Resource+3

Resource 3  Tara Splarn

Kiernan, I. (2009). //Plastic bags and marine debris.// Retrieved September 29, 2010, from []

Description of Resource This resource, titled ‘//Plastic Bags and Marine Debris’// is an opinion piece written by the Chairman of Clean Up Australia. This text is an example of the type of persuasive argument the students will be required to create by the end of lesson five. The argument presented is in support of banning plastic bags, due to their environmental effects (with a focus on marine environments). For the purposes of this integrated unit of work for Stage 2, this text has been adapted slightly as some of the language used may be somewhat difficult for students to comprehend. However a balance of factual and opinion statements remains so as to show students an effective way of constructing a persuasive written argument.

Relevance to the unit outcome This opinion piece is relevant to the Stage 2 HSIE Environment outcome ENS2.6 which states that students ‘Describe people’s interaction with the environment and identifies responsible ways of interacting with the environment’ (Board of Studies, 2007, p. 33). This text presents various facts about the detrimental impact that plastic bags are having on the environment, with a focus on the marine environment. The author also utilises language devices to persuade the reader that banning plastic bags is an effective strategy in helping to combat environmental harm, and in the bigger scheme of things help tackle climate change. However the author has not explicitly recommended alternatives for plastic bags, which gives students the opportunity to build on their content knowledge developed throughout the unit of work to embed alternatives within their jointly constructed exposition and their final multimodal text.

Aspect of Literacy explored in the unit Students will be exploring the language devices used to create a persuasive exposition. More specifically students will be looking the relationship between fact and opinion statements in this exposition and how the different types of statements have helped to enhance the authors’ point of view (Carty, 2005, p. 43). This task will be done in the students sustainability groups, so as to provide a shared experience, which Carty notes as being important in understanding the text and its purpose as well as stimulating discussion (2005, p. 42). Students will then be applying this knowledge of persuasive expositions to jointly construct an argument supporting the statement ‘NSW should say NO to plastic bags’. During lesson four students will be constructing a number of arguments for which they will provide evidence/reasoning (which will be recorded in the graphic organiser used to deconstruct the model exposition – See Appendix 4.3), so as to evaluate their use of persuasive language. Carty notes how this type of graphic organiser can ‘help students visualise what it is they are trying to achieve’ (2005, p. 44). In doing so the outcome WS2.13 whereby students ‘discuss how own texts are adjusted to relate to different readers, how they develop the subject matter and how they serve a wide variety of purposes’ (Board of Studies NSW, 2007, p. 29-32) is addressed. References Board of Studies. (1998). English K‐6 Syllabus. Sydney: Author Board of Studies. (2007). HSIE K-6 Syllabus. Sydney: Author Carty, M. (2005) //Exploring writing in the content areas: Teaching and supporting learners in any subject//. Ontario: Pembroke Publishers Limited.