Introduction

To the tutor, parents, caregiver or teacher Year 7 Start Right English Workbook has been written for The New Zealand Curriculum English k Level Four. The New Zealand Curriculum Level Four typically relates to Year 7 and Year 8 students (1113 year olds). The New Zealand Curriculum English is structured around two interconnected strands, each encompassing the oral, written, and visual forms of the language: Making meaning of ideas or information (Listening, Reading, and Viewing). Creating meaning for themselves or others (Speaking, Writing, and Presenting).

The two sections of Year 7 Start Right English Workbook reect the two learning strands. The Language tools section is essential learning for the two learning strands.

Section One Listening, Reading, and Viewing

Listening
To be an effective listener is a key component in any form of learning. This section gives examples of different types of listening skill and provides practical exercises for students to extend and consolidate these skills.

Reading
This section provides examples of a variety of texts from both New Zealand and international authors for students to read and analyse. It enables students to practise drawing out key facts and answering a variety of questions designed to check their comprehension, interpretation and processing skills.

Viewing
Visual language is all about understanding and interpreting what we see. The exercises allow students to interpret and understand what is seen. The exercises should also allow students to explore the messages and ideas conveyed by a variety of visual images from reading a map, a comic or billboards and signs that surround us. This section allows students to work with examples of images that they encounter every day, with practical exercises to help them interpret these messages.

Section Two Speaking, Writing, and Presenting

Speaking
The ability to speak articulately is a crucial part of being able to communicate effectively. This section gives practical examples of how to communicate clearly, from relaying messages to giving a speech to taking part in a dramatic presentation, etc.

Writing

This section gives students practice in forming, writing and editing their own texts. It allows students to look at how to form and structure their own ideas clearly into effective and interesting pieces of writing in a variety of forms and structures.

Language Tools

Grammar and punctuation form the foundation of all our oral and written language. They have a set of guidelines that enable us to make sense of language and to communicate clearly. This workbook explains the guidelines and helps students apply them to their everyday speaking and writing.

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Reading

Reading
What can reading offer us?
In this section, you will be looking at a range of New Zealand and international authors writing to help you discover how stories are developed and the features that a story can be composed of. Before you do this, you need to know about your attitudes to reading.

Exercise 5: What does reading offer us?

Below are a range of statements. Read them carefully. Put a smiley face next to the statements you think relate to what benets reading can offer us. Leave blank any of the statements you do not feel apply to reading. Reading is A skill that can be learned and perfected. A waste of time. A good way to relax and unwind. A way to expand knowledge and imagination n. A way to get out of doing any real work. A way to learn and develop new skills. A way to nd new information. A way to understand our world. A way to use up paper and resources. Complete this statement to reect how you feel about reading. I think reading is

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AOI: Thinks critically about texts with increasing understanding and condence.

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Reading 2. Do you think Mr Zuckerman the farmer, realises Templeton exists? Give reasons for your opinion.

3.

What does the author mean by The tunnel was an example of his skill and cunning?

4.

What does stealthily mean?

5.

Why do you think Templeton might need to move stealthily?

Personality tree
A writer may build a whole book around a main character. Spend some time thinking about a character before you write about them. Build up a character prole outlining good and bad qualities, what the character looks like and how they act. A personality tree is a fun way to do this. Label each branch with a heading and add as many leaves to each branch as you may need.

Martys personality tree

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AOI: Selects and uses appropriate processing and comprehension strategies with increasing understanding and condence.

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Section One

Listening, Reading, and Viewing

Exercise 9: Making a personality tree

Use Martys personality tree as a guide and add suitable characteristics to this personality tree. Add other headings on the unlabelled branches. You may ask a friend or family member for key words. Personality tree

Exercise 10: Fictional characters

On a separate piece of paper, draw up some more personality trees to use for your writing. Use family members or friends or people you know really well as a basis for each character. You can also choose from some of the ideas below. It is important to remember that everyone has some positive qualities and talents, no matter how unlikable a character they are! One of the Wilberforces from the story Under The Mountain. A favourite animal character. The school bully. A sporting hero or favourite pop star.

The main character in your all-time favourite book. Your most favourite or least favourite relative. The main character in your favourite movie. 10
AOI: Uses an increasing vocabulary to make meaning.

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Reading

Setting
Establishing a setting
The setting: Is where the story takes place bush, sea, country, city, space, etc. Involves time past, present, future, day, night, season, etc. Provides the general atmosphere and the mood.

Exercise 11: Establishing a setting

Below are some extracts which describe settings in some popular and well-loved stories.

alfmen of O Extract 1: The H ran destone Creek. It ds Birs farm ut to get back to Lo B Talking rri sh through the Fe down out of the bu . Some er at Devils Elbow and joined the riv name. ,, ven the place that ere early miner had gi wn on his luck. Th must have been do He and the er about the bend was nothing sinist e mooing it was a lively plac farm enclosed in rt of thing. rkeys and that so cows, gobbling tu y, in ood, in Golden Ba y south of Collingw It la Zealand. r corners of New one of the lonelie
en of From: The Halfm Gee O by Maurice

Extract 2: Charlottes Web

Extract 3: Dip in the pool g motionless in It was a calm sunny evening with little wisps of brilliant white cloud hangin together the sky, and the valley was cool and very quiet as the two of us began walking s Oxford. along the grass verge on the side of the road that ran between the hills toward
From: Dip in the pool, from the book Skin and Other Stories by Roald Dahl

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From: Charlottes Web by E B White
AOI: Recognises and understands how texts are constructed for a range of purposes, audiences, and situations.

The barn was very large. It was very old. It smelled of hay and it smelled of manure. It smelled of the perspiration of tired horses and the wonderful sweet breath of patient cows. It often had a peaceful smell as though nothing bad could ever happen again in the world. It smelled of grain and of harness dressing and of axle grease and of rubber boots and of new rope. And whenever the cat was given a fish head to eat the barn would smell of fish. But mostly it smelled of hay, for there was always hay in the great loft up overhead.

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Section Two

Speaking, Writing, and Presenting

Expressive voice
Your voice must be expressive to interest your listeners when you are reading, acting, making a speech or retelling a story or news item.

Exercise 10: Using expression

Practise saying the following sentences. Try to use appropriate actions and facial expressions as you speak. Then try speaking without the actions, but using the same expression in your voice. Which is easier? 1. Wow, look at the Formula One car go! 2. What an enormous skyscraper. 3. I couldnt get the door open. 4. I leapt in terror. 5. Bridget was boiling hot. Point Reach arms up Shove Jump Wipe brow

6. Jack grabbed the boat and pulled it on to the sand. Pull hard 7. Getting through the swamp was such hard work. Try to pull feet out of the sticky mud Show size

8. The bug seemed minute, but it was still able to pack a nasty sting.

Exercise11: Making up a text

Talk about the following pictures. Put them into a suitable order to make a story or a report. Who are these people? What are their names? Tell someone what you have prepared.

Use expression in your voice to keep your audience interested.

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AOI: Forms and communicates ideas and information clearly, drawing on a range of sources.

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Speaking

Exercise 12: Creating a text around a picture

1. Try creating a text around one of the images in the picture. Where is this set? What is happening? Imagine the background. What has happened leading up to this point? Who are the people? Give them names to make them real. Remember, you are working on speaking r clearly and expressively. This is fun if you have a group of people and you take it in turns to tell your different versions. 2. Find a picture of your own and imagine what lies behind it. Who are the people? What do you think the event is that the picture is describing? g When do you think the event in the picture takes place? e Where do you think the event in the picture takes place? e Describe the event in the picture is the event funny, scary, thrilling, etc?
If you are not very confident about telling stories or giving reports of an event, try putting a puppet on each hand and make them tell each other your text. A sock makes a good hand puppet.

Descriptions
Have you been giving good descriptions in your text telling? It is easy to say A games machine. We can add a more general description, and say The Sony PSP games machine. The next step is to get more specic (more detailed ) and say The Sony PSP games machine is the height of portable hand-held entertainment. It has a majorly enhanced LCD screen allowing you access to the ultimate games from the PlayStation network, movies, TV shows and more. This is the entertainment tool you cannot be without! We could even expand our description more and talk about the different colours and accessories that PSP consoles come with and where you can purchase these products.

Exercise 13: Descriptions

1. 2.

Go back to the last exercise and retell your texts. Dont change them except to add in more specic descriptions about the places and the people. Give a friend or a family member a specic description of the following places: Your house. Your bedroom. Your favourite secret place.

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AOI: Forms and communicates ideas and information clearly, drawing on a range of sources.

Section Two

Speaking, Writing, and Presenting

Exercise 20: Writing a story with a set ending

On your own paper or in your book, plan and write a short story using one of the following sentences as your nal sentence. And that was the last thing I saw. It was time to go. What a holiday. It was the most comforting sound I had ever heard.

Samantha (or James) could not believe her (his) luck. Buster shook himself, water ying everywhere, and grinned his doggy grin. As I looked back, I could see the mountains gradually growing smaller and it seemed my memories were shrinking with them.

Exercise 21: Mix and match

Choose a character from list A, another character from list B, and a setting from Setting C. Then, on your own paper or in your book, write a short narrative for a younger reader. Illustrate your work to add interest for your reader.
Character A A decrepit old man An Intermediate student A baby A large mountain lion A computer geek A sporting hero A suspicious-looking vagrant A new immigrant A rally-car driver Character B A worn out, grumpy mother An intelligent but mischievous fox The owner of a trendy caf A paper boy or paper girl A zombie headmaster A famous actor A cunning rat A harassed teacher Troublesome triplets Setting A well-known capital city A barren desert Sometime in the past A bach A safari park The Interislander Cook Strait Ferry A boiling hot day in the classroom A haunted, abandoned car An icy lake

Story evaluation
Use this form to evaluate the writing you have done.

Story evaluation appropriate box Pre-writing g Planning my plot After writing g

Writing character profiles Character development Plot development

Dis eval cuss y som uation our give eone wh with feed you helpo can ba fu advi ck and l ce

Use of complication/crisis/climax Realistic setting Presentation Overall Proofreading

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Highly successful

Moderately successful

Didnt do so well

AOI: Recognises and understands how texts are constructed for a range of purposes, audiences, and situations.

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Writing

Writing poetry
Poetry forms
This section looks at poetry forms. Use these poetry forms as a stepping stone to free form poetry writing. A poem: Does not need to rhyme unless rhyme is part of the poetry form being used. t Does not need to be written in complete sentences or have a regular rhythm. t Does need to be set out in lines. Layout is a very important part of poetry. s Does arouse feelings or memories, records thoughts or observations. s Does need carefully chosen words. s A useful way to start poetry writing is with a vocabulary pile. I always try to use words which create pictures and r appeal to the senses and emotions.

Stretch

b m li

gl rg

Jelly wobbles Here is one way to get a good vocabulary pile. 1. 2. Decide on your subject or use one given to you. ou Close your eyes. Think of the topic and what it means to you. Create a picture in your mind.

e
Shrink

Where are you? What do you see? What can you hear? What is the temperature? What colours can you see? What are you doing? How do you feel about this place?

3.

Open your eyes and write down all of the words you associated with what you saw, felt, heard, smelt and did. You could also consult a thesaurus for some additional/new ideas. This is my vocabulary pile about the New Zealand bush.

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damp drippy cool deep green silver brown gnarled dappled sunlight cicadas rustling damp leaf litter fern fronds moss and lichens fivefinger ponga kawa kawa peaceful still dank smelling vines berries birds r fantails flitting gentle movements green light filter dense

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AOIs: Recognises and understands how texts are constructed for a range of purposes, audiences, and situations. Shows an increasing understanding of how language features are used for effect within and across texts.

Language Tools

Nouns
A noun is a naming word. We can name a person, a place, an animal, an object, an idea or a feeling. If you can name it, its a noun. There are different kinds of noun: Common nouns used for everyday things (eg table, mouse, choir). Proper nouns used for people, places, titles of books, movies, countries and other things with a given name (eg Maui, Mount Tongariro, Northern Lights, High School Musical). l Collective nouns used for groups of things (eg gaggle, class, troop). Abstract nouns used for qualities and conditions we cannot touch, point to, or see (eg happiness, dishonesty, kindness).

Exercise 42: Common nouns

All around us are objects named as common nouns. The objects named by common nouns can be pointed to or touched such as book, pictures, shelves. How many common nouns can you nd to group under these headings? 1. Things in your desk 2. Sports equipment you enjoy using

3. Clothing items you would need for skiing

4. Types of weather

5. Objects you can sit on

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6. Parts of a car
AOI: Uses a range of text conventions, including grammatical conventions, appropriately, effectively, and with increasing accuracy.

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Answers
Section One Listening, Reading, and Viewing
Exercise 3: Listening carefully (page 2) A mouse or Marty Mouse. Exercise 4: Taking a message (page 4) 1. C Surprise birthday party 2. C Kate. 3. B Emma. 5. B Savouries

4. A Phoning people to tell them about the party Exercise 5: What does reading offer us? (page 5) Reading is A skill that can be learned and perfected. A waste of time. A good way to relax and unwind. A way to expand knowledge and imagination. A way to get out of doing any real work. A way to learn and develop new skills. A way to nd new information. A way to understand our world. A way to use up paper and resources.

Exercise 6: Understanding characters Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (page 6) s Answers may vary, suggested answers for meaning follow. g 1. a. brilliant extremely clever or highly skilled. b. unusual different from others of the same type in a way that is surprising, interesting or appealing. c. mysterious strange or unknown which has not yet been explained or understood. d. wizard a man who is believed to have magical powers and who uses them to help or harm people. 2. Harry was their nephew. 3. Harry was a wizard and had a lightning-shaped scar on his forehead. 4. A past that has not been explained or understood yet. Exercise 7: Understanding a character Where the Wild Things Are (page 7) Answers may vary, suggested answers follow. 1. The creatures have terrible, rolling yellow eyes, gnashing teeth and terrible claws and like to roar you can tell this from the descriptive adjectives used when the author describes the wild things. 2. Max says Be still, then stares into their terrible yellow eyes without blinking once. 3. Answers will vary. 4. The wild things called Max the most wild thing of all when he had tamed them and they made him king of all the wild things. Then a wild rumpus was held. 5. To bring teeth forcefully together when angry.

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Answers Exercise 8: Understanding a character Templeton the rat (page 8) 1. Templeton is a crafty and cunning rat. He uses his devious skills to set up a tunnel network around the farm so he can get to where he needs to go without being seen. He moves quickly and stealthily around, normally at night to reduce the chance of detection. 2. Mr Zuckerman probably does not realise Templeton exists as Templeton tends to move through the tunnel network to avoid detection. As Templeton also tends to sleep during the day and move around at night, he probably does not move around at similar times to Mr Zuckerman. 3. Templeton had managed to set up a efcient tunnel network to get himself everywhere he needed to go without anyone seeing him. This allowed him to meet all of his needs without exposing himself to danger or predators. 4. Stealthily means secretly, quietly and quickly. Someone moves stealthily in order to try not to be seen or heard. 5. Humans do not like rats as they feel they bring germs and disease and eat supplies that have been allocated for themselves or other animals. Exercise 11: Establishing a setting (page 11) 1. Extract 3. It was a calm, sunny evening. 2. Extract 1: Lodestone Creek, New Zealand. Extract 2: A barn. Extract 3: A valley outside Oxford [England]. 3. Extract 1: New Zealand. It lay south of Collingwood, in Golden Bay, in one of the lonelier corners of New Zealand. Extract 3: Possibly England. ...along the grass verge on the side of the road that ran between the hills towards Oxford. Exercise 13: Introducing the plot Skin (page 14) 1. a. To walk by pulling your feet slowly along the ground rather than lifting them. b. Very unhappy or unpleasant and causing unhappiness. c. Thick unpleasant dirt, extremely or unpleasantly dirty. 2. In a town or city, probably somewhere in France or a French-speaking country, as Rue de Rivoli means Rivoli Street in English. 3. Answers will vary. 4. Answers will vary; one example could be: Drioli was poor. He was out in the freezing cold in winter, he wore a lthy black coat and was obviously not very well. 5. Students personal opinion, no set answer or example. Exercise 14: Introducing the plot The Haunting (page 15) 1. It was an ordinary Wednesday. Possibly set around a home, because garden is mentioned. 2. He is imaginative, no longer babyish, old enough to ride a bike. He has a stepmother. 3. Mantis, Bigbuzz and Ghost are Barnabys imaginary friends. 4. Being haunted. 5. Answers will vary.

Exercise 15: Introducing the plot The Lord of the Rings The Two Towers (page 16) 1. a. To search or to try and nd something or someone. b. Confusion or worry. Something which is proving difcult for someone to understand or solve. c. The highest point of a mountain. d. Far away, in the distance. e. Far away. 2. Answers will vary could include: The summit of mountainous terrain. 3. Aragorn is trying to nd Frodo. 4. Aragorn is seeking hobbits. Exercise 17: Plot development Watcher in the Forest (page 18) 1. a. Shake, minor earthquake. b. Foresaw, expected. c. Caught or torn on a point. d. Menacing, sinister, threatening. 140 40

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