Show Me The Honey

Learning Intention:

I am learning to understand how the audience and purpose of texts determines the language and style used so that I can compose texts that best appeal to my intended audience.

 

Success Criteria:

 

• I can identify the audience and purpose of model texts
• I can gather information from a range of text types to use as evidence
• I can use different persuasive devices in my writing
• I can write for a specific purpose and audience.

 

Essential knowledge:

 

A definition of persuasive text can be found in the glossary.

 

Understanding text:

Read the article together. Discuss the following questions as a class.

• Who is the intended audience of the article? (Stage 2 students who have a subscription to The School Magazine)
• What is the intended purpose of the article (To inform readers about how honey is made, what it can be used for and to provide general information about bees)
• What does the choice of language and text features reveal about the intended audience? For this question, draw two columns on the board as follows. Suggested answers are included in the table.

Audience	Purpose
The introductory paragraph is from the perspective of a fictional character	Subheadings help readers navigate the information dividing the content into sections
Illustrations- are appealing to children	Photographs - are informative showing the bees and their hives in real life
Direct address and rhetorical questions (So now it's your turn. Do you have a favourite way to eat honey?)	Statistics ( On every foraging trip, a bee will visit 50 to 100 flowers to collect nectar. During these trips, it can fly up to 19 kilometres per hour.)

Creating text:

 

Have students write a persuasive article to be published in the school newsletter with the aim of convincing families in the school community to plant bee-friendly gardens.

 

To plan their article, students complete the tasks below:

 

Have students highlight the following information in the article ‘Show me the Honey:’

• What is honey used for?
• How many flowers will bees visit in a single pollen collecting trip?
• Explain the process of collecting honey prior to its purchase in stores.

 

View the video Buzzing Bees! From gardening Australia Junior to find out more about bees and pollination.

Read the Bee Friendly gardens article on the Honeyflow website to find a list of plants and flowers that can attract bees.

 

To learn about persuasive language and effective argument, view the video about Argument on The School Magazine website.

 

Students write the article for the school newsletter. They are to include the information they gathered and use persuasive devices to convince the school community to take action and provide bees with suitable plants in their garden. They are to use the language and text features discussed in the ‘Understanding text’ part of this learning resource in their own work where possible.

Assessment for/as learning:

In small groups or pairs, ask peers to review each other’s persuasive compositions against the success criteria. Each peer will give feedback to their partner using the two stars and a wish strategy. Using this feedback, students will review and revise their persuasive text.