Action Research Report 6: Literacy - Contact and Colonisation

Jacinta Squires - All Saints Catholic Boys College, Liverpool

>> Paper based resources that accompanied this project are available for download as a PDF file.

1. Rationale for choice:

All Saints Catholic Boys College (ASCBC) is an urban school situated in the heart of the Liverpool metropolitan. 650 boys attend the 7 - 10 school. ASCBC is multicultural and socially diverse environment. Consequently, there are many boys from non -English speaking backgrounds. Many students are struggling to comprehend basic literary skills and terms. As a result, the school developed a team to target the Year 7 cohort of 2002. I was on that team, and the results were very effective.

At the same time the opportunity arose to be involved in Action Research at Sydney University. Due to the success of our strategies with Year 7, I decided to use this opportunity to develop Literacy Strategies to use with my Year 8 HSIE class.

2. Outline and justification for research:

The Year 8 cohort was about to embark upon Term 4 2002 and the topic of "Contact and Colonisation" with sub topics focusing of North America and Aboriginal Australia. The Literacy strategies developed aimed to build towards a students knowledge of particular text types - A Recount and A Narrative. Consequently, the outline of this research was to develop step by step strategies that could teach students the key elements of a particular text type. So that by the time they were asked to write a recount they knew implicitly the steps to take to accomplish this task.

Furthermore, the strategies developed aimed to target and improve the specific weakness among the Year 8 students at ASCBC. Some known weaknesses include:

A) Language

• Spelling

• Writing in Past Tense

• Pronouns

• Punctuation (commas, apostrophes, and speech marks)

B) Writing

• Text Functions

• Plurals

• Sentence Structures

• Historical recounts

• Narratives

C) Reading

• Inferential Comprehension

• Text Conventions

• Literary Devices (simile, metaphors)

3. Approach adopted:

The main aim was to develop Literacy Strategies that were easy to implement and fun for students as well as teachers. Effectively, the literacy is woven into the fabric of the worksheets. This allows for an internalisation of not only content but also skills. The strategies follow the Board of Studies Syllabus for Stage 4 History, focusing on the following topics:

North America Indians:

• Life Before Europeans

• Discovering the Americas

• Contact with Foreigners

• Clash of Cultures

Aboriginal Australia:

• Aboriginal Society

• Discovering Australia

• Contact

• Clash of Cultures

Effectively, allowing teachers to cover the content and teach key skills at the same time.

4. Outline of the research process:

Listed below are the following steps that were part of the development and implementation of the strategies for Year 8 HSIE:

A) Identify the areas of weakness;
B) Focus on a specific text type to teach the students;
C) Integrate strategies into the existing program / syllabus;
D) Pre test students to establish existing Literacy skills.
E) Include worksheets in the lesson;
F) Provide students with an evaluation sheet to comment on strategies;
G) Developed a Marking Guidelines to provide students with feedback on their final recount or narrative developed.
H) Collect a sample of work indicating varying levels of achievement to identify continuing weaknesses or strengths.

5. Research outcomes and implications:

Currently, due to time pressures to meet exam preparation and loss of class time in Term 4, I have not been able to finalise all activities. Or complete the student evaluation. However, students have enjoyed the activities and work through them effectively. I will continue to use these strategies and encourage other staff members to also utilise them. I hope those who access them from Sydney University also find them useful. I have not included the sources used on the worksheets, however all include a reference for teachers to track down.

6. References:

• Tunica, N (2001) North America Cambridge University Press: United Kingdom

• Keese et al (1999) RetroActive 1 Jacaranda Press: Australia

• Swinton et al (2000) World History and Citizenship MacMillian Australia: Australia