Emily Hibberd

25969080

Where the Wild Things

are
Integrated unit of work and
resources on effective literacy
practices

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Rationale
The winner of the 1964 Caldecott Medal for the Most Distinguished Picture Book of the year,
Where the wild things are by Maurice Sendak is a 338 word imaginative text in the form of
a narrative that follows a young boy named Max on a wild journey. Maxs journey begins
after his mischief making behaviours results in being sent to bed without supper. After his
bedroom transforms into a forest, Max then sails over a tumbling ocean and arrives upon the
place where the wild things are. Max, the hailed king of all wild things then engages in a
noisy rumpus, however he decides to return home to find a hot supper waiting for him.
With the purpose of the storybook aimed to entertain, Sendaks ability to craft a variety of
descriptive language and adjectives, repetition and onomatopoeia into the text, along with the
detailed and colourful illustrations achieves this purpose of entertainment. As well as
conveying the underlying message that it may be fun to be a wild thing but not all the time. It
is through Sendaks inclusion of descriptive adjectives that I have chosen to focus on as a
learning outcome. As I believe this text effectively demonstrates what an adjective is and how
to incorporate these words into a sentence to provide more detail for the reader. Similarly, the
combination of the illustrations and the text both successfully convey the story of Where the
Wild Things are. Therefore a learning outcome based on the relationship between the
illustrations and text would be a good opportunity to teach about visual grammar, and
whether the illustrations and text complement each other or tell a different version of the
story. Furthermore, this text provides an avenue for teaching other curriculum area besides
English. Through focussing on Maxs changing emotions, feelings and behaviour throughout
the story, I believe creating a learning outcome that relates to Social and Emotional Learning
would be beneficial to connect to students own emotional wellbeing.

Learning outcomes
Students will develop their understanding of the relationship between the text and
illustrations in conveying meaning
Students will develop their understanding of adjectives and their usage

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Students will develop the ability to identify ways of managing emotion and behaviours
Students will produce a short culminating text about Maxs next adventure to where the Wild
Things are

Effective teaching and learning practices

In creating this unit of integrated work surrounding the text Where the Wild Things are,
effective teaching and learning practices have been purposely incorporated in order to
maximise the outcome of the students learning. To differentiate the learning outcomes to suit
all ability levels within the class I have specifically used the phrases develop their
understanding and develop the ability, as this language allows each student regardless of
their literacy abilities to either build meaning on new content or extend on their current
understanding of the learning content.
The integrated unit is balanced and thoroughly incorporates a variety of teaching strategies
and experiences, modes of literacy, and reading and writing skills throughout. The gradual
release of responsibility is a major teaching strategy which allows students to be supported
through the necessary explicit teaching and scaffolding in order to eventually take complete
control and responsibility over the success of ones learning. By gradually releasing the
learning responsibility throughout my teaching of the outcomes through firstly modelling,
then shared, interactive, and guided reading and writing to ultimately the place where
students can independently read and write on their own, will ensure the students are
continuing to develop and further enhance their literacy skills. As according to Hill (2012)
shared reading supports many important areas including childrens vocabulary
development, syntax, listening comprehension, print engagement and early reading
behaviours (p.103), as well as also increases childrens enjoyment of reading books. In
identifying the significance of the gradual release of responsibility, I have balanced the
experiences within the unit of work to incorporate explicit teaching, demonstrations of
reading and writing to the students, shared reading and combined construction of the text, and
independent writing (Rennie, 2015).
As I teach the learning outcomes, it is essential to engage the students through connecting
their previous knowledge to the new learning, to explicitly teach the learner through
demonstrations, to allow the learner to explore with the learning content, to elaborate on the
learning in a new way, and most importantly to give the learner the opportunity to evaluate

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and share what they have learned (Rennie, 2015). By incorporating these five Es in any
sequence within my teaching will ensure the students gain a deeper understanding of the
learning, through building on prior knowledge and experimenting with the content to
construct meaning. This will also allow myself to continually complete formative and
summative assessments on their understanding of the learning.
Throughout teaching the outcomes, I believe it is crucial that the students have the feeling of
belonging within the class. Therefore, promoting and encouraging active participation within
activities and discussions including class and group discussions, and conversation structures
such as think-pair-share, will be a focal point as I teach the learning outcomes. As Louden et
al. (2005) states it has been long recognised that ones motivation and desire to participate
actively in learning is a critical element for learning to occur (p.79). Therefore, I will
endeavour to incorporate activities that are fun, different and are aligned with the students
interests such as video clips and other small activities where the students have more choices.
Furthermore, support will be another one of my focal points throughout my teaching. The
support dimension discussed by Louden et al. (2005) refers to the ways in which effective
teachers structure childrens literacy learning so that they are expertly assisted in their
acquisition of appropriate knowledge and skills (p. 123). I will provide support through
assessments, by scaffolding their literacy learning through modelling, through providing
continuous constructive feedback, as well as being responsive on sharing and further building
on the students ideas (Louden et al., 2005), in order to extend their literacy learning.
In order to develop a balanced curriculum that accommodates for all learning styles and
needs, I have incorporated a variety of materials, experiences and multimodal texts through
the modes of literacy. The table below demonstrates the different modes of literacy within
this unit of work.
Reading

Writing

The text- Where the Wild Things are

Sentences

Students own culminating text

Culminating text

Oral Language

Viewing

Group and class discussions

Watching short video

Questions and answers

Illustrations in text

Different text types

Students own hand drawn illustrations

Different activities

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Print

Small group activities (3 students per group)

Oral

Discussions

Multimodal

Watching short video

Web (online)

Furthermore, in developing this unit I ensured that the reading and writing skills of the
learning outcomes covered each of Luke and Freebodys four resources model (1990), in
order for the students to approach and explore literacy as a problem solving task (Anstey,
Bull, 2006).
Code breaker practices
Students will develop the understanding of

Meaning maker

the relationship between the text and

Students will develop the ability to identify

illustrations in conveying meaning

Text-user practices

ways of managing emotion and behaviours

Students will develop their understanding

Students will produce a short culminating

of adjectives and their usage

text about Maxs next adventure to where the

Students will produce a short culminating

Wild Things are

Text analyst

text about Maxs next adventure to where

the Wild Things are

It is through developing ones oral language that allows the foundation for learning to read
and write to form. Therefore, being able to hear, comprehend and converse with another
person will assist ones oral language development. Hill (2012) believes in discussions about
picture books, simple structures such as think/pair/share will encourage more talk (p.119).
Therefore while teaching this unit, I will be giving the students many opportunities to talk
through processes such as brainstorming and discussions, and performances such as
storytelling (Rennie, 2015) as it will be beneficial in encouraging the class to talk and
continue developing their oral language.
Assessments are ongoing, and require consistent feedback and reflection in order to improve
students performance (Rennie, 2015). Throughout each of the outcomes, I have incorporated
three or more assessments to monitor and provide feedback (formative assessments), as well
as to evaluate their overall performance academically (summative assessments). In order to
implement outstanding assessment practices with the students, it is important that I include a

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variety of measures, feedback that is constructive and self assessments which the students can
complete (Rennie, 2015). The Initiation Response Follow-up move (IRF) sequence is an
effective way of assessing students oral language development. Through the teacher asking a
question, the students attempt to answer and the final evaluation and feedback (Rennie,
2015), will allow the teacher to assess the students understanding of a concept. However,
since it is important to include a range of assessment measures, I will implement both
formative and summative assessments which will best suit the focus of the learning outcome.
For example, one of the summative assessments for the writing outcome would be a jointly
construction rubric.

Where the Wild Things are

Teaching and learning sequence unit (year 1)
Assessing prior knowledge

Show the students the front cover of the book and ask them what they see and think

the story will be about (engaging)

Ask students questions such as why?, allowing them to elaborate on their reasoning
and evidence from the visual cues

Learning outcomes
Reading: Students will develop their understanding of the relationship between the text and
illustrations in conveying meaning (ACELA1453)

Introduce visual grammar, focus on the the representational dimension element of

visual grammar- how the illustrations help us to understand the meaning of the text.

Using the book to reference back to (explicit teaching)

Give each student a photocopied illustration from the book, students are to write a

sentence using the illustration as a reference point (exploring, elaborating)

Observe while students write their sentence and provide assistance if needed (guided

writing) and feedback (evaluating) (formative assessment)

Each students sentence is to be collected and turned into the class version of the
book.

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Read the actual text to the class (modelled reading), then together with the students
read the class version of the book out loud (shared reading) (engaging and
elaborating) (formative assessment- through observing their fluency when reading

their sentence)
Ask each student to show and identify the relationship between the text and
illustration in Where the Wild Things are. Use checklist to mark off whether each
student can explain and comprehend the relationship (summative assessment- see
appendix 1)

Oral: Students will develop their understanding of adjectives and their usage (ACELA1452)
This learning outcome is the second outcome to be completed by the students. To begin, I
will engage the students by asking the class to grab any item from around the classroom, to
bring it back to the floor and to sit in a circle. Once I have the class attention I will
implement the IRF sequence by asking a range of questions about adjectives and their usage
such as who can tell me what an adjective is?, what does an adjective do in a sentence?
and what is its purpose? to observe where the students understanding of adjectives are
currently at (formative assessment). After hearing the responses from the students, I will be
provide feedback, be responsive in building on the students answer and will also reiterate
that an adjective is a word that describes a noun and its purpose is to provide more detail and
information about the noun (explicit teaching). Followed by modelling through describing my
object in a full sentence, for example if my object is a pencil, I may say I am holding a long,
blue pencil. What were the describing words I used in that sentence? Then proceeding
around the circle, each student will then describe their object to the class. I will make a
conscious effort to praise each student for sharing as well as providing feedback, as this will
support them to continue to contribute in lessons. Once students return their object to where it
belongs, the students and I will read the text slowly in unison (shared reading/ joint
construction of text) and I will ask the students to point out any adjectives they can see on
each page. Again, I will observe who is voluntarily contributing to the discussion as a part of
my formative assessment. I will ask both close ended questions such as who can see an
adjective on this page? which will provide only yes or no answers as well as open ended
questions such as what is another word you could describe the Wild Things eyes with? and
who can tell me what this word is describing? to further engage all students into the
discussion. After reading the text, I will ask the class to think-pair-share by turning to the

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person next to them and brainstorming some more adjectives to describe the Wild Things
(exploring). The students will have a couple of minutes to do this and then they will share to
the class as I write their examples on the whiteboard (demonstrating writing to students),
again praising the efforts. I will then explain the activity which the student will complete.
Using one of the profiles to demonstrate (see appendix 3), students will choose one of the
three Wild Thing profile options to colour and add more detail, as well as filling in the boxes
using adjectives to describe the name, age, personality traits and appearance in full sentences
(elaborating). Use the time as the students complete the activity to wonder the classroom to
provide assistance. Once the students complete the activity, they will present their Wild Thing
profile to the class (evaluating). This will be a summative assessment, as I will observe and
document whether they describe the characteristics of the Wild Thing using adjectives while
presenting their profile. Another summative assessment I will complete will be through
assessing their work samples to see whether they have used adjectives in their profile, as well
as allowing the students to complete a self-assessment on how well they can use adjectives in
full sentences- see appendix 4 (evaluating).
Other curriculum area (Social and Emotional Learning): Students will develop the ability
to identify ways of managing emotion and behaviours

Watch short video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aw0_f9xLHfo (engaging)

Identify and discuss Maxs feelings (when and why they change and how Max
manages his emotion through his behaviour) throughout the text using the pages of
the book to reiterate the emotion/behaviour (exploring) (formative assessment-

observe who is contributing to the class discussion)

Important to point out the effect Maxs behaviour has on the other characters in the

text (explicit teaching)

Divide students into groups of three, each group is to have a copy of the text. Students
are to collaborate together to find three alternate ways Max could manage his feelings
(elaborating) (formative assessment- use this time to wonder around the classroom to
observe how well students are working in their groups and have a conversation with

each group about their strategies)

Groups are to share their strategies back to the class (evaluating) (summative
assessment- observe, ask why these strategies are better ways of coping with emotion
and managing behaviours and then provide feedback)

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Writing: Students will produce a short culminating text about Maxs next adventure to where
the Wild Things are (ACELY1661)

Explain the writing task (a narrative on Maxs return to where the wild things are,

incorporating adjectives and complete with an illustration) and what is required

Discussion about the theme, setting, text type, (engaging) and the elements required
(explicit teaching), and as a class write an example of an potential opening sentence

for the narrative (shared writing)

Teacher and students are to collaborate together to create a rubric for assessing the
narrative on the whiteboard. (formative assessment- whether the students can recall

what is required for the task and what should be assessed)

Ask students what writing style the story will be written in (engaging) (formative

assessment- observe)
Students are to then begin writing their narrative at their desk (independent writing),
use this time to float around the classroom to make sure students are on task and to

answer any questions

Use the rubric created by students to assess students writing samples (evaluating)

(summative assessment- see appendix 2)

Short conference with each student to provide feedback on their narrative with
reference to the rubric

References
Anstey, M., & Bull, G. (2006). Teaching and learning multiliteracies: changing times,
changing literacies. Newark, Del.: International Reading Association. (Chapter 2)
Defining Multiliteracies, 19-55.

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Hill, S. (2012). Developing early literacy: assessment and teaching (2nd ed.). South Yarra,
Vic: Eleanor Curtain Publishing.
Louden, W., Rohl, M., Barrat Pugh, C., Brown, C., Cairney, T., Elderfield, J., Rowe, K.
(2005). In teachers hands: effective literacy teaching practices in the early years of
schooling. Retrieved from http://research.acer.edu.au/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?
article=1001&context=monitoring_learning
Rennie, J. (2015). Assessment in the early years [PowerPoint slides]. Retrieved from
http://moodle.vle.monash.edu/course/view.php?id=20864
Rennie, J. (2015). Early reading and writing [PowerPoint slides]. Retrieved from
http://moodle.vle.monash.edu/course/view.php?id=20864
Rennie, J. (2015). Storytelling and reading to young children [PowerPoint slides]. Retrieved
from http://moodle.vle.monash.edu/course/view.php?id=20864
Rennie, J. (2015). The importance of oral language [PowerPoint slides]. Retrieved from
http://moodle.vle.monash.edu/course/view.php?id=20864

Appendix 1

Example of reading outcome checklist

assessment

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Appendix 2

Example of writing outcome rubric assessment

Emily Hibberd
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I have written a Title

I have written a Title and used

capital letters

I have written an exciting Title

and used capital letters

My story has a beginning,

middle and end

My story has a detailed

beginning, middle and end

My story is written in
chronological order and has a
detailed beginning, middle and
end

My story is somewhat detailed

in explaining what is happening

My story is very detailed in

explaining what is happening
and I have used some adjectives
to help with this

My story is extremely detailed

in explaining what is happening
and I have used adjectives in
full sentences in ALL of them

I have used little punctuation

(capital letters, full stops,
commas, exclamation marks)

I have used some punctuation

(capital letters, full stops,
commas, exclamation marks)

I have used punctuation (capital

letters, full stops, commas,
exclamation marks) in ALL of
my sentences

I have spelled some of the

words correctly

I have spelled most of the words

correctly

I have spelled ALL of the

words correctly

I have drawn an illustration

I have drawn an illustration

using colour pencils

I have drawn a detailed

illustration using colour pencils

Appendix 3
Example of oral outcome Wild Things profile

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Appendix 3 continued...

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Appendix 4

Example of student self-assessment for the oral

outcome

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I can show
someone how to do
it

How well I can use

adjectives in a full
sentence

Name:

I can do it by myself

I can do it with help