One of the main elements of the literacy strategy in the future SACE is to evaluate individual student literacy abilities and to assist them to reflect on their skills and knowledge related to literacy. The evaluations and reflections can then help students to make decisions about their future pathways and the work that they will need to undertake if they are to be successful within these pathways. Students’ evaluations, reflections and links with future pathways can be included within their PLPs.
There are many ways of evaluating students’ literacy. In 2007, one of the pilot schools decided to model a process where students’ literacy abilities were regularly evaluated within a unit of work. Opportunities for students to reflect on their abilities were also incorporated into the unit. The subject in which the unit of work was taught was ESL, but the process and materials could be adapted and used within any subject area. The exemplars that have been included within this resource relate to student opportunities to evaluate and reflect on their literacy abilities. Not all of the activities that occurred throughout the unit have been reproduced in this document.
For teachers and students to be able to evaluate and reflect on literacy abilities, a way of speaking about language is required. The language used to speak about language is called a metalanguage. Within the resources modelled here, systemic functional linguistics has been used to name specific language features. Because these resources will be used by teachers who may not have training in this model of language, examples and explanations of terms are provided throughout the resources. In addition, a glossary has been included at the end of this document. There is also PD available in South Australia, which provides teachers with an understanding of systemic functional linguistics, particularly the course Language and Literacy: Classroom applications of functional grammar.