Teaching Sequence

Work through this resource material in the following sequence:

10 minutes	Part A: Four Corners debate
20 minutes	Part B: Text immersion
20 minutes	Part C: Gallery walk
10 minutes	Reflection: Four Corners reprised

Part A: Four Corners debate

Step 1.

This opening activity allows students to physically assert their position on a specific statement by choosing to agree strongly, agree, disagree or strongly disagree by standing in a particular corner of the room. All students are encouraged to participate, as everyone needs to take a position - there is no ‘I don’t know’ option available. Indicate to students which corner is aligned with which level of agreement (you might like to put a post-it note up to remind them!), and read out each of the below statements, allowing students to move to the corner that best aligns with their point of view.

Step 2.

When students have chosen a corner, you may like to ask them to justify their choice, but this doesn't have to be exceptionally detailed - we are just getting their initial thinking.

	Bushfires and floods are a natural part of life in Australia.	It is better to invest in disaster response and recovery than resilience against fires and floods.	Natural disasters always happen one at a time.	People who live in low-risk areas don't need to learn about disaster resilience.	Young people are powerless to reduce disaster risks in their communities.
Beginning of the lesson
Strongly Agree
Agree
Disagree
Strongly Disagree
End of the lesson
Strongly Agree
Agree
Disagree
Strongly Disagree

Step 3.

Count the number of students in each corner for each statement using the table below. It is essential to use the table to ask students to answer the same questions at the end of the lesson. It will be helpful to show students how their thinking can change once they've developed a deeper understanding of a topic.

Part B: Text immersion

Step 1.

Organise students into pairs or triads, and distribute each group one of the five news articles excerpts printed across two separate A4 pages or across one A3 page (so they can see the entire excerpt at once). Aim to have an even number of students reading each of the excerpts. (See Differentiated Learning for further guidance on excerpt distribution).

Step 2.

Students should read through their allocated excerpt in pairs or triads and complete the following tasks (found on the Student Worksheet).

Read through the article together without annotating
Circle unfamiliar words, look up a definition and note this in the margins
Identify each of the following components for your excerpt, and note these in the space below.

Who:
What:
Where:
When:
Why:
How:

Based on the above, craft a 20 word summary of your text excerpt, and write this clearly across the top of your printout. Use the boxes below to plan out your summary:

Choose two different coloured highlighters. Read through your excerpt again, highlighting any negative words in one colour and positive in another. What do you notice? Write down your observations in the margins.

Consider the statements you responded to earlier in the lesson:

bushfires and floods are a natural part of life in Australia
it is better to invest in disaster response and recovery than resilience against fires and floods
natural disasters always happen one at a time
people who live in low-risk areas don’t need to learn about disaster resilience
young people are powerless to reduce disaster risks in their communities.

Does your excerpt support or challenge any of these? Write down your thoughts in the margins of your excerpt.

The excerpt may not directly reflect the questions posed above; however, it may spark students to start thinking about how they might become involved in protecting or helping those on the way to recovery after experiencing a natural disaster or hazard.

Part C: Gallery walk

Step 1.

Arrange annotated excerpts around the room, with each excerpt number clustered together to facilitate comparison. You may like to blue-tack or stick the pages to the walls or arrange the desks in a circle so that students can walk around and read their peers' annotations.

Step 2.

Ask students to walk around the room in silence and complete the following tasks on their student worksheets:

Compare the highlighting you completed of the positive and negative language in your allocated excerpt to that of another group or groups. Are there any similarities or differences? Why might this be?
Read through one of the excerpts that you were not allocated. Write down one exciting thing you learned, either from the text itself or the annotations of your classmates.
If time allows, read through the final extract and note down something interesting you learned from this text.

Step 3.

At the end of the gallery walk, ask students to return to their desks and complete the final activity on their worksheets - a self-reflection:
Using the sentence stem: “I used to think… but now I think…”, reflect on what you have learned during today’s activity:

Reflection

Four Corners reprised

To conclude the class, complete the four corners activity again, with the same statements. It would be expected that student understanding has shifted, and you would expect to see some changes in the number of students in each quadrant, reflective of the messages in the article (use the table from earlier in the teacher's notes to track this and share this with the students). If time allows, facilitate some discussion with students about how their thinking has changed by asking them why they chose their answers to different prompts. The thinking prompt “What makes you say that?” is a useful technique to encourage further reflection and thinking in students if they find their responses superficial.

Differentiated learning

An effort has been made to vary the difficulty of the three excerpts, with each excerpt becoming increasingly more text-dense. Keep this in mind when allocating groups and excerpts so that you can support or extend learners as appropriate.

Extension

Students seeking an extension should be encouraged to question why people have misconceptions in Australia and what impacts people’s views and opinions on a given topic. Ask your students to write down some important critical thinking skills they believe help people evaluate whether something is a fact.

Provisions for learning support

Students with individual needs might like to access their excerpt via a device and use text-to-speech technology to support their understanding.

Teacher reflection

Take this opportunity to reflect on your own teaching:

What did you learn about your teaching practice today?
What worked well?
What didn't work so well?
What would you share?
Where to next?
How are you going to get there?

Resilient Australia - Disasters - Correcting the Misconceptions

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Summary

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