Activities and resources
Your teacher may direct you to use some of the below resources of complete some of the collated activities:
Connecting
Making Connections
The tasks below are available as a PDF here
Year 8 Texts
The Second-Last Baby Tooth– Sonya Hartnett
Noah No-one and the Infinity Machine – Sean Williams
Visualising
Short excerpts:
Writers often invite readers to visualise character/setting at the beginning of a novel. The short excerpt below (the prologue to Hannah Kent’s Burial Rites) is a great example of this. Read this excerpt and then complete the questions and activities below.
Burial Rites – Questions and activities
Picture Book:
When authors and illustrators collaborate, the illustrator form images in their mind based on the author’s words and bring these to life through their illustrations.
Read the text of ‘Ride, Ricardo, Ride!‘ Consider the images that form in your mind as you read each ‘page’. What mood would your illustrations have? Select one ‘page’ of text – how would you illustrate this page?
Short Stories
The short story ‘Spaghetti Pig-Out‘ by Paul Jennings is fantastic for practising visualising. It works best when read aloud, pausing at different points to consider how the author is engaging your senses.
Visualising Tasks
These visualising tasks strengthen your visualising skills and can be used with a variety of texts, including ‘Spaghetti Pig-Out’.
Inferring
The PowerPoint below provides an overview of inferring:
Practising Inferring:
Advertisements often require us to use our inferring skills. Observe your inferring skills in action when you examine the advertisements further down the page.
Apply your inferring skills to make meaning out of these short descriptions: Draw an inference
Good writing enables readers to ‘read between the lines’ and make meaning. In this task, you are both the writer aiming to ‘show, not tell’ a secret and the reader attempting to put the clues together to infer what the secret may be: Show, don’t tell – inferring
Sharpen your inferring skills through the Stray Dogs Cafe – short story. As you read the story, pausing when the following task sheet directs you to, practise inferring using’The Stray Dogs Cafe‘
Practice inferring tests
Practice Inferring Test – This is a copy of the inferring test you did in Year 7 last year. It is worth revisiting to practice your skills.
Practice Inferring Test – The Secret Garden – Completing this test online and comparing your responses with the suggested answers provided in the test review, will provide you with valuable practice and feedback. Access the test through your class school box page. The reading booklet is available for as a PDF here: Reading Booklet
Your inferring test assessment will be based on passages from Between Us
Applying inference to advertisements:
Print commercials
#1
- What has happened to the girl’s hair? How can you tell?
- What is this suggesting about the gum being advertised?
#2
- What is McDonalds now offering at their stores? How can you tell?
Digital commercials
- Who do you think blindfolded him?
- Why do you think they are wearing those clothes?
- Why do you think the boy was confused?
- What was the boy’s real gift?
- How do the boy’s parents feel about the confusion? How can you tell?
- Who is stealing from the neighbours? How can you tell?
- How does Lorraine’s owner feel about her behaviour?