School Journal Story Library Year 7 and 8 – Marcus Thomas: NZ Caveman
Description
We’ve put together a set of reading response activities for the School Journal Story Library text ‘Marcus Thomas: New Zealand Caveman’. This resource has everything you need to learn more about caving adventures! Grab your helmet and ropes and abseil your way into this story!
This School Journal Story Library text covers content great for Year 7 and 8students, and has a reading level of Year 6.
In this School Journal Story Library text ‘Marcus Thomas: New Zealand Caveman’ resource, you receive:
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Two follow-up activity sheets (Part One and Part Two), focusing on:
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using prior knowledge
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comprehension monitoring
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finding specific information
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understanding vocabulary
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summarising and drawing conclusions
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making inferences using evidence.
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Apply Your Knowledge links
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These links provide further activities and ideas to help students explore the topic of the story or article further. QR codes and web links are provided so students can visit websites, and watch video clips.
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Two creative design activities: These activities challenge students to use higher-order thinking to synthesise their knowledge and create something new.
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Your Mission: Cave Explorer Field Notes activity (mind map graphic organiser) for students to re-read and organise the information from the text.
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Writing to Persuade Writing Prompt: Should our school start a caving club?
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Two writing planning sheets
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Reading + Creativity + Text Structure + Writing Activities
School Journal Story Library text: Marcus Thomas: New Zealand Caveman:
Through an interview with expert caver Marcus Thomas, the short book explores the lifelong passion of caving, detailing everything from the skills and teamwork required to the profound rewards and significant dangers of exploring New Zealand’s underground world.
These activities link directly to the new New Zealand English Curriculum. As the reading age for this story is Year 6, we have targeted these curriculum objectives:
During year 6, informed by prior learning, teach students to:
Vocabulary:
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Independently infer from context clues and use morphology to understand challenging words
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Use knowledge from other year 6 learning areas and topics to determine the meaning of base words, whole words, and phrases in a text
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Understand and use idioms and expressions from their own and others’ cultures
Comprehension Monitoring:
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Monitor and confirm their understanding across a range of texts and sources of information by annotating, rereading, adjusting their reading rate, asking and answering questions, and visualising. You can also have questions for finding specific information.
Summarising and Drawing Conclusions:
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Identify the central theme or main idea of a text, summarise how it is developed through the key details, and draw a supported conclusion
Inferring Using Evidence:
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Make inferences using explicit and implicit evidence, justify the inferences using evidence from the text, and compare their inferences with the interpretations of others
