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Teaching Suggestions - Bush Food
Strategies for teaching taxonomic information report writing on the topic of bush food.
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Teaching about information reports and taxonomic information reports
Information reports organise information in a coherent manner. They usually deal with one specific topic or subject. Taxonomic information reports describe a number of classes of things within a system of classification.
There are two main kinds of taxonomic information reports:
- part/whole taxonomies (for example, the Aboriginal flag may be divided into three parts, the red part representing the land, the yellow part representing the sun, and the black part representing the people);
- taxonomies of type (for example, bush food can be divided into two types: plant bush food and animal bush food).
The three stages of a taxonomic information report are:
- Title
- General Statement
- Description
Collectively these stages are termed the generic structure.
The Title immediately tells the reader what the information report will be about, while the General Statement classifies and names the classes of things or parts of things that are being described. It also predicts the content of the Description stage. The Description stage in taxonomic information reports may contain several paragraphs. It is divided into a number of sub-sections, each of which describes a particular component (taxonomy of type). Each sub-section paragraph begins with a topic sentence that tells the reader the focus of the paragraph. The order in which information is presented tends to reflect the relative importance of each; for example, the most important information tends to be described first.
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Some possible teaching strategies
To begin with, you will help the students to write a simple information report. The text will be about plant bush food (see sample text 1). This text will be the model. Groups of students will then jointly write an information report about animal bush food (see sample text 2). For the independent construction task, the students will be encouraged to synthesise the two previous information reports into one taxonomic information report (see sample text 3).
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Modelling an information report
- Print sample text 1 concerning plant bush food and use it as the model text for the students.
- On the board or a large sheet of paper, write the names of the three stages: Title, General Statement and Description.
- Ask the students to cut up the sentences from sample text 1 and match them to the headings. They can then choose which sentence introduces the topic of the paragraph (topic sentence) and place it first, ordering the other sentences so that they flow coherently. Make an OHT of the annotated model text and check their sequencing.
Jointly writing an information report
- Use sample text 2 about animal bush food for this activity.
- Depending upon the needs of the students, either alter the text to make a cloze exercise or leave out some sentences and guide the students into writing their own.
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Independently writing a taxonomic information report
Again, depending upon the needs of the students, you may wish to guide them through this activity.
- Make an OHT of sample text 3.
- Cover the text with a piece of paper, revealing only the generic structure (Title, General Statement and Description). Allow the students to look at the two previous information reports.
- Encourage the students to discuss the information that could go under each heading of the generic structure. Emphasise that they are attempting to write a more comprehensive report about the topic of bush food, and need to use information from both previous information reports in order to make the one taxonomic information report.
- Manipulate the text from sample text 3 to suit the needs of the students. A few suggestions: omit some words from the text and ask the students to fill them in themselves; jumble the order of the sentences and ask the students to cut and paste them into order; leave some sentences out altogether and encourage the students to write their own sentences.
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Two sample information reports:
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Generic structure
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Sample text 1
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Sample text 2
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Title
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Plant Bush Food
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Animal Bush Food
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General Statement
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Bush Food is taken from the wild.
Wild plants are eaten as bush food. Indigenous Australians have eaten bush food for thousands of years.
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Bush Food is taken from the wild.
Wild animals are eaten as bush food. Indigenous Australians have eaten bush food for thousands of years.
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Description
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The wild plants collected and eaten as bush food include: Banksia flowers, lillypilly fruits, leaves of she-oaks and roots of Gymea lilies.
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The wild animals caught and eaten as bush food include: kangaroos, emus, goannas, frogs, fish, grubs, ants and shellfish.
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Generic structure
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Sample text 3
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Title
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Bush Food
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General Statement
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Bush Food is taken from the wild. Indigenous Australians have eaten bush food for thousands of years. There are two types of bush food: animal bush food and plant bush food.
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Description
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The wild animals caught and eaten as bush food include: kangaroos, emus, goannas, frogs, fish, grubs, ants and shellfish.
The wild plants collected and eaten as bush food include: banksia flowers, lillypilly fruits, leaves of she-oaks and roots of Gymea lilies.
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Copyright © Australian Museum, 2002
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