Primary English Teaching Association Australia Teaching the texts and language of HASS

Primary educators teach all subjects across the Australian Curriculum, and subject-specific literacies are at the heart of primary learning and teaching. In Teaching the texts and language of HASS, authors Bronwyn Custance and Tony Hole provide an explicit and systematic guide for teaching the specific literacies of the Humanities and Social Sciences (HASS) sub-strands of History, Geography, and Civics and Citizenship.

With special attention paid to literacy as the capacity to make meaning from texts (comprehending) and through texts (composing), and the core interests and values of the HASS learning area, this book is every primary teacher’s ultimate guide to HASS instruction. The first part of the book establishes the core genres and language demands in HASS. In the second part, in chapters devoted to each primary year group, the authors provide year appropriate model texts, discuss their key language features and provide guidance on how to explicitly teach the Discourse of HASS. This book gives teachers practical, clear and accessible classroom strategies for building a shared metalanguage for making and sharing meaning, from the introduction of new concepts through to assessment.

The authors make clear connections between the key concepts of HASS and the texts and language required to achieve curriculum outcomes. They guide teachers through the process of making meaning in a curriculum area that connects students with the world, their place in it and, one day, their capacity to change it.