What is this sequence about?
This learning sequence aims to develop student understanding of poetic forms and devices. Students will read a wide variety of poems while examining poetic structures and language features. They will consider the choices poets make about the look and sound of a poem and how these choices guide the reader to find meaning in carefully selected words.
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Big understandings Poetry can stimulate the reader’s imagination and feelings. Poetry can promote a precise and creative use of language. Poetry is an enjoyable way to express ourselves in writing. |
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 five flexible stages, including suggested learning intentions.
Overview of stages
1. Building the Field: Reading and Responding to Poetry
Suggested Learning Intentions
- To read and interpret poems
- To use performance techniques when reciting poetry
3. Modelling the Text: Examining Poetic Language
Suggested Learning Intentions
- To build understanding of the purpose and power of imagery in poetry
- To use the poetic devices studied in mentor texts in my own writing
5. Collaborative and Independent Writing
Suggested Learning Intentions
- To explore how personal feelings, memories and viewpoints are developed in poetic forms
- To compose a poem based on personal interests, experiences or emotions
2. Modelling the Text: Examining Poetic Structures
Suggested Learning Intentions
- To demonstrate how poetic structures influence meaning for the reader
4. Deconstructing Mentor Texts: Examining Rhythm and Rhyme
Suggested Learning Intentions
- To understand how poets use rhyme and rhythm
- To use the poetic structures studied in mentor texts in my own writing
Prior knowledge
Before you commence this sequence, it is suggested that you ensure your students are familiar with some of the figurative language devices and other techniques commonly used in poetry. For example, students should have an understanding of the features of simile, metaphor, onomatopoeia, rhyme and rhythm.
This sequence suggests that students regularly read poetry aloud to ‘hear’ the sound of a poem and use performance techniques to present poems to their peers. You may like to prepare your students for shared reading activities by developing their reading confidence, fluency and expression.
You can find support for building students’ understanding of these concepts in 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:
- Teaching and Learning Cycle: Reading Writing Connections
- Modelled reading
- Extended talk and dialogic talk
- Shared reading
- Close reading
- Modelled writing
- Shared writing
- Think aloud
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:
| Alliteration | Personification |
| Assonance | Rhyme |
| Consonance | Rhythm |
| Figurative language | Simile |
| Metaphor | Stanza |
| Onomatopoeia |
You can find definitions of some of these terms in the Literacy Teaching Toolkit and the Glossary for the English Curriculum.
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. In addition, a vocabulary table can be found in the Resources for this sequence.
Assessment
Opportunities for formative and summative assessment are identified at different stages of the learning sequence, usually under ‘Review’ and are identified with the following tag:
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 7.
The Victorian Curriculum and Assessment Authority has published annotated student 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 5
This sequence addresses content from the Victorian Curriculum in English. It is primarily designed for Level 6, but also addresses the following content descriptions from Level 5:
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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: Reading and Responding to Poetry Modelling the Text: Examining Poetic Structures Collaborative and Independent Writing |
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Use metalanguage to describe the effects of ideas, text structures and language features on particular audiences (VCELT314) |
Modelling the Text: Examining Poetic Language Deconstructing Mentor Texts: Examining Rhyme and Rhythm |
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Understand, interpret and experiment with sound devices and imagery, including simile, metaphor and personification, in narratives, shape poetry, songs, anthems and odes (VCELT316) |
Modelling the Text: Examining Poetic Structures Modelling the Text: Examining Poetic Language Deconstructing Mentor Texts: Examining Rhyme and Rhythm |
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English: Writing |
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Understand the use of vocabulary to express greater precision of meaning, and know that words can have different meanings in different contexts (VCELA325) |
Modelling the Text: Examining Poetic Structures Collaborative and Independent Writing |
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Create literary texts that experiment with structures, ideas and stylistic features of selected authors (VCELT327) |
Modelling the Text: Examining Poetic Structures Modelling the Text: Examining Poetic Language Deconstructing Mentor Texts: Examining Rhyme and Rhythm Collaborative and Independent Writing |
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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) |
Modelling the Text: Examining Poetic Language Collaborative and Independent Writing |
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Reread and edit own and others’ work using agreed criteria for text structures and language features (VCELY330) |
Collaborative and Independent Writing |
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, events and settings.
- Students analyse and explain literal and implied information from a variety of texts.
- Students describe how events, characters, and settings in texts are depicted and explain their own responses to them.
- Students use language features to show how ideas can be extended.
- Students create imaginative and persuasive texts for different purposes and audiences.
Level 6
This sequence addresses content from the Victorian Curriculum in English is primarily designed for Level 6 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 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: Reading and Responding to Poetry Modelling the Text: Examining Poetic Structures Collaborative and Independent Writing |
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Identify and explain how choices in language, including modality, emphasis, repetition and metaphor, influence personal response to different texts (VCELT342) |
Modelling the Text: Examining Poetic Language Deconstructing Mentor Texts: Examining Rhyme and Rhythm |
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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) |
Modelling the Text: Examining Poetic Structures Modelling the Text: Examining Poetic Language Deconstructing Mentor Texts: Examining Rhyme and Rhythm |
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English: Writing |
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Investigate how vocabulary choices, including evaluative language can express shades of meaning, feeling and opinion (VCELA352) |
Modelling the Text: Examining Poetic Structures Collaborative and Independent Writing |
| Experiment with text structures and language features and their effects in creating literary texts (VCELT355) |
Modelling the Text: Examining Poetic Structures Modelling the Text: Examining Poetic Language Deconstructing Mentor Texts: Examining Rhyme and Rhythm Collaborative and Independent Writing |
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Create literary texts that adapt or combine aspects of texts students have experienced in innovative ways (VCELT356) |
Modelling the Text: Examining Poetic Structures Modelling the Text: Examining Poetic Language Deconstructing Mentor Texts: Examining Rhyme and Rhythm Collaborative and Independent Writing |
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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) |
Collaborative and Independent Writing |
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Reread and edit own and others’ work using agreed criteria and explaining editing choices (VCELY359) |
Collaborative and Independent Writing |
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English: Speaking and listening |
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Make connections between own experiences and those of characters and events represented in texts drawn from different historical, social and cultural contexts (VCELT365) |
Modelling the Text: Examining Poetic Structures Modelling the Text: Examining Poetic Language Deconstructing Mentor Texts: Examining Rhyme and Rhythm Collaborative and Independent Writing |
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 select and use evidence from a text to explain their response to it.
- Students understand how language features and language patterns can be used for emphasis.
- Students explain how their choices of language features and images are used.
Level 7
This sequence addresses content from the Victorian Curriculum in English. It is primarily designed for Level 6, but also addresses the following content descriptions from Level 7:
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Content description |
Stage |
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English: Reading and Viewing |
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Discuss aspects of texts, including their aesthetic and social value, using relevant and appropriate metalanguage (VCELT373) |
Modelling the Text: Examining Poetic Language Deconstructing Mentor Texts: Examining Rhyme and Rhythm |
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Understand, interpret and discuss how language is compressed to produce a dramatic effect in film or drama, and to create layers of meaning in poetry (VCELT375) |
Modelling the Text: Examining Poetic Structures Modelling the Text: Examining Poetic Language Deconstructing Mentor Texts: Examining Rhyme and Rhythm |
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English: Writing |
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Experiment with text structures and language features and their effects in creating literary texts (VCELT385) |
Modelling the Text: Examining Poetic Structures Modelling the Text: Examining Poetic Language Deconstructing Mentor Texts: Examining Rhyme and Rhythm Collaborative and Independent Writing |
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Create literary texts that adapt stylistic features encountered in other texts (VCELT386) |
Modelling the Text: Examining Poetic Structures Modelling the Text: Examining Poetic Language Deconstructing Mentor Texts: Examining Rhyme and Rhythm Collaborative and Independent Writing |
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Plan, draft and publish imaginative, informative and persuasive texts, selecting aspects of subject matter and particular language, visual, and audio features to convey information and ideas to a specific audience (VCELY387) |
Collaborative and Independent Writing |
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Edit for meaning by removing repetition, refining ideas, reordering sentences and adding or substituting words for impact (VCELY388) |
Collaborative and Independent Writing |
The sequence can be used to assess student achievement in relation to the following Achievement Standards from the Victorian Curriculum: English Level 7:
- Students demonstrate understanding of how the choice of language features, images and vocabulary affects meaning.
- Students explain issues and ideas from a variety of sources, analysing supporting evidence and implied meaning.
- Students select specific details from texts to develop their own response, recognising that texts reflect different viewpoints.
- Students understand how the selection of a variety of language features can influence an audience.
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.