Year 1 report writing – Australian Animals

Brief school and class context

Hope Christian College is an independent school situated in the Northern suburbs of Adelaide. The school
is a reception to year 12 school that is divided into junior schooling, middle schooling and senior schooling.
All levels of schooling are situated on the same campus and share a number of facilities.

The classroom that this unit of work is a year 1 class made up of 23 students. Out of the 23 students 2 are
currently on a negotiated education plan (NEP), however a number of other students have been identified
as having mild learning difficulties. The students that have an NEP receive an extra level of academic
support both in and out of the classroom.

The classroom is made up of students from a number of different cultures, and students that speak English
as a second language.

This unit of work is being taught in the first three weeks of the fourth term. Students have completed
reports within their reading convention books, so are thought to have some level of understanding. Most
students within the room have a competent level of literacy skills and can follow teacher’s instructions.

Year Level

- Year 1

Unit of work

- Report writing – Australian Animals

Curriculum

English

Language – Developing and expressing ideas

- Understand the use of vocabulary in everyday contexts as well as a growing number of school
contexts, including appropriate use of formal and informal terms of address in different
contexts (ACELA1454)

Literacy – Interpreting, analysing and evaluating

- Use comprehension strategies to build literal and inferred meaning about key events, ideas and
information in texts that they listen to, view and read by drawing on growing knowledge of context,
text structures and language features (ACELY1660).

- Describe some differences between imaginative informative and persuasive texts (ACELY1658)

Literacy – creating texts

- Develop and explore informative texts that show emerging use of appropriate text structure,
sentence-level grammar, word choice, spelling, punctuation and appropriate multimodal elements,
for example illustrations and diagrams (ACELY1661)
Science
Biological sciences
- Living things have a variety of external features (ACSSU017)
- Living things live in different places where their needs are met. (ACSSU211)

Processing and analysing data and information

- Use a range of methods to sort information, including drawings and provided tables (ACSIS027)

Learning Purpose

- Create an information report: Identify, recognise and interpret factual information.

- To understand how descriptive and comparative language is used in informative texts.

Success Criteria

- To identify the difference between a fact and an opinion.

- Te research factual information.
- To use facts to describe an Australian animal.
- To use a diagram to support the written text as a way of describing the animal
- To identify and explore the structure of information reports.
- To identify and explore the language features of informative texts.
- To construct a simple information report about an Australian animal.

Assessment

- Assessment rubric
- Self-assessment
Lesson plans – how do my lessons help the students to meet the success criteria? Is the students offered a
range of activities to complete the unit of work?

Overall learning To identify the

purpose difference
Assessment Lesson 1 between a fact
including self- Introduction to and an opinion
Information reports
assessment
Identify student's
current knowledge
and understanding
Lesson 6
Assessment Lesson 1
Students create a Identify and
simple information describe the
report about difference between a
Australian animals fact and an opinion
Assessment rubric
To use facts to
describe an
Australian To identify and
animal explore the
structure of an
information
Information report
Lesson 2
Lesson 3, 4 & 5
Use factual
report Identify and
explore the
information to
describe an
Australian animal.
Australian structure of
information an
information report.
animals

To use a
diagram to
support the
written text as a
way of Lesson 2
Lesson 3, 4 & 5
describing the Describe the
Identify and
explore the
animal animal through the language features of
use of illustration an information
report

Lesson 3 & 4 To identify and

Research factual explore the
information
language
Research features on an
factual information
information report

Lesson 1
Finding out prior knowledge? What is
an information report? Why do we use Explanation of unit
To identify the difference between a
them?
fact and an opinion
Teacher facilitated
Differentiate between a fact and an Small group work
opinion (videos)

To identify and explore the structure of

Lesson 2 an information report
Teacher facilitated
Identifying components of an
peer collaboration
information report Identify and explore language features
on an information report
Lesson 3 & 4
Teacher facilitated
Researching animal for information
independent work To use facts to describe an Australian
report
animal
Lesson 3, 4 & 5
Describe the animal through the use of Independent work
To use a diagram to support the written
illustation
text as a way of describing the animal
Lesson 4
Independent work
writing draft information report
Lesson 5 & 6 To construct a simple information
Independent work
Writing information report report about an Australian animal.