AC9E4LA02: Identify the subjective language of opinion and feeling, and the objective language of factual reporting

Learning goals: reports and viewpoints

Learning intention: identify words that report checkable information and words that express someone’s opinion or feeling, then explain the difference using the actual text.

Subjective language expresses a viewpoint, judgement or feeling: “wonderful”, “too noisy”, “I prefer” or “I felt worried”. Objective language reports information without adding personal evaluation: counts, measurements or described events. A claim can be objectively worded and still be inaccurate; check it against suitable evidence before treating it as verified.

Success criteria: I can point to exact word clues, separate reporting from evaluation in a mixed passage, identify thinking and summary verbs, and revise two versions while preserving their shared information.

Materials and scope: pencil and paper; about 20 minutes plus practice. Work with short original texts and simple supplied findings. You need to read a sentence and recognise a count or description; advanced media-bias analysis is not needed.

Four teaching steps

1. Model: read the playground pair below. Circle the shared event and day, underline “brilliant”, and say how the added word changes the report.
2. Analyse together: read the council notice and reaction. Ask “Whose words are these? What could we check? Which word expresses a response?” Have students point to the words before answering.
3. Apply: partners use the bean measurements to write a finding beginning “We concluded”. Independently rewrite the picnic sentence in the practice section and explain the removed word.
4. Check: use the exit ticket. Look for an unchanged count/time/place, precise opinion clues and a supported conclusion. If a learner treats every adjective or first-person sentence as opinion, compare “red shirts” or “I counted” with “wonderful shirts” or “I prefer”.

Worked examples: read the whole claim

Curriculum coverage and elaborations

AC9E4LA02: identify the subjective language of opinion and feeling, and the objective language of factual reporting

• E1: identifying ways thinking verbs are used to express opinions; for example, “I think”, “I believe”, and ways summary verbs are used to report findings; for example, “we concluded”

  Worked examples 2 and 3 show the phrases in context. Learners write a judgement and a supported summary, then explain the words and evidence.

• E2: comparing statements that have similar information presented objectively and subjectively; for example, “The man has 6 cats.” “The man has too many noisy cats.”

  The official pair contrasts counting with evaluation. In the original playground pair, we also keep the event and day unchanged so the precise effect of adding “brilliant” is clear. Learners edit their own paired versions without inventing facts.

Common mistakes and quick fixes

• “A number proves it is true.” A number makes a claim checkable, not automatically accurate. Ask for the relevant count, dated record or measurement.
• “All adjectives or all sentences with I are opinions.” “Red” may name a checkable colour and “I counted” may report an observation. Compare them with a specific judgement or feeling.
• “We concluded makes any claim factual.” Read the findings. Keep the summary limited to what was actually observed; “most wonderful” remains evaluation.
• “Reporting someone’s opinion makes everyone agree.” Name whose viewpoint is reported. Reviews and other paragraphs may mix checkable details and evaluation; examine each part.

Important questions, practice and review

Question: Why can two readers agree that a story is boring without turning “boring” into an objective fact? Answer: agreement can be shared, but “boring” still describes a response to the story.

Question: How can you make a report more objective? Answer: remove personal evaluations while preserving the supplied people, events, counts, times and places. Do not replace missing facts with guesses.

Try independently: change “The delightful picnic lasted two hours beside the lake” into an objective report. Then explain the change. Model: “The picnic lasted two hours beside the lake.” Removing “delightful” removes evaluation; the duration and place remain.

Compare: “The gate is 1 metre wide” was later checked and measured at 1.2 metres. Was the first claim an opinion about a favourite width? Answer: no; it was an objectively worded but inaccurate measurement claim. Correct the number using the evidence.

Support, core and extend

Support: compare one count with one preference aloud and identify a single word clue. Core: annotate a mixed paragraph and write a report/opinion pair. Extend: explain how “only six” frames an unchanged count as fewer than expected; it does not prove a shared expectation.

Exit ticket

Read: “The club displayed eight models on Friday. I believe the colourful display was a wonderful achievement.” Copy the checkable count/day and a thinking phrase plus an evaluative word. Rewrite the second sentence to report only information supported by the passage.

Expected evidence: eight models, Friday; “I believe”; “wonderful”. A suitable revised report is “The club displayed eight models on Friday.” “Colourful” can describe appearance; it is not as clear an evaluative clue as “wonderful”. Adult check: require the actual words and an accurate report. If the student invents a prize or claims everyone admired it, return to the evidence and attribution model.

Curriculum equivalents for The subjective language of opinion and feeling, and the objective...

Mapped skill: identify the subjective language of opinion and feeling, and the objective language of factual reporting

These references identify matching or closely related learning. Curriculum sequence, terminology and depth vary, so teachers should use the mapped skill and lesson difficulty to confirm suitability.

Australian Curriculum v9.0 is the canonical source for this SkillrHub lesson. The Victoria entry is a broad Level 4 planning alignment; its exact outcome has not been verified here. The NSW entry names a related Stage 2 outcome. International entries are planning references rather than claims of identical curricula.

• Australian Curriculum Version 9.0
• Victorian Curriculum F-10
• NSW Curriculum
• Common Core State Standards
• England National Curriculum
• New Zealand Curriculum
• NCERT textbooks

• AC9E4LA01: Explore language used to develop relationships in formal and informal situations
• AC9E4LA03: Identify how texts across the curriculum have different language features and are typically organised into characteristic stages depending on purposes
• AC9E4LA04: Identify how text connectives including temporal and conditional words, and topic word associations are used to sequence and connect ideas
• AC9E4LA05: Identify text navigation features of online texts that enhance readability including headlines, drop-down menus, links, graphics and layout
• AC9E4LA06: Understand that complex sentences contain one independent clause and at least one dependent clause typically joined by a subordinating conjunction to create relationships, such as time and causality
• AC9E4LA07: Investigate how quoted (direct) and reported (indirect) speech are used
• AC9E4LA08: Understand how adverb groups/phrases and prepositional phrases work in different ways to provide circumstantial details about an activity
• AC9E4LA09: Understand past, present and future tenses and their impact on meaning in a sentence