Topic

Authors have used the beauty, harshness and problems of our land to tell their stories, often basing their stories in familiar locations and using their reaction to a particular environment as the central theme.

Topic

Authors and illustrators of children’s books bring imaginary and distorted worlds to life, creating works inhabited by curious creatures and magical beings. These works include fairy tales and fantasy books.

Topic

The 19th century was the age of the English language boys’ adventure story.

Topic

Writing and illustrating a children’s book involves many steps. Sometimes one person takes on both tasks, while at other times an author and an illustrator work together to bring a story to life.

Module

This resource is aligned with the Australian Curriculum: English for Year 4 students. It has been developed to use National Library collection material as the basis for an exploration of children’s literature as part of the literature strand of the English learning area.

Topic

Children develop their sense of self through relationships with friends and families. Many early Australian children’s novels depict families on the move from Britain to Australia. Some struggled to establish a life in the harsh outback.

Module

This resource aligns to the Australian Curriculum for Year 3 English - Language, Literature and Literacy.

Topic

These activities introduce students to the poem Bora Ring, as well as to the poem’s background and author. They also develop students’ understanding of how an author’s perspective can change and enhance the meaning of a text.

Topic

The term ‘cartoon’ is from the Italian cartone, meaning paper. In the middle ages, it was used to refer to sketches that had been drawn for larger works, such as canvases, frescos, tapestries or mosaics. From the nineteenth century, a cartoon came to mean an amusing illustration in newspapers, magazines or online.

Topic

This activity provides students with context and background information about the physical location and cultural environment in which Picnic at Hanging Rock is set.

Module

This resource is aligned to the Australian Curriculum: English for Year 7 students. The module is designed to introduce students to a variety of texts on the theme of cultural perspectives and to enable them to understand how authors, poets and cartoonists reflect their own cultural perspectives through their chosen medium.

Module

Examples of advertising and media drawn from the National Library of Australia’s exhibition The Sell: Australian Advertising 1790s to 1990s and looks at their influence over time.