I’ve been thinking a lot about Assessment 2 as I’ve been reading through the modules. I’ve contacted the three Year 7 teachers at my school and asked if it would be useful for me to design a literacy kit for their Egyptian Unit and I got a resounding “yes!” This will be my first time doing this type of thing as I am still transitioning into the teacher librarian role part-time next year.

As I read through Module 6 I found myself really excited about all the possibilities of activities to include. In many ways, it was distracting as I kept getting inspired and going off on tangents of things I wanted to know more about. In the end, I started three new Pinterest boards just to sort and link through the things I want to be able to quickly find and access in the future and that I can potentially share with other teachers.

I’m also quite nervous about this. The diversity in the classroom is large (from students with Down syndrome working at Year 1-2 level to very gifted students working at higher levels) and I am having trouble locating quality material. There are many, many fictional YA books on Egypt, but most of them involve breaking curses from gods that come to life and battle the heroes alongside flesh-eating mummies. I’m not sure I can justify that read through the Australian Curriculum!

I’ve been to three libraries now (which was very sad as thanks to Covid 19 there was hardly anyone there but that’s a blog for another day!) and have bags and bags of books. My job now is to narrow it down seven that are high quality and will cover the topics in the Australian Curriculum.

UPDATE! I now have too many good books to choose from! How am I to widdle it down to seven?! I’ve tried to encompass a broad style and reading range and have found myself with two in each category: two graphic novels, two Indiana Jones type adventures, two humourous, two romantic historical fiction, three non-fiction, two picture books, and too many cool online tools! Thankfully, I won’t be limited when I actually give this kit to the Year 7 teachers! Each of the two options have something great to offer that the other doesn’t–do I choose the one that’s slightly more engaging or the one with more exposure to Egyptian culture? Do I choose the one that relates better to other things they are studying in class or the one with more engaging illustrations?

What would you do?