We are cooking a unit for Year 8 English (ACARA v9), designed for a curious thirteen‑year‑old. This five‑week sequence invites students to taste and tangle with myth, environmental elegy and modern mythmaking across a banquet of texts: The Mabinogion (Guest), Marie de France, The Owl Service (Garner), Silent Spring (Carson), Tolkien’s Ring (Day), and selections from The Science of Discworld and The Disney Middle Ages. Curriculum focus: literature and literacy — analysing how purpose, viewpoint and historical context shape meaning; composing imaginative and persuasive texts; and exploring intertextuality and cultural values.
Week 1: Appetiser — close reading and sensory response: extract images and register from The Owl Service and The Mabinogion. Week 2: Main course — compare portrayals of the land and the divine feminine (Caitlín Matthews) and environmental voice (Carson). Week 3: Side dishes — mythic motifs in Tolkien and Marie de France; students map archetypes. Week 4: Sauce and seasoning — critical context from Gladstone and Pugh & Aronstein; evaluate adaptation in Disney and Pratchett. Week 5: Dessert — compose a 600–800 word imaginative piece or a multimodal podcast that reimagines a myth in a contemporary environmental or fantastical frame.
Assessment: formative journals, comparative paragraph, and summative imaginative text plus reflective rationale that cites sources. Differentiation: scaffolded templates, extension research tasks, small‑group discussion roles. Literacy targets: figurative language, voice, synthesis of sources, citation. Resources: the listed primary texts, digital excerpts, audio recordings. Success criteria include clear thesis, textual evidence, voice control, effective organisation, and accurate referencing; teacher feedback will be iterative, with peer review and conferencing to taste and adjust drafts. Parents will be invited to a celebration sharing student podcasts and readings. Refreshments welcome, optional indeed.
In the warm, sensuous tone of Nigella, students will savour language, stir ideas and serve stories that are nourishing and fierce.