Year 3 Text: Mirror - Written and Illustrated by Jeannie Baker (Baker, 2016).

ENGLISH

HUMANITIES AND SOCIAL SCIENCES

GEOGRAPHY

HISTORY

Places are both similar and different

Communities and remembrance

SCIENCE

The location of Australia's neighbouring countries and their diverse natural characteristics and human characteristics (ACHASSK067)

The role that different cultural groups have played in the development and character of the local community (e.g. as reflected in architecture, commercial outlets, religious buildings), compared with development in another community (ACHASSK063) #

THE ARTS

READING AND VIEWING

Literature

Draw connections between personal experiences and the worlds of texts, and share responses with others (ACELT1596)

Language

Understand that languages have different written and visual communication systems, different oral traditions and different ways of constructing meaning (ACELA1475)

WRITING

MATHEMATICS

Literature

Literacy

Create imaginative texts based on characters, settings and events from students’ own and other cultures using visual features, for example perspective, distance and angle (ACELT1601)

Use software including word processing programs with growing speed and efficiency to construct and edit texts featuring visual, print and audio elements (ACELY1685) #

Plan, draft and publish imaginative, informative and persuasive texts demonstrating increasing control over text structures and language features and selecting print, and multimodal elements appropriate to the audience and purpose (ACELY1682)

Mirror is set in the Valley of Roses, Morocco and the inner-city suburbs of Sydney, Australia.

Have students imagine they are taking a magic carpet ride to Sydney and then non-stop to Morocco. Place cushions into rows (like seats on an aeroplane) on the carpet, and ask students to take their seats. Students will then travel over mountains, deserts, rainforests, volcanoes and oceans. #

The similarities and differences between places in terms of their type of settlement, the diversity of people (e.g. age, birthplace, language, family composition), the lives of the people who live there, and feelings and perceptions about places (ACHASSK069) #

Have students name the region, territories, countries, cities or places that their ancestors came from? Do they know what languages they spoke? What kinds of foods would they have eaten? What religious practices or belief systems they may have held?

Have students compare the houses and buildings in the Valley of Roses and Sydney. How are they different? How are they the same? Is there a pattern to where they are built? For each place talk about where the building materials may have come from and how well suited the buildings are to the environment that surrounds them.

VISUAL ARTS

Responding

BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES

Living things can be grouped on the basis of observable features and can be distinguished from non-living things (ACSSU044) #

Students locate the pages in Mirror that show the pink roses in Morocco and Sydney. Have students imagine that they are a rose and have them create an imaginative story of being a rose in Sydney and/ or a rose in Morocco.

Students look for animals in both parts of Mirror. Have students brainstorm in groups what the animals are doing, where they might live and how they get the things they need to live.

Have students follow-on from this activity by looking for animals that live outside their bedroom windows (or other windows in their house). Have students plan and deliver a short (2 minute) presentation to the class to share what they discover.

There are a number of different kinds of plants and animals that live in the two Mirror communities. Have students discuss in groups of three the different ways these living things are used in each community. Have students use the ICT mind-mapping tool 'Popplet' to record their ideas, and have them adopt different group roles (group leader, note taker and reporter).

On both cover images, you can see the views outside the bedroom windows in Sydney and Morocco. Have students create a table, and list all the things that are living and non-living that can be seen from each window. How do the different places compare? What do they share in common? What is different? Discuss.

Use a range of methods including tables and simple column graphs to represent data and to identify patterns and trends (ACSIS057)

Have students describe what they can see from their bedroom windows. Describe
what you see in words (focusing on living and non-living things). Have them discuss the similarities and differences between their bedroom and either the Sydney or Moroccan window. #

Have students use their
imagination to sketch their dream bedroom window view.
Have them write a brief explanation of their “dream view”.

Understand that successful cooperation with others depends on shared use of social conventions, including turn-taking patterns, and forms of address that vary according to the degree of formality in social situations (ACELA1476)

Discuss whether these uses are the same or whether/ how they are different? #

Discuss what role plants and animals have in their community?

Cars and donkeys are the two main means of people transport for the communities in Mirror. Have students create a table and compare the advantages and disadvantages of each type of transport.

Have students imagine that they owned and cared for a donkey and had to ride it to school. Using their knowledge of paragraphs and their advantages/ disadvantages table, have students prepare two paragraphs about how riding a donkey to school would change their daily routine?

Have each student select one animal discussed within the group, and using their knowledge of paragraph structure, write a paragraph explaining what they are doing, where they might live and how they get the things they need to live.

Listen to and contribute to conversations and discussions to share information and ideas and negotiate in collaborative situations (ACELY1676)

Plan and deliver short presentations, providing some key details in logical sequence (ACELY1677)

Understand that paragraphs are a key organisational feature of written texts (ACELA1479)

Draw connections between personal experiences and the worlds of texts, and share responses with others (ACELT1596)

Have students 'show what they know' by creating their own stories about their imaginary journey, describing the different countries they passed over and the natural wonders of the landscapes they see.

Have students use the ICT tool 'Pixton' to create a 5-panel comic about their daily routine. Allow students to use their imagination and creative thinking skills to make their ideas come to life.

Using 'Google Translate' on a tablet device, have students decipher the Arabic text. Ask students to make any observations about what they can identify about the text and text positioning.

Within each 'inflight goodie bag', allocate an area of research to each student (i.e. climate in Morocco, landmarks in Sydney) (opportunity for student learning differentiation).

Have students create a Venn diagram using the web tool 'Lucidchart', focusing on the similarities and differences between their bedroom and either the Sydney or Moroccan window.

MEASUREMENT AND GEOMETRY

Location and Transformation

Create and interpret simple grid maps to show position and pathways (ACMMG065)

Students are to follow the grid coordinates to find their way from their home in Morocco to the Bazar. Along the way, the students will pass many natural features (i.e. crops, rivers). Have students explain the order in which they passed the features to determine whether they followed the instructions correctly.

Repeat the exercise with students needing to find their way from their home in Sydney to the Magic Carpet shop. Along the way they will need to pass many man-made locations (the hardware shop, the airport, the bridge). Have students explain the order in which they visited the locations.

Discuss with students how one’s knowledge, experience, perspective and socio-cultural background influence interpretation of texts.

Personal responses discussing the use of visual art elements in their own and other’s artwork, and identifying meaning in artwork from other cultures (ACAVAR113)

As a class, discuss what makes a family. Have students discuss their own family groups and the two families in Mirror.

Identify the effect on audiences of techniques, for example shot size, vertical camera angle and layout in picture books, advertisements and film segments (ACELA1483)

EARTH AND SPACE SCIENCES

Earth’s rotation on its axis causes regular changes, including night and day (ACSSU048)

SPEAKING AND LISTENING

Language

Literacy

Listen to and contribute to conversations and discussions to share information and ideas and negotiate in collaborative situations (ACELY1676)

Plan and deliver short presentations, providing some key details in logical sequence (ACELY1677) # #

Is there anything that they can identify that they use at home or in their community? #

Following the group discussions, students are to prepare a short presentation to the class about their findings. Allow students to plan their presentations in a logical sequence using the notes taken in 'Popplet'. Each group is to take turns in presenting.

Plan and deliver short presentations, providing some key details in logical sequence (ACELY1677)

In preparing their animations, students should prepare a storyboard to plan the sequence of ideas and information.

Represent and communicate observations, ideas and findings using formal and informal representations (ACSIS060)

Plan and deliver short presentations, providing some key details in logical sequence (ACELY1677)

The students are taking an imaginary trip to Morocco, and Mrs Thomas has packed a suitcase ready to go! However, Qantas has said that they don't allow any living things to be packed into a suitcase. Using their knowledge of living and non-living things, students are to help Mrs Thomas separate the living and non-living things from her suitcase before she can fly with the students to Morocco.

Students are to actively listen including listening for specific information and participate in class discussions about each packed item.

Use interaction skills, including active listening behaviours and communicate in a clear, coherent manner using a variety of everyday and learned vocabulary and appropriate tone, pace, pitch and volume (ACELY1792)

Use a range of methods including tables and simple column graphs to represent data and to identify patterns and trends (ACSIS057)

Locate Morocco on a world map and have the students make predictions about life in Morocco based on its location in the world (KWL chart).

Explain that Africa is a large continent and there will be great cultural diversity across the continent and even within individual countries.

Tap into the cultural diversity that may exist within the class, drawing on students who may come from North African or Middle Eastern backgrounds to provide further discussion. Ask students to provide any similarities and differences between their country and Perth?

On a big piece of butcher’s paper and working in pairs, have students draw an outline of their partner. Have students ask each other where they were born, what languages they speak, what their favourite hobbies and interests are and their family histories. Have them write their responses inside the outline of their body, then repeat the exercise. Place these outlines on a wall around the classroom.

Have each pair discuss their differences and similarities between, and then invite the class to discuss any identifiable class similarities and differences.

Have students discuss what the images and objects in each artwork are showing them and compare and contrast aspects of both landscapes.

Understand that verbs represent different processes, for example doing, thinking, saying, and relating and that these processes are anchored in time through tense (ACELA1482)

Have students ask themselves questions to spark their imagination:

What do I look like?
Why was I picked?
Where and how did I grow?
What do I smell like?
Am I thirsty?.

Morocco and Sydney are located on two different continents, but why is it day and night at the same time?

Have the students brainstorm their ideas about what causes night and day.

Ask the students to look closely at the cover and beginning pages of Mirror contribute to a brainstorm of all the words they know about night-time. Support the brainstorming with some technical language as required, then record and display the brainstormed words. The words may be grouped (for example, words about what we see in the night sky [everyday and technical] and words that describe the night sky [everyday and technical]).

Allow the students to identify the day images within Mirror. Follow the same process for discussing the painting and making links with the students’ own experiences and knowledge. Have the students brainstorm all the words they know about daytime.

Represent and communicate observations, ideas and findings using formal and informal representations (ACSIS060)

NUMBERS AND ALGEBRA

Patterns and Algebra

Fractions and Decimals

Model and represent unit fractions including 1/2, 1/4, 1/3, 1/5 and their multiples to a complete whole (ACMNA058)

Describe, continue, and create number patterns resulting from performing addition or subtraction (ACMNA060)

Using their knowledge of number patterns, students are to create and draw their own number pattern carpet designs. Students should be as creative as possible, and use colours identified in Mirror to decorate their artwork. Once completed, break the class into groups. Allow groups to observe each others work and determine what number patterns each student may have used. Can students identify and similarities and differences in each others work?

Have students transfer their rug designs onto 10cm x 10cm tiles to create a 'Moroccan Mosaic'. If possible, display the artwork in an area outside of the classroom to brighten up the school yard. (Caralee Community School and Fremantle Language Development Centre, 2015)

Money and Financial Mathematics

Represent money values in multiple ways and count the change required for simple transactions to the nearest five cents (ACMNA059)

Interpret and compare data displays (ACMSP070)

Locate and collect information from a variety of sources (e.g. photographs, maps, books, interviews, internet)

Mirror guides the reader towards the underlying ideology of her work – stating that ‘outward appearances may be very different but the inner person of a “stranger” may not be a stranger at all’.

Using 'Google Hangouts', connect with a classroom in Sydney and in Morocco to learn more about each location. Have students prepare and present questions to the other classrooms (i.e. what time do you start school?), and allow them to participate in collaborative discussions, building on and connecting ideas and opinions expressed by others.

Tell time to the minute and investigate the relationship between units of time (ACMMG062)

Once the students have 'landed' in each place, use 'Google VR' to take a virtual field-trip with students.

People dress in different ways depending on their belief systems, habits, age, and the latest trends and influences. In Mirror you will see that women living in North Africa wear long gowns and headscarves, particularly when found in the company of men. In Australia, women who have come from these cultural backgrounds or share their belief system also wear long gowns, headscarves and other very different articles of clothing.

Have a class mufti day, where students wear clothes that say something about themselves, their family and community. Each student is to deliver a short oral presentation providing key details about their choice in clothing. Students may choose deliver a multimodal presentation, displaying photos or videos.

Transform the classroom into a bazaar! Students will create their own 'fraction market stalls', and by using their knowledge of fractions, students will create three fraction models using manipulatives (i.e. sticks, pom-poms and feathers) to 'sell' in their market stall.

Let's make a spice garden! Working in teams, students are to use their deduction, problem-solving and team work skills to determine the cost and number of spice seedlings they can buy for the classroom spice garden within a set budget. Have each group focus on a different spice, and have students present their findings to the class. #

Within Mirror, there is a beautiful image of the spice-seller’s stall in the bazaar, with its colours so rich that the reader seems able to inhale the diversity of spices. (Baker, 2016)

Students will each be allocated a set of gardening instructions to plant and care for a particular spice (i.e. chilli, coriander and aniseed). Students will need to read the instructions and identify the verbs (i.e. water, dig, pick and lift). As a class, discuss the way the verbs add meaning to a sentence/ the instructions.

Working in small groups, students are to create a classroom spice garden. Students are to follow the instructions and use their knowledge of living things to tend to the garden.

Cross-curriculum priority: Sustainability

Living things can be grouped on the basis of observable features and can be distinguished from non-living things (ACSSU044)

Once students have created two fraction models to sell, the will need to correctly label what fraction each model is representing so that potential purchasers know what they may buy.

The third and final fraction model will be the 'mystery model', which will instead be labelled with a question-mark. This is because later in the lesson the students will visit each others market stalls to determine what fraction their mystery model represents.

Once completed, each student will be allocated a partner and roles (stall owner and customer). Students will take in turns to visit each others market stalls. It will be the responsibility of the stall owner to justify why their first two models are labelled correctly. It is the customers responsibility to determine what the mystery model represents. Once completed, the students will need to reverse roles.

Plan and deliver short presentations, providing some key details in logical sequence (ACELY1677)

Have students turn their stories into a travel brochure that promotes special tours.

Making

Ideas

Exploration of different materials, media and/or technologies, when creating artwork (ACAVAM107)

Baker provides forewords and endnotes that give factual information about the materials and processes used for the collages. Explain to the students that the artworks use a combination of natural and artificial materials to express her response to the contrast between the landscape and the lifestyles of Sydney, Australia and the Valley of Roses, Morocco. Allow the students to identify the materials used (i.e. sand, earth, clay, paints, vegetation, paper, fabric, wool, tin and plastic).

Students are to vote on their favourite page within Mirror to recreate as a class collage. Ask students to bring into class any items they think will help make the collage in the style Jeannie Baker adopted for her illustrations (i.e. cardboard, coloured card, sand etc).

Personal opinions, feelings and ideas about artwork they view and make (ACAVAR109) #

Students create a tracing of their family in a room setting by drawing onto a piece of strong cardboard. Allow students to use scale and shape to represent the different people and animals in their home. Students are to include one special object of value which their entire family uses as part of their daily life. Place it in the foreground and increase the scale of the object to give it importance and also to allow room for intricate detail.

Allow students to walk around the classroom to view the finished products. Pose questions such as:

Which artwork do you like the most?
Can you explain why you like it?
Do you enjoy looking at the artwork? Why?
What is happening in this artwork?

Use of visual art elements and techniques, to create 2D and 3D artwork, that communicate an idea to an audience (ACAVAM108)

Once completed, the students will prepare an assembly presentation about what they have learnt from reading Mirror (main messages), why they chose this image as their favourite page in the book and what they used/ did in order to create the mural.

Ensure students understand how a cartoon storyboard is created by viewing different cartoons prior to lesson.

Carpet making is an ancient craft that is found all over the
world and covers a variety of techniques and methods. In
Mirror, the reader sees the mother weaving a carpet with multiple colours and patterns. Students will analyse and discuss the carpet weaving traditions of Morocco through a photographic journey showing various aspects of the carpet weaving process.

Using the Moroccan rug designs as inspiration, students will create their own carpets using the weaving technique. Students rugs are to be accompanied by a reflective statement about what their rug means to them (did they use their favourite colours/ shapes?). (Zontee, 2008)

Understand how different types of texts vary in use of language choices, depending on their purpose and context (for example, tense and types of sentences) (ACELA1478)

Ensure students are introduced to the conventional form of a friendly letter (return address, date, address of recipient, salutation, body, closing, and signature).

Have students imagine the two boys in Mirror are pen pals. Advise students that the two boys became pen pals before the family in Morocco purchased their computer, and so sent each other letters. Students are to write the first letter each boy sends to each other, telling his new pen pal about his everyday life.

Students are to then write the first email the boy in Morocco sends his Australian pen pal, and the email the Australian boy sends in reply.

Once completed, display the work around the classroom.

Display of artwork

Plan and deliver short presentations, providing some key details in logical sequence (ACELY1677)

One of the main themes within Mirror is family connections and values. Ask students to identify what is important in their family – what values do they have? Expand on this topic by asking "how are family life and the values and beliefs of people expressed in the material objects a family owns?".

Have students prepare a role-play with a partner. Students imagine that they are either the boy from Morocco or the boy from Sydney. Students converse about how their mother and father bought (a) a carpet or (b) a new computer. Have students discuss why is it important to them? Why do they need a computer or carpet? How will this effect their lives?

Students are to then construct a short script of one part of that conversation and deliver it to the class.

Students are to look carefully at each picture and see if you they can tell what time it is in each country. Questions should include:

How do you know?
How long does it take them to get to the market
place?
How long does it take to get to Hardware Planet?

Students are to write two separate timelines – one for the daily events in Morocco and one for the daily events in Sydney. Students can use drawings and pictures to divide up the day. They should also draw or write descriptions of the sequential happenings in the day.

Literacy

Identify the point of view in a text and suggest alternative points of view (ACELY1675)

Remind students that stories can be told from the point of view of one character by using a narrator or the first person pronoun. After reading Mirror, students discuss from whose point of view the story is told.

Allow students to speculate what other characters might think or feel within the story.

Students are to select one character from Mirror (other than the two boys) and retell the story from their perspective. Give students some sentences starters, such as:

I am …;
When I saw …; and
Now I feel ….

Following this activity, students are to transform their character into an avatar using the ICT tool 'Voki'. Students should prepare accompanying text to describe the main features of their avatar. Students can use the voice recording options to help make their avatars come to life.

Identify the audience and purpose of imaginative, informative and persuasive texts (ACELY1678)

Initiate a class discussion about the visual and graphic features in advertisements (i.e. the use of colours, the layout, lines, shapes and texture in the advertisement to make it more appealing).

The Magic Carpet rug shop is having a sale! Using two pre-prepared advertisements for the Magic Carpet rug shop, test the students understanding of how visual elements in an advertisement affect reader response. In this activity, students are to compare a poorly created print advertising layout with a good layout. Allow students to identify how the visual elements in the good layout work better to convey meaning to the reader.

Read an increasing range of different types of texts by combining contextual, semantic, grammatical and phonic knowledge, using text processing strategies, for example monitoring, predicting, confirming, rereading, reading on and self-correcting (ACELY1679)

Allow students to analyse the way illustrations help to construct meaning by interpreting different types of illustrations found in Mirror.

As a class, look at the covers, title in English and Arabic, and the dedication in Mirror. Ask students to suggest what clues about the story the covers give to the reader, and then allow them to make predictions about the story.

Explain that this is a story about two boys who are the same age but live in different parts of the world. This story is told in pictures rather than words so students should be guided to look at how the author provides them with information through the illustrations. As you read, tell the students to look closely at what is happening in the pictures to find out about the boys’ families and lives and how they use the land.

Discuss how Jeannie Baker builds up our understanding of the lives of the two boys by creating detailed visual images. Choose one page to look at in detail. Ask the students:

What is happening in this illustration?
Who or what is in this illustration?
What other information has been provided? (for example,
When? Where? How? and Why?).

Conduct a picture walk through the text and demonstrate how to hold the book. Return to the predictions and allow the students to confirm or reject them, based on what they now know from the reading.

Display the book and, before reading, explain to the students that this book is to be read simultaneously, one page from the left, the other from the right. Ask the students if they may be able to give a reason for this.

Discuss with students how the relationship between characters can be depicted in illustrations. Allow students to identify and justify what clues they are looking for in the illustrations to create meaning. Some examples include:

Positioning of the characters (for example, facing each other or facing away from each other);
Distance between them;
Relative size;
One character looking up (or down) at the other (power relationships); and
Facial expressions and body gestures.

Students can observe how images construct a relationship with the viewer by things such as the direct gaze into the viewer's eyes, inviting involvement, and how close-up images are more engaging than distanced images, which can suggest alienation or loneliness.

Ask students to research the author of Mirror and prepare a newspaper article on them and the book. Students should include a cover image and review of the book.

In Mirror, a handmade carpet with multiple colours and patterns made its way from the deserts of North Africa to a family living in Sydney, Australia.

Ask students to create an imaginative text based on the question; "If you could send an object to someone in a place very different to your own, what would that be?" Students are to write the story of this object and its journey from Australia to another family in a faraway land. Prompting questions could include:

Would that object say something about how you lived; and
How different that might be from someone living in a place or community unlike your own?

Once completed, students are to compare their timelines with other group members, and discuss the similarities and differences

Interpret and compare data displays (ACMSP070)

Use comprehension strategies to build literal and inferred meaning and begin to evaluate texts by drawing on a growing knowledge of context, text structures and language features (ACELY1680)

Students will discuss the 'making inferences' comprehension strategy (evaluate or draw conclusions from information in a text). Explain to the students that authors do not always provide complete descriptions of, or explicit information about a topic, setting, character, or event. However, they often provide clues that readers can use to "read between the lines" by making inferences that combine information in the text with their background knowledge.

Within Mirror, the text states "the lives of the two boys and their families look very different form each other and they are different. But some things connect them... just as some things are the same for all families no matter where they live".

By looking at the images within Mirror, ask students to identify which objects they think reflect the values of the family in Morocco? How are the objects, and the families values, similar to their families, and how are they different?

Using a digital camera, have students take photographs of objects that they think reflect their families values. Ask students to create a collage share with their classmates.

Ask students what they think is meant by that statement. Next, ask students to become reading detectives and identify the clues within the text and what they know already to justify their answers. Following the completion of the task, the students should share their thoughts with the class.

Provide students with various scenarios they have to demonstrate in front of the class (i.e. have two students turn their backs to each other and cross their arms. Ask students what they think this means and what cues they looked for to determine their answers).

(Baker, 2016)

Discuss with students that the Arabic language does not use capital letters. Ask students to write a sentence without using capital letters and then the same sentence using capitals in appropriate places. Can they explain the benefits or otherwise of using capital letters? (Baker, 2016)