Reading Australia Resources
AustLit partnered with Reading Australia to create a series of fascinating information trails about Australian works for the Copyright Agency funded project Reading Australia. These trails provide a rich journey through resources that help students and teachers get to grips with the texts. Below are direct links to trails aimed at Secondary Students.
- AC: English Year 10 - The Boat by Nam Le
For Senior Secondary Students, see here.
AustLit Lesson Plans
In 2017 AustLit began creating lesson plans and guides to using AustLit as a resource in classroom teaching. These resources will help you make the most of your school's access to AustLit. Many lesson plans are currently in development, the following are currently available:
English:
Australian Speculative Fiction: A series of lesson plans on teaching speculative fiction in schools, written for AustLit by Lindsay Williams and Kim Wilkins.
BlackWords Lesson Plans: a guide to using BlackWords and indigenous texts in the classroom.
Challenging the "Terra Nullius of the Mind": a lesson plan and exploration around Henry Lawson's 'The Drovers Wife' and Leah Purcel's rewriting of the story and a work for theatre.
Classic Australian Children's Fiction: A collection of lesson plans developed by Anthony Shaw, this set includes lesson plans for older works published from the 1940s to the 1960s, as well as contemporary texts, which explore classic Australian landscapes and spaces in children's fiction.
Teaching with Fantasy: The Teaching with Fantasy lesson plans are the result of Professional Development event hosted by AustLit in February 2018. A detailed lesson plan is currently available for Sean Williams' young adult fantasy novel, The Stone Mage and the Sea. Lesson plans are forthcoming for the following authors: Alison Goodman; Ambelin Kwaymullina; Anthony Eaton; Isobelle Carmody; Jodi McAlister; Kim Wilkins; and Maria Lewis.
Drama:
Australian Gothic Theatre: A collection of resources and lesson plans for introducing or supporting the study of Australian Gothic Theatre through the plays of Angela Betzein, written for AustLit by Bryce Berrell.
Digital Literacy:
Digital Literacy and Database Competency in the Classroom: A series of lesson plans that use the AustLit database to guide students through progressively more complex research tasks. The lesson plans encourage digital literacy and database competency in the contained space of the AustLit database.
Finding Teaching Resources
Teachers also have the capacity to construct your search to retrieve only those records that contain teaching resources. Teaching resources includes teachers’ notes curated from the web, links to Reading Australia content, and AustLit-developed resources, lesson plans and exhibitions. From the advanced search page, simply select the option 'Teaching resources available', and select additional search criteria if required.