Unit Title: Feast of Stories — Year 9 English (Age 14)

Syllabus alignment: ACARA v9 English Year 9 — analysing representations, comparing texts, understanding context, crafting imaginative and persuasive texts; composing multimodal responses.

Overview: In this six-week unit students savour the flavours of myth, environmental argument and fantasy across a banquet of texts — from Carson’s urgent spring to the mythic Mabinogion and Pratchett’s playful science. We taste how language seasons meaning, how narrative appetite shapes values and how place becomes character.

Learning intentions:

• Analyse how purpose, audience and context shape meaning across literary and persuasive texts.
• Compare themes of land, stewardship and enchantment in classical and modern texts.
• Create original multimodal fiction or persuasive pieces that interweave mythic motifs with ecological argument.

Core texts (selected): Rachel Carson, Silent Spring; John Evelyn, Fumifugium; The Mabinogion (Guest); The Owl Service (Garner); Tolkien’s Ring (Day); Science of Discworld (Pratchett et al.); selected lays of Marie de France; Hal Borland; secondary readings on theatre history.

Weekly sequence (six weeks):

1. Sensory entrée — close reading and language features (imagery, tone, rhetorical devices).
2. Main course — comparative study of land-as-character (myths + environmental prose).
3. Palette cleanser — performance: short dramatic scenes from theatre excerpts.
4. Dessert — creative workshop: mythic microfiction with ecological argument.
5. Wine and reflection — multimodal presentations (audio/visual).
6. Assessment — portfolio: analytical essay (800–1000 words) + creative multimodal piece.

Assessment criteria: textual analysis, evidence of comparative thinking, control of language, audience awareness, multimodal design.

Teacher strategies & resources: guided close reading, Socratic seminars, paired creative feedback and maker labs for multimodal production. Formative checks include annotated reading journals and oral pitch. ACARA v9 alignment emphasises critical analysis, textual creation and ethical engagement with environmental issues, building Year 9 capacities in comprehension, composition and audience-aware design. Assessment rubrics provided to students beforehand regularly.