objects?query=object_terms%3A%22Trade+or+swap+card%22&facet=date_used:2000%20TO%209999)
AFL trading card of Nicky Winmar (https://digital-classroom.nma.gov.au/images/afl-trading-card-nicky-winmar-st-kilda) of St Kilda at National Museum Australia.

After viewing the examples, add to the class list of information and features that can be included on the trading cards.

Extension: Students can explore the historical events related to these cards. The AFLW cards are from the first women’s series, John Henderson is of an era when sports sponsorship was developing, the Australian Sports Museum cards represent the Melbourne 2006 Commonwealth Games and the early 2000 cricket teams, and Nicky Winmar is an example of these cards recording Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander player achievement (Winmar is famous for his 1993 stance against spectator racism).

Take Action: Making athlete trading cards

Step 1

Your students’ task is to create an athlete trading card for 1 of the Commonwealth Games athletes they selected earlier in the lesson using Canva. Guide the class in finalising the class list of key information that must be included on their trading card.

Explain to students that they can create their own card design, but each should include a close-cropped photo of the athlete in a moment of action, a title and other decorative features.

Students are to use the Heroes of the Games Athlete Factsheets as the main source of information for their trading card about their athlete.

Learning support: Model how to collect the information from the factsheet for their card. Emphasise that students only look to fill in the information they need from the factsheet and are not required to copy chunks of information.

Learning extension: Ask students to write a short paragraph explaining the design features of their trading card and how each feature reflects the importance of the information.

Reflection

Invite students to present their designs in a gallery walk, where students walk around the classroom viewing their peers' designs. After this, guide students to reflect on what makes trading cards interesting and why cards can increase in value or popularity over time.

Cards for Commonwealth Champions

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Summary

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