Welcome to a new school year. If you are in Australia, and are a teacher, chances are you are busily greeting your new students this week. So it seems a good time for me to reintroduce something I used do regularly pre-covid, a weekly feature called Teacher Tuesday.

How it works is that each Tuesday I will endeavour to share something that will help teachers to use one or more of my books or poems, or perhaps books and poems more broadly, in the classroom.  Sometimes it will be brand new content. Other times it will be helping you to discover – or rediscover – content that has been shared elsewhere.

To kick things off, this week I want to share an excellent unit of work developed by PETAA for my verse novel Worse Things (published by Walker Books and illustrated by the amazing Sarah Davis).

You will find this unit of work, aimed at year 5 and 6 English curriculum outcomes, here.  What does it offer? Lots of big picture ideas, close reading, word knowledge, ideas for writing and creating, and more. While you are there, I encourage you to browse the rest of the PETAA site and, if you aren’t already a member, to consider joining.

Not familiar with Worse Things? Here’s a taste – me reading chapter one during the first Covid lockdown back in 2020.

As well as the above unit of work, Worse Things is suitable for reading aloud to classes from about year 4 through to junior high, as well as for individual reading. You’ll find more ideas here, at the Walker Books website.

Have you read or taught http://sallymurphy.com.au/worse-things/? I’d love to know how you went, and if you have any ideas for sharing. Leave a comment.