Outcomes and Skills
These outcomes describe what students should be able to do by the end of the unit. They are formative: use them to plan, self-check and give feedback. They do not rank students or record results.
Knowledge
- Know how a short story creates meaning through selection, compression and implication.
- Know the difference between a technique, an effect and a claim.
- Know how narrative voice, focalisation and irony shape what a reader knows and feels.
- Know that the bush is a literary construction as well as a place, and that the 1890s context shaped what writers noticed and what they left out.
- Know how an ending can resolve a plot while leaving the central question open.
Skills
| Skill | What it looks like | Next step if it is not yet secure |
|---|---|---|
| Close reading | Selects a short quotation, describes what it does, and explains how it shapes the reader's understanding. | Annotate one sentence at a time: verb, image, sound, turn, effect. |
| Voice analysis | Identifies who speaks, what the voice knows and what it refuses to say, then links that to meaning. | Rewrite a paragraph from another character's point of view and compare what changes. |
| Setting analysis | Connects a detail of place to work, danger, isolation or myth rather than treating setting as decoration. | Ask: what can these people do here, and what can they not do? |
| Comparison | Builds an argument across two stories around a shared question rather than listing similarities. | Choose one shared question and answer it with both stories. |
| Academic writing | States a claim, embeds evidence, explains effect, and links back to the argument. | Rewrite one paragraph so every quotation is followed by an explanation. |
| Creative and oral response | Makes a deliberate transformation or spoken walkthrough and explains the choices. | Name the effect you wanted, then change one choice to achieve it more clearly. |
Formative success criteria
- I can read a story once for shape and a second time for detail.
- I can name a choice of voice or structure and explain what it does to the reader.
- I can use a short quotation accurately and explain its effect.
- I can connect one story to another around a shared question.
- I can use context to sharpen a claim rather than replace analysis.
- I can explain how an ending shapes the meaning of the whole story.
- I can respond creatively or orally and explain the choices behind the response.
What progress looks like
Progress is visible when a student moves from retelling what happens to explaining how the telling works. A stronger response usually has a narrower claim, better-chosen evidence and a clearer account of the reader's experience. The move from "the story is about isolation" to "the story withholds the details that would make isolation meaningful" is the learning.
Teacher note
Choose two criteria for a feedback lesson rather than all seven. Model the difference between "the narrator is ironic" and "the narrator's flat correction of the funeral scene refuses the consolation the reader expects". The second sentence is the learning.