Resource+4

**Resource 4:** Interactive Website ABC. (2002). //Long Journey, Young Lives//. Retrieved September 30, 2010, from ABC: http://www.abc.net.au/longjourney/documentary_broadband.html

__**Description/Explanation of Resource:**__ //Long Journey - Young Lives// is an online interactive documentary which provides insight into the experiences of child refugees. These children present an exclusive account of their experiences, from the conflict and violence in their home country, to life in a detention centre in Australia. This interactive website allows students to explore the stories of child refugees, as well as the insights and opinions of young Australian students on the issues surrounding refugees. It is important to note that some of Australian's policies has changed since the development of this website, however remains a useful tool for engaging students with multimodal texts in the classroom on topics of particular concern for Australia society.

__**Relevance to Outcome:**__ The aim of this unit is to engage students with multimodal texts and explore how multimodality is used to create meaning. Through this unit students develop confidence in using and creating multimodal texts, through the acquisition of skills in written and visual grammar.

This resource is extremely relevant to the HSIE outcome CUS2.3 'Explains how shared customs, practices, symbols, languages and traditions in communities contribute to Australian and community identities' as it explores the experiences and stories of the children who have migrated to Australia as refugees.Through its interactive features, students are engaged with the lives and stories of children of similar age and the experiences they have had as a refugee. Providing students with the stories of people their own age provides a greater sense of significance for the students, allowing them to relate of a more personal level with the stories shared. Being a highly debated topic in general society, this website is an excellent tool in equiping students with basic information, allowing them to form their own opinions. Furthermore, this resource facilitates the students' developing in achieving the HSIE outcome CUS2.3, as refugees have played a key part in contributing to Australian identity.

__**Aspect of Literacy to be Explored:**__ This resource provides an excellent tool for the exploration of multimodal texts. Students are immersed in a world of growing technlogies, social change and advancing global communication, exposed regularly to multimodal texts. As a result of this rapid change in the way we view texts, 'multiliteracies' and the ability to understand and comprehend multimodal texts has emerged as an area of focus for the classroom. 'Multimodality constitutes the majority of texts in social practice in private, professional and industrial lives. Thus, classrooms urgently need to take up a multiliteracies framework for preparing students' (Healy, 2004, pp. 20-21).Written-linguistic forms of communication conbine wih visual, audio, gestural and spatial modes to create new patterns of literacy, much broader than language alone (Cope & Kalantzis, 2002, pp. 2-8 cited in Winch, Johnston, March, Ljungdahl, & Holliday, 2007, p. 45)

This resource is used in our 6th lesson of the integrated unit focusing on cultural identities. Throughtout this lesson students begin to explore the elements of multimodal texts and how the modes work together to create overall meaning. This resource allows student to fully engage with a multimodal text whilst exploring in more detail the content area for cultural identities. Through it's interactive interface students explore the journey of children migrants and what life is like as a refugee, whilst exploring the linguistic, visual, audio, spatial and gestural modes (Healy, 2004, pp. 20-21). Furthermore, the exploration of this website engages students in the four reader roles as they navigated their way around the website, as they search for and follow links (code-breaker) and view a variety of modes to construct meaning from the text (text-participant). Additionally, the students explore the purpose of this type of text in conveying meaning and the different social situations it has been targeted for (text-user), as well as discussing why texts such as these have been made, the agenda of the creater in the making of this website and the different interpretations of the text (text-analyst) through the deconstruction of each

Secondly, this resource will be used as a stimulus for students to create their own mini multimodal texts. Through the exploration of the website the students will gain information about the journeys of different children and through combining this information with their prior learning about written and visual grammar, explore how different modes can be brought together to create a text.

Picture Book

Tan, S. (2006). //The Arrival//. Broadway, New York: Arthur A. Levine Books.

__**Description/Explanation of Resource:**__ //The Arrival// is a children;s picture book by Author/Illustrator Shaun Tan, exploring the story of a migrant. Told through wordless images, this picture book follows the story of a man who leaves his wife and child in an impoverished town, seeking better prospects in an unknown country across the ocean. With only his suitcase and a handful of currency, the immigrant man must find a place to life, food to eat and some form of employment. Along his journey, he is helped by strangers each carrying their own history, portraying stories of struggle and survival in a world of violence and hope.

__**Relevance to Outcome:**__ The aim of this unit is to engage students with multimodal texts and explore how multimodality is used to create meaning. Through this unit students develop confidence in using and creating multimodal texts, through the acquisition of skills in written and visual grammar.

This resource is extremely relevant to the HSIE outcome CUS2.3 'Explains how shared customs, practices, symbols, languages and traditions in communities contribute to Australian and community identities' as it explores the experiences and stories of the people who have migrated to Australia. Migration has played an important role in the development of Australian culture, and is thus an important area for students to consider when discussing how Australian cultural identity has been influenced. Through the exploration of this book students are creatively engaged with the stories of people who have come into Australia and the emotions they experienced along the journey through the book's ability to remain open to intepretation.

This book is an excellent classroom resource, and through its 'silent story' style, provides a rich stimulus for students to explore the HSIE topic of 'Cultures' creatively.

__**Aspect of Literacy to be Explored:**__ This text provides a rich resource for the exploration of visual literacy, particularly in relation to how the visual mode is used as a meaning making tool. Furthermore, through the exploration of how this text emphasises the visual mode, it has been used on conjunction with other multimodal texts to further students understands of how multimodal texts and composed and the layers of meaning embedded within a multimodal text.

__**References:**__ Healy, A. (2004). The critical heart of multiliteraciesL four resources, multimodal texts and classroom practice. In //Text net: new resources for literacy learning// (pp. 19-35). Newtown, NSW: PETA.

Tan, S. (2006). //The Arrival.// Broadway, New York: Arthur A. Levine Books.

Teaching and Learning Exchange. (2010). The Journey of the Hong Hai. Retrieved September 29, 2010, from TALE: []

Winch, G., Johnston, R. R., March, P., Ljungdahl, L., & Holliday, M. (2007). //Literacy: Reading, Writing and Children's Literature.// New York: Oxford University Press.