World Heritage Sites and Literacy

I think teachers often find it hard to find interesting ways to integrate literacy into lessons. You’ll still occasionally hear discussion of “watering down the curriculum”, but I think these days most people are onboard with the idea that literacy and numeracy are the responsibility of all teachers. It is great to see that this idea has been cemented in the Australian Curriculum in the General Capabilities, and in the new NSW syllabuses in “Learning across the curriculum” content. A few years ago, I developed a lesson template that was based on a stations activity rotation. This was part of a much bigger project with a team of great colleagues, that involved developing a lesson sequence based around literacy needs. More on that another day…

This activity integrated literacy based activities with the content of World Heritage Sites. Students are placed in groups of 4-5, depending on how big your class is. It has six stations that the students move around to after a set time (about 7-8 minutes give or take).

Station 1

In the first station students categorise information. Firstly they divide a series of pictures of World Heritage Sites into either the Natural or Cultural categories. Secondly, they divide a series of written criteria into Natural and Cultural categories. 

Station 2

At this station the students are provided with an A3 version of the text book (a copy that had been ordered in the past for a student with vision impairment) to read together. They are guided to a page that covers the process of becoming a world heritage site. Students are given a series of steps along the path to becoming a World Heritage Site and must sequence the steps in the correct order in a diagram form. The information is in a written form but the finished sequence creates a diagram.

Station 3

Students are given a series of fact cards about the Galapagos Islands (or any other World Heritage Site). They must choose one fact card and write a paragraph that addresses the dot points on the fact cards. The paragraph must start with a topic sentence, and they must check their work for grammatical errors, spelling mistakes, etc. They then swap with another person in their group and check each others' work. The students then need to revise their work based on the comments from their peers.

Station 4

Students are provided with a passage of information about World Heritage Sites. They are required to identify and correct a series of  grammatical errors. For example, the use of is instead of was, or an instead of the. The students are provided with a handout that summarises the grammatical rules which they are trying to use. Students tend to need quite a bit of help with this station.

Station 5

Students are given a series of words, each on a separate piece of paper. They must use all of the words provided, and arrange them in the correct order to make a sentence. They must also correctly place the punctuation marks. 

Station 6

At this station students are asked to examine some stimulus material. In this case I used a picture book about Charles Darwin at the Galapagos Islands, and broadsheets about the Galapagos Islands. Student were asked to draw two animals found at the Galapagos Islands. From the teacher's perspective the important thing about this particular station is that it is entirely self-run, which enables you to get round to the other stations where the students need quite a bit of help.

I usually find that students quite enjoy this lesson. I know it isn’t brain surgery, but it covers some of the content and addresses literacy in several different ways. The activities can obviously be changed to suit the needs of your particular students. As I teach all boys, the fact that the activity requires a lot of movement really engages them, and I actually enjoy how this lesson unfolds.