Bridging Literacy A/Mis designed to support senior secondary students in achieving the benchmark of the Australian Core Skills Framework (ACSF) Level 3. This course is grounded in disciplinary literacy and authentic experience, aiming to empower students to engage with texts and tasks across diverse subjects and real-world contexts. Students develop fundamental skills in reading, writing, listening, and oral communication.

Students develop knowledge and understanding of English orthography, spelling, and refine their reading and writing skills. The relate their study of literacy to the other subjects in their academic packages, and to social, personal, and cultural texts. Students develop an understanding of the benefits of literacy as a social practice, and as a tool for continuing participation in society. They interact with literacy events in technological and non-technological spheres; they develop skills to inform their understanding, ability to interact with others, and to solve problems, making use of appropriate communication and learning dispositions.

The need for a comprehensive literacy course arises from the increasing demands of academic and professional settings, where students are expected to demonstrate strong communication skills, critical thinking, and the ability to analyse and interpret complex texts. The development of these skills is essential for success in higher education, career advancement, and active participation in today's rapidly evolving society.

The Bridging Literacy course is written under The English Framework 2021: BSSS ENGLISH Framework

Achievement Standards for ENGLISH courses can be found within the Framework, including the Achievement Standards written for Bridging Literacy.

The study of English language, literacy and literature develops students’ communication, analytical, creative and critical thinking skills in all language modes.

Communicating with Purpose

Students will develop their ability to communicate meaning through text and writing. They learn how to navigate and use written communication principles and practices that are particular to subjects undertaken in their academic package and in social, personal, and cultural texts. Students develop an understanding of the practices, ideas, conventions, and principles of writing in direct relationship to texts that are important to students’ study, vocation, and life goals. They construct polished texts using appropriate rhetorical, orthographic, and linguistic features.

Reading and Researching

Students develop their ability to read increasingly complex, authentic texts for meaning. They learn how to navigate and use the texts that are particular to subjects undertaken in their academic studies. Students read for meaning and use their comprehension to construct research supporting their work in these subjects. Students read texts of academic, vocational, social and/or cultural importance and explore the ways that grammar, vocabulary, and other authorial choices affect the reader’s response to texts. Texts provided to students will be equivalent to those studied in their disciplinary subjects and appropriate in scope and reading level for young adult readers.

Reporting Research

Students develop their ability to understand increasingly complex, authentic texts for meaning with increasing independence, and to support and represent their own points of view, including through oral communication. They learn how to navigate and use the texts that are particular to subjects undertaken in their academic package. Students research in supported and scaffolded ways, and evaluate, manipulate, and organise that research to construct and support their own point of view about issues and ideas in these subjects and issues of social, personal, or cultural importance using authentic texts appropriate in scope and reading level for young adult readers.

Transferring Literacy to Life

Students develop their ability to transfer skills from their academic or vocational study to texts with social, cultural, or personal significance. They establish and navigate the literacy events that they encounter both in their academic packages and day-to-day lives. The process of transferring skills is modelled for students. Students develop the skills to judge and understand nuance. They learn how meaning can be implied or inferred, and the conventions of workplace and social texts – e.g., letters from government or business authorities, approaches to job seeking, implication in sales language. Students may engage with personal or cultural texts, and practice articulating how literacy events are framed by cultures or subcultures that they identify.

Independent Study

An Independent Study unit has an important place in senior secondary courses. It is a valuable pedagogical approach that empowers students to make decisions about their own learning. An Independent Study unit can be proposed by an individual student for their own independent study and negotiated with their teacher. The program of learning for an Independent Study unit must meet the unit goals and content descriptions as they appear in the course.

Independent Study units are only available to individual students in Year 12. A student can only study a maximum of one Independent Study unit in each course. Students must have studied at least three standard 1.0 units from this course. An Independent Study unit requires the principal’s written approval. Principal approval can also be sought by a student in Year 12 to enrol concurrently in an Independent Study unit and their third or fourth 1.0 unit in this course of study.

Bridging Literacy (516 KB)

Bridging Literacy (290 KB)