Synopsis and Themes
Gold! by John Nicholson is an informative text detailing the story of the Australian gold rush. This text sets the scene for what life was like living on the gold rush from work and the tools used to search for gold all the way to living arrangements, laws and order and health. The next section of the text looks at underground mining as surface mining had almost finished. Details of the different types of mines, equipment and problems faced are explored in this chapter before moving onto the last section about the gold rush destinations. This section looks at other places in Australia where gold was found and struggles that was faced. Overall Gold! gives readers and insight to what the Australian gold rush was about and the fascinating people, adventures and dangers, successes and failures that came with it.
Rationale
This text was chosen for this particular unit plan overview because it firstly aligns with year five history curriculum. This text along with similar texts have been chosen to build upon students knowledge of the Australian gold rush. It was also chosen because of its rich use of unknown vocabulary as it was published 10 years ago language has changed slightly and the language from the gold rush period is very different from the language and vocabulary used today. This text is and informative text and has many key features such as contents page, glossary and index page. When students come to writing their summative assessment these key features will help them find the information they need to create this piece of writing. Finally this text also gives a huge insight to what life what life was like during this period in time and students can look at this and compare to their own lives.