Starting the Course

At the beginning of the Latvian Skola 2030 Higher level literature-based Year 12 course you need to do several things:

  1. Explain the rationale behind the course.
  2. You might want to do lessons based on the importance of literature and reading.
  3. Introduce the concept of the Portfolio if the students are not already familiar with it.
  4. Set out the Portfolio requirements.
  5. Design the Portfolio with the students.
  6. Choose a novel for the class to read.
  7. Introduce the concept of a research project and research questions.
  8. Design a Reading Journal for use when reading the novel.
  9. Start reading the book and using the Journal!

I suggest this scheme of work:

Lesson 1

In this lesson welcome the students to the new year; do introductions if you have new students in the class. Do some kind of speaking task about their summer holidays and then introduce them to the key ideas of the course; building a portfolio, reading a novel, using a reading journal, doing some research related to the novel, writing essays, preparing and presenting a poster about their research, organising and presenting at a conference at the end of the year.

Lesson 2

Do a lesson based on language.

Lesson 3

Do a Lesson about Reading

Lesson 4

Do a lesson about the Portfolio and the requirements and deadlines. Discuss what a portfolio might be, and find out if any of them already have a portfolio. Then read the linked text and make notes. Decide as a class what kind of portfolio folder everyone should use, design the title and contents pages and ask everyone to write out their CVs. Explain what things need to go in their Year 12 Portfolio and what will need to be submitted in March, and what the system is for doing this.

Lesson 5

Select the book to read. Look at these options of how to do this. This might take more than one lesson. For example, one lesson for the groups to research the book, one lesson to prepare films/posters/presentations, and one lesson to choose the book.

Then…..

A lesson about research questions and projects.

Then……

Lessons related to the Reading Journal. Again this might take one – three lessons.

Then….

Start reading the book!