ACTF News

Our latest numbers are in, showing the five most viewed ACTF support materials during Term Three. Could these popular teaching resources be used in your classroom during Term Four?

1. Paper Planes – Novel and Film Comparison

Through this unit of work, written by Wendy Bean, students examine the visual and printed texts of the Paper Planes (feature film and novel). The novel is based on the motion picture screenplay Paper Planes, and is written by Steve Worland.

This unit of work explores a range of themes touched on in the novel and film including loss, relationships, connectedness, friendship, independence and competition. Students are encouraged to generate questions and write about how the themes relate back to them and their own life experiences. Together with this, the unit encourages students to further develop their skills of writing persuasive and procedural texts related to the Paper Planes novel and film.

2. My Place for Teachers

The My Place for Teachers website provides rich educational material to support primary and lower-secondary teachers using the My Place TV series in the classroom. The website features cross-curricular teaching materials related to series 1 and 2.

3. Little Lunch Cast Q&A Webinar

The live video conferences hosted by the ACTF enable teachers and students Australia-wide to connect with the industry professionals behind current children’s series, regardless of their school’s location. In this webinar, students quizzed four cast members from Little Lunch about the making of the series, their media careers, and tips for aspiring actors.

4. The Inbestigators Teaching Toolkit

Mystery series like The Inbestigators are so engaging partly because they position readers as active participants in solving a crime. They put themselves in the detectives' shoes and collect clues alongside them, paying close attention to what the detective thinks, sees, does, and says. 

With our recently released Teaching Toolkit for this series, Year 3-6 students will practise making inferences, examine plot, and more. Tasks will help students to understand the mystery genre, and build the knowledge and skills necessary for them to craft their own engaging mystery stories.

Lessons can be approached individually or incorporated into a longer unit on the mystery genre. Learning tasks in The Inbestigators Teaching Toolkit are aligned to the Australian Curriculum, with links made to English, Critical and Creative Thinking, and Personal and Social Capability.

5. Lockie Leonard for Teachers

Lockie Leonard for Teachers is a multiliteracy resource aimed to help students in upper primary and lower secondary school explore the Lockie Leonard television series, based on the original trilogy of books by Western Australian writer, Tim Winton.

The website provides access to over 100 teaching and learning activities, each supported by video clips and student worksheets exploring themes from Lockie Leonard texts and TV series. Access can be purchased from the ACTF Shop for $5, or is included with any Lockie Leonard series purchase.

Lockie Leonard for Teachers is divided into the following strands: Storytelling in a Television Series; Transition and Adolescence; Identity; Reacting, Responding and Creating; Gender Perspectives: A Comparison of Lockie Leonard and Mortified. In addition, it features Extras information including Character Biographies, Press Kit, Stills Gallery, and Episode Synopses, and an interactive map.

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