Part A: Course Overview

Course Title: Teaching upper primary literacy and English

Credit Points: 12.00

Terms

Course Code	Campus	Career	School	Learning Mode	Teaching Period(s)
TCHE2706	City Campus	Postgraduate	360H Education	Face-to-Face	Sem 1 2025

Course Coordinator: Susan Rook

Course Coordinator Phone: By email

Course Coordinator Email: sue.nicola.rook@rmit.edu.au

Course Coordinator Location: Bundoora

Course Coordinator Availability: By appointment or email.

Pre-requisite Courses and Assumed Knowledge and Capabilities

None

Course Description

The course has as its central core the deepening of knowledge about literacy teaching and learning in the upper primary. You will have the opportunity to consider the data from both school-based and system-based sources and how this can be used to both differentiate the curriculum in literacy for learners and set goals and plan for literacy learning in the upper primary school. Special consideration will be given the resources in for reading in the upper primary with both an overview of the field of children’s literature with a focus on specialised texts such as poetry, non fiction, multimodal texts and listening texts such as podcasts. A focus on the EAL/D learner in the upper primary classroom and their specific needs for the building of cognitive academic language proficiency will take place. You will learn to design learning sequences with a view to responding to both the demands of the curriculum (in other curriculum areas as well as in subject English) and the demands of assessment in the upper primary years. A focus on the teaching of writing at a more sophisticated level in the genres of persuasive text, informative texts and imaginative texts will be covered. Assessment as learning will also be applied to the teaching of literacy in text-based and digitally based resources. You will also understand how explicit reading, and writing comprehension instruction tailored to discipline-specific content improves students' academic understanding and engagement with material, as well as their overall academic performance. 

Objectives/Learning Outcomes/Capability Development

This course contributes to the following program learning outcomes: 

PLO1 Apply educational professional practice in diverse contexts while actively contributing to a more sustainable world and engaging with the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples and globally inclusive perspectives. 

PLO2 Create learning environments that articulate a broad and holistic understanding of the needs of learners and society based on evidence-informed practices and theoretical perspectives. 

PLO3 Critically analyse relevant evidence-based disciplinary and interdisciplinary knowledge and experience to plan, implement and assess student learning, social and intellectual development.

Upon successful completion of this course, you will be able to:

		Graduate APST
1.	Design learning sequences that provide differentiation for a diversity of learners, using assessment data to inform your planning.	4.1, 5.4
2.	Design a lesson plan/ sequence of lessons for the teaching of an aspect of literacy in the upper primary classroom using Victorian Curriculum English and English as an additional language/ dialect.	3.2, 3.3
3.	Develop an understanding the demands of composing both visual and multimodal texts by critiquing and producing these texts.	3.4
4.	Understand the importance of quality children’s literature and specialised texts for the upper primary classroom	2.2
5.	Outline and critically appraise assessment in writing and reading.	5.1, 5.3
6.	Identify strategies to support EAL/D learners in the upper primary classroom and develop academic language proficiency.	1.3

Overview of Learning Activities

You will be actively engaged in a range of learning activities such as workshops, tutorials, seminars, project work, class discussion, individual and group activities. Teaching and learning may be face to face, online, or a combination of both. 

Overview of Learning Resources

RMIT will provide you with resources and tools for learning in this course through our online systems. 

There are services available to support your learning through the University Library. The Library provides guides on academic referencing and subject specialist help as well as a range of study support services. For further information, please visit the Library page on the RMIT University website and the myRMIT student portal.

Overview of Assessment

You will be assessed on how well you meet the course’s learning outcomes (CLO) and on your development against the program learning outcomes. The assessment is also mapped against the Australian Professional Standards for Teachers (APST).

Assessment Tasks

	Title	Weighting	CLOs	APSTs
AT 1	Essay	40%	5, 6	1.3, 2.2, 2.6, 3.2, 3.3, 3.4, 4.1, 5.1, 5.3, 5.4
AT 2	1 Week Scheme of Work	30%	1, 2	1.3, 2.6, 3.2, 3.3, 4.1, 5.1, 5.2, 5.4
AT 3	Annotated analysis of digital texts in the upper primary English program	30%	3, 4	2.2, 2.6, 3.4

Feedback will be given on all assessment tasks. 

If you have a long-term medical condition and/or disability it may be possible to negotiate to vary aspects of the learning or assessment methods. You can contact the program coordinator or Equitable Learning Services if you would like to find out more. 

Your course assessment conforms to RMIT assessment principles, regulations, policies, procedures and instructions.