Step 1: Explicit Teaching & Modelling
Define the outcome-specific metalanguage (purpose, visual, character) and model how to identify the feature, select evidence and explain or use it.
Learning goals
1. Outcome Overview & Core Concepts
Students learn to identify and explain the ways that characters, settings and events combine to create meaning in narratives. They identify precise evidence and explain or evaluate how a language, structural, literary or multimodal choice shapes meaning, representation, audience response or purpose. Key concepts include purpose, visual, character, setting.
Learning target: identify and explain the ways that characters, settings and events combine to create meaning in narratives
4-Step Instructional Sequence
4. 4-Step Instructional Sequence
Step 2: Guided Analysis
Work through a second example together: What is the choice or feature? Where is the evidence? What does it do here?
Step 3: Collaborative / Independent Practice
Students annotate, compare, read, edit, speak or compose with a fresh example, then apply the concept independently.
Step 4: Formative Assessment
Use an unseen micro-text, oral task or creation task. Require precise evidence plus a justified explanation or deliberate crafting choice.
Subject-Specific Content & Key Examples
2. Subject-Specific Content & Key Examples
Words and image together
A caption may name what a photograph shows while the image supplies colour, scale or expression that the words do not. Explain the contribution of each mode.
Framing directs attention
A close-up makes a face or object prominent; a wide view can emphasise setting and distance. Ask what the viewer is guided to notice.
Layout supports navigation
Headings, labels, diagrams and white space can help readers locate and connect information rather than merely decorate the page.
Transfer
Show a new still or multimodal text. Students identify one visual choice and explain how it adds, extends or changes the written meaning.
Curriculum Coverage & Elaborations
Curriculum Coverage & Elaborations
The content description is the required target. The elaborations below are taught as examples and contexts, not as disconnected checklist wording.
- E1: analysing and explaining the structure and features of short stories, discussing the purposes and appeal of different authorial choices for structure
- E2: exploring traditional stories from Asia and discussing their features; for example, use of the oral mode, visual elements and verse to convey the narrative
Common Student Misconceptions
3. Common Student Misconceptions
- Feature spotting: Naming a camera angle, colour or sound is not analysis; explain its effect.
- One fixed effect: Interpret the feature in context and alongside other modes.
- Separate-mode lists: Explain how image, words and sound reinforce, contradict or qualify one another.
- Retelling: Analyse how the representation was constructed, not only what it shows.
Practice Thought & Formative Assessment
Practice Thought & Formative Assessment
Use a fresh example that has not been modelled. Ask the student to show the exact clue, feature or language choice and explain or use it independently.
🎥 Optional Video Lesson
The SkillrHub lesson remains the primary learning resource. This optional video reinforces the explanation; you can complete the lesson and practice without watching.
Before you watch:
- Pause after each worked example.
- Try the examples yourself.
- Return to the SkillrHub lesson before continuing.
Recommended: How to Build a Fictional World
TED-Ed — Explore how a story’s setting and its rules shape characters and events.
As you watch: How would changing a rule of the fictional world change what a character can do?
Load video player Loads YouTube in this lesson. See the video notice below.
Try it: Choose a story you know, change one feature of its setting and explain how that would affect a character’s choices and the plot.
Video unavailable, inaccurate or unsuitable for this year? Report a video problem to SkillrHub by email. You can continue with the written lesson and practice resources.
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Curriculum equivalents: Victoria, NSW and international
Curriculum equivalents for And explain the ways that characters, settings and events combine...
Mapped skill: identify and explain the ways that characters, settings and events combine to create meaning in narratives
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.
| Region | Curriculum framework | Closest level or code |
|---|---|---|
| Australia | Australian Curriculum v9.0 | AC9E7LE05 · Year 7 |
| Victoria | Victorian Curriculum F–10 Version 2.0 — English | VC2E7LE05 · Level 7 |
| New South Wales | NSW English K–10 Syllabus (2022) | EN4-URA-01 · Stage 4 |
| United States (USA) | Common Core State Standards for English Language Arts | Grade 7 |
| Canada (Ontario) | Ontario Curriculum — English | Grade 7 |
| United Kingdom (England) | National Curriculum in England — English | Year 8, Key Stage 3 |
| India | NCERT / CBSE — English | Class 7 |
Australian Curriculum v9.0 is the canonical source for this SkillrHub lesson. Victoria and NSW entries name the closest published state codes or outcomes; international entries are planning references rather than claims of identical curricula.
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Topic reference: AC9E7LE05 — AC9E7LE05: Identify and explain the ways that characters, settings and events combine to create meaning in narratives
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