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Deepen students' understanding of how language reflects identity, culture and connection to Country with these purposeful, ready-to-use differentiated activities designed to accompany your lesson on Wilam: A Birrarung Story.

This resource is designed to be used alongside Wilam: A Birrarung Story by Aunty Joy Murphy and Andrew Kelly, illustrated by Lisa Kennedy (Walker Books Australia, 2021).

Pair these student activities with the matching teacher slides and lesson plan. Click here to view the complete bundle.

This resource provides three carefully scaffolded pathways to support, extend and challenge learners as they analyse how authors use language to communicate identity, cultural perspectives and relationships with place. Each activity builds students' confidence in locating evidence, explaining language choices and developing increasingly sophisticated responses.

This teacher resource includes:

• Option 1: Students are supported to identify purposeful language choices, locate evidence from the text and explain how these choices reflect identity, culture and connection to Country. Ideal for learners who benefit from explicit scaffolding and guided analysis.
• Option 2: Students develop greater independence by analysing a wider range of language choices and explaining how they shape meaning, communicate cultural perspectives and influence the reader.
• Option 3: Students engage in deeper analysis by evaluating the author's language choices, justifying their thinking with textual evidence and explaining how language reflects identity, culture, values and belonging in increasingly sophisticated ways.

Across all three differentiated pathways, students strengthen their close reading, evidence-based reasoning and analytical writing while developing a deeper appreciation of how language communicates meaning and cultural identity.

Teachers are encouraged to have access to their own copy of the text, along with additional copies for students where possible. This resource contains references to the text for educational analysis purposes and is intended to support classroom discussion and learning.

Please note: No answer sheets are included due to the open-ended nature of student responses.

Format: PDF

Aligned to Australian Curriculum Outcome: Understand that language is selected for social contexts and that it helps to signal social roles and relationships (AC9E5LA01)

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