Literary Text: Literary Genre
Narrative: Biography
To inform by retelling/ recounting past events and achievements in a person’s life.
Cultural: Making Meaning in Contexts
Subject Matter
Human subject (focus on their life).
Operational: Using Language Systems
Generic Structure
• Heading: person’s name
followed by the year of their birth
and death (if not living).
• Orientation (macro-theme):
names the person and state
what he or she is/ was famous
for.
• Series of Events in
Chronological Order: state the
important events of the person’s
life in chronological order
beginning with childhood.
- Experiences discussed should
influence his/her achievements.
- Summary of origins ie
birthplace, date of birth, parents
etc
- Details of earlier life ie
milestones relating to later fame
- Details of later life ie
Karalee SS Curriculum
Purpose of the Text
Textual Resources
Roles and Relationships Mode and Medium
Writer as an authority on the subject (always Mode: Written
written by another person otherwise it would Medium: Books, encyclopedias.
be an autobiography) to unknown audience.
Linguistic Resources
Cohesion Grammar Vocabulary/ Punctuation Voice Resources
• Sequence: temporal • Processes: full range • Relates to the events,
conjunctions eg - Action: eg invented, interests, achievements
then, next, last, finally, assisted, wrote… and behaviours of the
subsequently, first - Mental (sensing): eg subject.
(second…), knew, thought, • Paragraphing relates to
eventually, soon, believed… generic structure.
later, since, presently, - Saying: eg said, • Quotation marks: May
in the end, spoke, pronounced… have quotations from
immediately, until then - Relational (being and subject or person who
• Causation: having): eg be, have, knew him/her.
comparative represented, meant …
conjunctions • Participants:
because, for, because extended noun groups
of this, as a result, to describe subject
therefore, and relative work.
consequently, which • Tense: Written in past
lead to, stemmed from to describe past
• Pronoun reference: events. Present tense
eg it, they, he, them used to describe
• Theme position current contributions
 milestones/ significant events (sentence to society.
- Details of public life relating to beginnings): to • Pronoun reference
notoriety prioritise information eg he, she, their, her ,
• Reorientation: short summary so that the most his
which restates why he or she is important details
famous and tells of contribution about the person first
to current society. appear first in the
sentence.
• Topic sentences for
paragraphs (hyper-
theme)

Visual Gestural Spatial Audio

• Often accompanied by
photographs, sketches or other
visual representations of the
person’s work eg if the person
was an inventor there may be
an example of a design
Critical: Evaluating and Reconstructing Meanings
Discourse: Understanding of knowledge, values, and practices of groups
• Select images (significant drawing, picture or graphic eg digital photograph) and fonts to match purpose of the text.
• Use of evaluative attributes to represent and emphasise significant achievements eg well-known and distinctive contribution
• Use values or beliefs represented in the text that appeal to the audience because
- they are the same as those of the audience or
- they challenge the audience’s beliefs or values

References:
• “A Guide to Genres in English” pp14-15
• “Focus on Form” pp55-56
• “Genre: A Classroom Guide for Teachers” p11
“Written Genres in the Secondary School” pp31-37, 131-141
• “English Years 1 to 10 Syllabus”: Open Trial Semester 2, 2005 – Semester 1, 2006

Karalee SS Curriculum