Tertiary Catalogue

To write a recipe that’s easy to understand and follow, it’s important to show the relationships between a series of individual instructions or directions. This video covers how to combine simple commands into compound sentences, using the coordinating conjunctions ‘and’, ‘but’, ‘so’ and ‘or’, to improve the flow of ideas. Highly recommended for students looking to establish key basic skills in writing informative texts. Show Less

When writing a biography, article, report or instruction manual, delivering information in a clear and engaging way is crucial. This video introduces the two most common sentence types found in informative texts—statements and commands—and how to vary their length and detail so your text flows smoothly and is interesting to read. Highly recommended for students looking to establish key basic skills for writing informative texts. Show Less

A good instructional text needs to get your message across clearly and be easy for readers to follow. This video explains the difference between two sentence types commonly found in informative texts—statements and commands—and how to use them to deliver information more simply and with clarity. Highly recommended for students looking to establish key basic skills in writing informative texts. Show Less

For letters to the editor, online discussions and essays, being able to express your point of view effectively is very useful. This video highlights that you don't have to use complicated sentences to write a good persuasive text—clear and concise simple sentences, whether statements or questions, can be impactful and get your point across. Highly recommended for students looking to establish key basic skills in writing persuasive texts. Show Less

A well-written narrative, such as a short story, poem or script, can be exciting, tense and suspenseful. This video illustrates how short, simple sentences can be used to create a different pace and mood in narrative writing, compared to longer and more detailed sentences. Highly recommended for students looking to establish key basic skills in writing imaginative texts. Show Less

When writing a movie review, it is important to be able to express your opinions and conclusions precisely. This video reinforces that sometimes, it can be more effective to use simple sentences, rather than compound or complex sentences, for stronger impact and more persuasive power. Highly recommended for students looking to establish key basic skills in writing persuasive texts. Show Less

When writing a recount, such as a diary entry, you might find yourself needing to show the relationships or connections between ideas. This video explains how to use compound sentences to describe a series of events, using the coordinating conjunctions ‘and’, ‘but’, ‘so’ and ‘or’. Highly recommended for students looking to establish key basic skills in writing informative texts. Show Less

There's a skill to writing great science reports that are both clear and easy to understand. This video identifies the sections of a report where it can be better to use simple sentences, rather than more detailed ones, to make it easy for readers to understand the goals and conclusions of an experiment. Highly recommended for students looking to establish key basic skills in writing informative texts. Show Less

Being able to give your reader an insight into your character's mind is a valuable skill in writing narratives. This video explains how questions can be used to reveal what characters are thinking, whether genuine or rhetorical, and from a first-person or third-person perspective. Highly recommended for students looking to establish key basic skills writing Imaginative texts. Show Less

Characters are an essential component of many narrative texts, such as a novel or a short story. This video shows how you can use a variety of sentence types—statements, questions, and commands—in your narrative writing to develop characters that are memorable and interesting to read about. Highly recommended for students looking to establish key basic skills in writing imaginative texts. Show Less

Overcome a Writing Block is a video addressing a common problem of writer's block. For many of us, it's fear of staring at a blank page and wondering what to say. In this video, behavioural expert Peter Quarry explains how to overcome a writing block. Overcome a Writing Block is a video, in which you will learn to start by dumping words and ideas on a page, as a mindmap or like a lump of clay, and you can begin to shape it however you like. You will learn that gradually your writing momentum will build and you will discover an exciting opportunity to unlock thoughts and expressions you never realised you had within you. Show Less

This video examines common ways of creating fake news, such as maintaining a website that hosts misleading articles and using social media accounts and chatbots to increase traffic. It also explores the common reasons Fake News is generated and demonstrates how deliberate design and language choices can be used to trick and confuse people. An essential resource for boosting secondary students’ digital literacy skills. Show Less

The way in which news is delivered and consumed has changed rapidly over time and continues to evolve today. This video examines some of the issues that have arisen from this, defining fake news and explaining and providing examples of hoaxes, scams, clickbait, jokes, advertising, spin, propaganda, satire and sensationalism. An essential resource for boosting secondary students’ digital literacy skills. Show Less

This engaging video tests what students have learned from the ‘Fake News’ series by checking their ability to distinguish real news from fake news. It includes ‘news’ such as clickbait from ELLE magazine, Russia releasing lions into the streets and the use of misleading images by news outlets. An essential resource for consolidating the knowledge about digital literacy that secondary students have gained from the rest of the series. Show Less

People frequently make important decisions about their health, families and political issues based on news, without knowing whether it is fake or true. This video shows how making, consuming and sharing fake news about events that never took place or conspiracy theories about prominent people and provocative topics can have extremely serious consequences. An essential resource for boosting secondary students’ digital literacy skills. Show Less

This video equips students with strategic skills to analyse and easily spot fake news. It explores how to perform a visual check of an app or website, conduct reverse image searches and look for unusual domain extensions or misspelled words and poor grammar to verify whether news is real of fake. An essential resource for boosting secondary students’ digital literacy skills. Show Less

This video explores the factors that make fake news easy to believe. Case studies, including the story of Pope Francis endorsing Donald Trump for president and dolphins in Venice during the COVID-19 pandemic, illustrate how modern busy lifestyles mean we are prone to falling for fake news, making it an extremely powerful communication tool for governments, organisations and individuals. An essential resource for boosting secondary students’ digital literacy skills. Show Less

This video explores the basic concept of sentence structure. Gil T. Mann is very close to learning the result of his court trial. The sentence structures contained in his written statement will determine whether he is found guilty, or just plain Gil T. Learners from secondary school age up to adulthood will benefit from this humorous exploration of simple, complex, and run-on sentences, and the value of the humble conjunction. Show Less

Learners can struggle with conjugation and tense agreement. It all sounds like utter linguistic jargon to Gil T. Mann. But these are actually core grammar concepts we use every day when writing English. Gil quickly learns the importance of matching the number of nouns with the correct conjugation of a verb, as well as using consistent verb tenses to get his meaning across on the stand. Will he learn quickly enough to get himself out of trouble? Show Less

This video explores basic grammar questions for learners: When should you use a comma? How do you use quotation marks in your writing to show someone else is speaking? And what on earth is the difference between a colon and a semi-colon, anyway?! Many learners from secondary school age up to adult struggle with these basic grammar concepts. Gil T. Mann shares the same frustrations as he fumbles his way through his written defence statement in court. Will he be able to correctly punctuate his innocence? Show Less

Do you find yourself getting all hot under the collar because of media bias? Well, Bertram Poppingstock knows exactly how you feel. Watch as he wages a one man war against biased reporting in print and electronic media, explaining to us mere mortals the ins and outs of persuasive media spin. Topics covered include rhetorical techniques and the use of evidence to manipulate a target audience. Show Less

Tired of lame media clichés? Well, so are we, along with our auspicious pal, Bertram Poppingstock. Come along with us on our mission to weed out and stifle stereotypes in the media. We trace the origins of media stereotypes from false assumptions, traditions and prejudice, and look at how they are represented in popular media and how we should respond to them. Show Less

Bertram Poppingstock is as determined as ever to save the world from his latest archrival – an evil media mogul manipulating the news to serve her own diabolical agenda. Want to become a savvier consumer of popular media? From sensationalised hard news to human interest stories and gossip columns, you’ll soon be an expert on techniques used to deliver news and entertainment in print and electronic media. Show Less

Ever wondered how to create a killer publication layout? Come and explore the visual and interactive elements of media texts with the irrepressible Bertram Poppingstock. In this episode, he launches into a mission to stop an evil media mogul from destroying the world with her hideous, sub-standard media publications. Who knew that visual print media layouts were so important? Show Less

Izzy and Elmore are both preparing speeches they have to give at upcoming conventions. It’s a perfect opportunity for Elmore to help Izzy improve her presentation by employing techniques for academic and technical writing. Abstraction, jargon, nominalisation and more sophisticated clause structures are introduced within the context of Izzy's unique speech about her favourite pet: cats. Show Less