Literacy

In the Humanities and Social Sciences curriculum, students develop literacy capability as they learn how to build knowledge in relation to civic, economic and business, geographical and historical information, concepts and ideas. Students progressively learn to use a wide range of informational, persuasive and imaginative texts in multiple modes. These texts include stories, narrative recounts, reports, explanations, arguments, debates, timelines, maps, tables, graphs and images, often supported by references from primary and secondary sources.

Students learn to make increasingly sophisticated language and text choices, understanding that language varies according to context, which reflect the nature and stages of their inquiry. They learn to use language features and text structures to comprehend and compose cohesive texts about places, people, events, processes, systems and perspectives of the past, present and future. These include topic-specific vocabulary, appropriate verb tenses, and complex sentences that describe sequential, cause and effect and comparative relationships. Students recognise how language and images can be used to make and manipulate meaning. They evaluate texts for shades of meaning and opinion. Students also participate in debates and discussions and develop a considered point of view when communicating conclusions and preferred social and environmental futures to a range of audiences.