VCE VM Literacy empowers students to read, write, speak and listen in different contexts. Literacy enables students to understand the different ways in which knowledge and opinion are represented and developed in daily life in the 21st Century. The development of literacy in this study design is based on applied learning principles, making strong connections between students' lives and learning.
By engaging with a wide range of content drawn from a range of local and global cultures, forms, and genres, including First Nations Peoples' knowledge and voices, students learn how information can be shown through print, visual, oral, digital and multimodal representations. Along with the literacy practices necessary for reading and interpreting meaning, students must develop their capacity to respond to information. Listening, viewing, reading, speaking, and writing are developed so that students can communicate effectively both in writing and orally.
A further essential part of literacy is that students develop their understanding of how written, visual, and oral communication are designed to meet the demands of different audiences, purposes, and contexts, including workplace, vocational and community contexts. This understanding helps students develop their writing and literacy so that they become confident in their use of language in a variety of settings.
VCE Vocational Major Literacy focuses on the development of the knowledge and skills required to be literate in Australia today. The key knowledge and key skills encompass a student’s ability to interpret and create texts that have purpose and are accurate and effective, with confidence and fluency. Texts are drawn from a wide range of contexts and are focused on participating in the workplace and community. The applied learning approach of this study is intended to meet the needs of students with a wide range of abilities and aspirations.
This unit focuses on the structures and features of a range of texts – print, visual and film – and the personal reasons readers may have for engaging with these texts. Students examine the structures and features of different text types and examine how they are influenced by purpose, context, audience, and culture. They will read texts that serve a variety of purposes, from everyday content written to convey information to texts written for specific workplaces or educational settings.
Students will develop their capacity to critically assess digital texts, including webpages for vocational and workplace settings, podcasts, and social media. As a part of this exploration of the digital world, students participate and engage in learning practices that will equip them to deal safely and respectfully with others in the digital and virtual world.
Students will consider the values and beliefs that underpin different perspectives and how these values create different biases and opinions, including thinking about how these issues might arise in vocational or workplace settings. Students will read, view and listen to a range of texts and content that demonstrate diverse opinions on a range of local and global issues, and which may impact their community or be of particular concern to a vocational or workplace group. Students practise their use of persuasive language and participate in discussion of issues, either in print, orally or via a digital platform. Students consider the arguments presented and critically analyse the language, evidence and logic of the arguments of others so that they can create their own response. Students learn to accurately reference and acknowledge the evidence they select.
Students will become familiar with and develop confidence in understanding and accessing texts of an informational, organisational, or procedural nature. These texts reflect real- life situations encountered by students and are representative of the sorts of texts students will encounter in a vocational setting or workplace, or for their health and participation in the community. Students will develop their confidence to deal with a range of technical content that they will encounter throughout adulthood, such as safety reports, public health initiatives, tax forms and advice, contracts, promotional videos, and vocational and workplace texts. Students focus on texts about an individual’s rights and responsibilities within organisations, workplaces, and vocational groups. Students read and respond to a variety of technical content from a vocational, workplace or organisational setting of their choice, demonstrating understanding of how these texts inform and shape the organisations they interact with.
In this unit, students will investigate, analyse and create content for the advocacy of self, a product or a community group of the student’s choice, in a vocational or recreational setting. Students will research the differences between texts used for more formal or traditional types of advocacy, influence or promotion, as well as some of the forms that are increasingly being used in the digital domain for publicity and exposure.
Students will consider which elements are important for creating a ‘brand’ (including personal branding) and how different texts, images, products and multimedia platforms work together to produce one, central message to influence an audience. They will compare and contrast the ways in which the same message can be presented through different platforms and consider the effectiveness of these messages, considering their purpose and the social and workplace values associated with them. Students will read, discuss, analyse and create texts that influence or advocate for self, a product or a community group of the student’s choice.
