Touchstones 2 - Textbook and Activity Book Set Written by highly experienced and well-known English teacher Clare Madden, Touchstones presents a fresh and engaging new approach to Junior Cycle English. Touchstones uses cutting-edge, classroom-tested methods to build up students’ knowledge of texts and skills in a carefully integrated way. Students are led on an innovative and exciting journey through the specification. The Touchstones package includes: A Student Textbook A Student Activity Book Student Textbook All 22 First Year Learning Outcomes are covered with emphasis on the three strands of the Junior Cycle English specification: oral language, reading and writing The clear, simple design helps to focus students and prevent cognitive overload Fresh, exciting and engaging text extracts, both traditional and contemporary, are used throughout from novels, plays, films, digital texts and multi-modal texts Units are carefully structured around the recommended genre-based approach and cover the following genres: fiction, poetry, film, drama, Shakespeare and non-fiction These sequenced units of learning begin by building a strong knowledge base for each genre, develop oral communication, reading and writing skills, and end with a project They are designed to be either covered in sequence or to be dipped into and out, for ease of use A stand-alone Shakespeare unit, a first with this programme, introduces students to the world of Shakespeare and builds knowledge and understanding of the grammar and punctuation of a Shakespearean text Each unit begins with a knowledge organiser of genre-based critical vocabulary and ends with a Test Your Knowledge quiz Highly scaffolded tasks effectively support mixed-ability teaching in the English classroom Retrieval practice opportunities that build on prior learning appear throughout Oral language supports include a strong focus on using structured and meaningful group discussion Reading supports include: Effective reading strategies integrated into tasks to develop reading skills A dedicated reading unit including over 40 books appealing to this age group as well as engaging group tasks to encourage and promote reading for pleasure Writing supports include: Scaffolded writing tasks (models and writer’s toolkits) that promote the craft of writing A skills development approach for writing to analyse, beginning in first year with annotation, quotation and inference skills A focus on development of high-level vocabulary throughout A dedicated Spelling, Punctuation and Grammar (SPaG) section at theend of the book Engaging end-of-unit projects Can be used to prepare for the Classroom-Based Assessments (CBAs) Oral language and writing projects provide students with opportunities to develop a personal writing voice and to experiment with and enjoy elements of public speaking and performance Clear success criteria are provided Step-by-step instructions and tasks with complementary teacher mark sheet and whole class feedback sheet for each project, provided in the Teacher’s Resource Book Student Activity Book Touchstones 2 Student Activity Book provides additional material, questions and activities to complement textbook content, including: Meaningful scaffolding to approach written tasks Carefully designed graphic organisers to support thinking and writing A range of retrieval practice templates to support students using effective learning techniques
