What is this sequence about?
This learning sequence aims to develop students’ ability to comprehend and compose multimodal texts. Students will closely examine a range of text types to identify modes of communication and to analyse features of linguistic, visual, audio, spatial and gestural modes.
Students will interpret multimodal texts and reflect on the purpose and patterns of meaning created by modal features. They will also compose multimodal texts in guided, collaborative, and independent contexts.
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Big understandings To be able to communicate effectively in an increasingly multimodal world we need to understand the structures and features of multimodal texts. Through engagement with literature, students learn about themselves, each other and the world. |
The sequence has been written by teachers for teachers. It has been designed to provide students with rich, engaging learning experiences that address the Victorian Curriculum. The sequence consists of three flexible stages, including suggested learning intentions.
Overview of stages
1. Building the Field: The Purpose and Features of Multimodal Texts
Suggested Learning Intentions
- To identify the modes of communication in multimodal texts
- To explore how each mode creates meaning
3. Short Films: Modelled and Collaborative Analysis and Creation
Suggested Learning Intentions
- To analyse the visual, audio and gestural features used in multimodal texts
- To use writing and design processes to plan and create a multimodal digital text
- To effectively use modal features to enhance the meaning of a text
- To explain the meaning of modal features
2. Text Deconstruction: The Lost Thing
Suggested Learning Intentions
- To investigate the techniques used to make meaning in multimodal texts
Prior knowledge
Before you commence this sequence, it is suggested that you ensure your students are familiar with the various forms of multimodal texts: paper based, digital or live performance. Students would also benefit from a general understanding of the modes of communication used in multimodal texts: written and spoken language, visual, audio, gestural and spatial modes.
You can find support for building students’ understanding of these concepts in the following sections of the Literacy Teaching Toolkit:
Teaching strategies
The Literacy Teaching Toolkit provides advice on the teaching strategies that you could use in this sequence. These strategies include:
- Four resources model for reading and viewing
- Teaching-learning cycle: reading and writing connections
- Close reading
- Modelling through think alouds
- Shared writing
- Guided writing/writing conferences
- Modelled writing
The sequence highlights opportunities to apply the High Impact Teaching Strategies (HITS), which are a component of the Victorian Teaching and Learning Model.
Vocabulary
Students should be able to understand and use the following concepts and terms by the end of the learning sequence:
| multimodal texts | social distance |
| modes | subject gaze |
| salience | vector |
| focaliser | cohesion |
You can find definitions of some of these terms in the Literacy Teaching Toolkit and the Glossary for the English Curriculum. A Visual Metalanguage Glossary is also included in the resource section. It is recommended that the explicit teaching of vocabulary occur throughout this learning sequence. The Literacy Teaching Toolkit provides resources and sample activities to support this practice.
Assessment
Opportunities for formative and summative assessment are identified at different stages of the learning sequence. Look for the 'Assessment Opportunity' icon.
You may want to develop a rubric to assess students’ progress. A range of Formative Assessment resources are available from the Victorian Curriculum and Assessment Authority. This includes a Guide to Formative Assessment Rubrics, a series of modules to support you to develop your own formative assessment rubrics, and sample rubrics across six curriculum areas that demonstrate how you can put formative assessment rubrics into practice in the classroom.
In developing a rubric, you may wish to co-construct assessment criteria with your students. Each stage of the sequence provides sample success criteria for students working at Level 5.
The Victorian Curriculum and Assessment Authority has published work samples that provide teachers with examples of student learning achievement in each mode of the English curriculum: Reading and Viewing, Writing, Speaking and Listening.
Victorian Curriculum connections
Level 4
This sequence addresses content from the Victorian Curriculum in English. It is primarily designed for Level 5, but also addresses the following content descriptions from Level 4:
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Content description |
Stage |
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English: Reading and viewing |
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Identify features used in imaginative, informative and persuasive texts to meet the purpose of the text, and understand how texts vary in complexity and technicality depending on the approach to the topic, the purpose and the intended audience (VCELA277) |
Building the Field: The Purpose and Features of Multimodal Texts Text Deconstruction: The Lost Thing Short Films: Modelled and Collaborative Analysis and Creation |
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Identify features of online texts that enhance readability including text, navigation, links, graphics and layout (VCELA278) |
Building the Field: The Purpose and Features of Multimodal Texts Text Deconstruction: The Lost Thing |
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Explore the effect of choices when framing an image, placement of elements in the image, and salience on composition of still and moving images in a range of types of texts (VCELA279) |
Building the Field: The Purpose and Features of Multimodal Texts Text Deconstruction: The Lost Thing Short Films: Modelled and Collaborative Analysis and Creation |
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Identify and explain language features of texts from earlier times and compare with the vocabulary, images, layout and content of contemporary texts (VCELY286) |
Building the Field: The Purpose and Features of Multimodal Texts |
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Use comprehension strategies to build literal and inferred meaning to expand content knowledge, integrating and linking ideas and analysing and evaluating texts (VCELY288) |
Building the Field: The Purpose and Features of Multimodal Texts Text Deconstruction: The Lost Thing Short Films: Modelled and Collaborative Analysis and Creation |
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Compare and evaluate two texts presenting the same ideas and analyse why one is more comprehensible or engaging than the other (VCELY289) |
Building the Field: The Purpose and Features of Multimodal Texts Text Deconstruction: The Lost Thing Short Films: Modelled and Collaborative Analysis and Creation |
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English: Writing |
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Understand how texts are made cohesive through the use of linking devices including pronoun reference and text connectives (VCELA290) |
Building the Field: The Purpose and Features of Multimodal Texts Text Deconstruction: The Lost Thing Short Films: Modelled and Collaborative Analysis and Creation |
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Recognise how quotation marks are used in texts to signal dialogue, titles and quoted (direct) speech (VCELA291) |
Building the Field: The Purpose and Features of Multimodal Texts Text Deconstruction: The Lost Thing Short Films: Modelled and Collaborative Analysis and Creation |
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English: Speaking and Listening |
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Discuss literary experiences with others, sharing responses and expressing a point of view (VCELT306) |
Building the Field: The Purpose and Features of Multimodal Texts/p> Text Deconstruction: The Lost Thing Short Films: Modelled and Collaborative Analysis and Creation |
The sequence can be used to assess student achievement in relation to the following Achievement Standards from the Victorian Curriculum: English Level 4:
- Students explain how language features, images and vocabulary are used to engage the interest of audiences
- Students can describe literal and implied meaning connecting ideas in different texts
- Students create texts that show understanding of how images and detail can be used to extend key ideas
- Students demonstrate an understanding of grammar and punctuation.
Level 5
This sequence addresses content from the Victorian Curriculum in English. It is primarily designed for Level 5 and addresses the following content descriptions:
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Content description |
Stage |
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English: Reading and viewing |
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Understand how texts vary in purpose, structure and topic as well as the degree of formality (VCELA309) |
Building the Field: The Purpose and Features of Multimodal Texts; Text Deconstruction: The Lost Thing Short Films: Modelled and Collaborative Analysis and Creation |
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Investigate how the organisation of texts into chapters, headings, subheadings, home pages and subpages for online texts and according to chronology or topic can be used to predict content and assist navigation (VCELA310) |
Building the Field: The Purpose and Features of Multimodal Texts |
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Explain sequences of images in print texts and compare these to the ways hyperlinked digital texts are organised, explaining their effect on viewers’ interpretations (VCELA311) |
Building the Field: The Purpose and Features of Multimodal Texts Text Deconstruction: The Lost Thing |
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Use metalanguage to describe the effects of ideas, text structures and language features on particular audiences (VCELT314) |
Building the Field: The Purpose and Features of Multimodal Texts; Text Deconstruction: The Lost Thing Short Films: Modelled and Collaborative Analysis and Creation |
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Recognise that ideas in literary texts can be conveyed from different viewpoints, which can lead to different kinds of interpretations and responses (VCELT315) |
Text Deconstruction: The Lost Thing Short Films: Modelled and Collaborative Analysis and Creation |
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Use comprehension strategies to analyse information, integrating and linking ideas from a variety of print and digital sources (VCELY319) |
Building the Field: The Purpose and Features of Multimodal Texts Text Deconstruction: The Lost Thing Short Films: Modelled and Collaborative Analysis and Creation |
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English: Writing |
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Understand that the starting point of a sentence gives prominence to the message in the text and allows for prediction of how the text will unfold (VCELA321) |
Building the Field: The Purpose and Features of Multimodal Texts Text Deconstruction: The Lost Thing |
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Create literary texts using realistic and fantasy settings and characters that draw on the worlds represented in texts students have experienced (VCELT328) |
Text Deconstruction: The Lost Thing Short Films: Modelled and Collaborative Analysis and Creation |
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Plan, draft and publish imaginative, informative and persuasive print and multimodal texts, choosing text structures, language features, images and sound appropriate to purpose and audience (VCELY329) |
Short Films: Modelled and Collaborative Analysis and Creation |
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Reread and edit own and others’ work using agreed criteria for text structures and language features (VCELY330) |
Short Films: Modelled and Collaborative Analysis and Creation |
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Use a range of software including word processing programs to construct, edit and publish written text, and select, edit and place visual, print and audio elements (VCELY332) |
Building the Field: The Purpose and Features of Multimodal Texts Text Deconstruction: The Lost Thing Short Films: Modelled and Collaborative Analysis and Creation |
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English: Speaking and Listening |
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Present a point of view about particular literary texts using appropriate metalanguage, and reflecting on the viewpoints of others (VCELT336) |
Building the Field: The Purpose and Features of Multimodal Texts Text Deconstruction: The Lost Thing Short Films: Modelled and Collaborative Analysis and Creation |
The sequence can be used to assess student achievement in relation to the following Achievement Standards from the Victorian Curriculum: English Level 5:
- Students understand how language features, images and vocabulary influence interpretations of characters, settings and events
- Students analyse and explain literal and implied information from a variety of texts
- Students use language features to show how ideas can be extended
- Students create imaginative, informative and persuasive texts for different purposes and audiences.
Level 6
This sequence addresses content from the Victorian Curriculum in English. It is primarily designed for Level 5, but also addresses the following content descriptions from Level 6:
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Content description |
Stage |
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English: Reading and Viewing |
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Understand how authors often innovate on text structures and play with language features to achieve particular aesthetic, humorous and persuasive purposes and effects (VCELA339) |
Building the Field: The Purpose and Features of Multimodal Texts Text Deconstruction: The Lost Thing Short Films: Modelled and Collaborative Analysis and Creation |
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Identify and explain how analytical images like figures, tables, diagrams, maps and graphs contribute to our understanding of verbal information in factual and persuasive texts (VCELA340) |
Building the Field: The Purpose and Features of Multimodal Texts Text Deconstruction: The Lost Thing Short Films: Modelled and Collaborative Analysis and Creation |
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Analyse and evaluate similarities and differences in texts on similar topics, themes or plots (VCELT341) |
Building the Field: The Purpose and Features of Multimodal Texts Text Deconstruction: The Lost Thing Short Films: Modelled and Collaborative Analysis and Creation |
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Identify the relationship between words, sounds, imagery and language patterns in narratives and poetry such as ballads, limericks and free verse (VCELT344) |
Building the Field: The Purpose and Features of Multimodal Texts Text Deconstruction: The Lost Thing Short Films: Modelled and Collaborative Analysis and Creation |
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Use comprehension strategies to interpret and analyse information and ideas, comparing content from a variety of textual sources including media and digital texts (VCELY347) |
Building the Field: The Purpose and Features of Multimodal Texts Text Deconstruction: The Lost Thing Short Films: Modelled and Collaborative Analysis and Creation |
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English: Writing |
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Create literary texts that adapt or combine aspects of texts students have experienced in innovative ways (VCELT356) |
Building the Field: The Purpose and Features of Multimodal Texts Text Deconstruction: The Lost Thing Short Films: Modelled and Collaborative Analysis and Creation |
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Plan, draft and publish imaginative, informative and persuasive texts, choosing and experimenting with text structures, language features, images and digital resources appropriate to purpose and audience (VCELY358) |
Building the Field: The Purpose and Features of Multimodal Texts Text Deconstruction: The Lost Thing Short Films: Modelled and Collaborative Analysis and Creation |
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English: Speaking and Listening |
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Participate in formal and informal debates and plan, rehearse and deliver presentations, selecting and sequencing appropriate content and multimodal elements for defined audiences and purposes, making appropriate choices for modality and emphasis (VCELY367) |
Building the Field: The Purpose and Features of Multimodal Texts Text Deconstruction: The Lost Thing Short Films: Modelled and Collaborative Analysis and Creation |
The sequence can be used to assess student achievement in relation to the following Achievement Standards from the Victorian Curriculum: English Level 6:
- Students can analyse and explain how language features, images and vocabulary are used by different authors to represent ideas, characters and events
- Students compare and analyse information in different texts, explaining literal and implied meaning
- Students explain how their choices of language features and images are used
- Students demonstrate understanding of grammar and make considered choices from an expanding vocabulary to enhance cohesion and structure in their writing
- Students understand how language features and language patterns can be used for emphasis.
Learning Progressions
The Literacy Learning Progressions support teachers to develop a comprehensive view of how literacy develops over time. You can use the Literacy Learning Progressions to:
- identify the literacy capability of your students
- plan targeted teaching strategies, especially for students achieving above or below the age-equivalent expected level in the Victorian Curriculum: English
- provide targeted feedback to students about their learning within and across the progressions.
The Literacy Learning Progressions have been mapped against the Victorian Curriculum F – 10: English. Teachers are advised to familiarise themselves with this map to understand how particular progression relate to the Reading and Viewing, Writing and Speaking and Listening modes and particular curriculum levels in English.