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NSW Curriculum
NSW Education Standards Authority

K–10English K–10 Syllabus

Record of changes
Implementation for K–2 from 2023 and 3–10 from 2024
Expand for detailed implementation advice

Content

Stage 3

Creating written texts
Imaginative purposes
  • Choose literary forms with appropriate text structures, features and language to engage target audiences

  • Make creative choices about temporal and spatial settings, character profiles and motives to enhance reader engagement

  • Experiment with characterisation

  • Choose and control narrative voice across a text

  • Experiment with the development of thematic elements

  • Select and use poetic forms to descriptively express ideas

Informative purposes
  • Choose text formats with appropriate text structures, features and language to inform target audiences

  • Develop informative texts that include headings, ideas grouped into paragraphs that include a topic sentence, and a paragraph with concluding information

  • Describe and/or explain ideas through logically sequenced paragraphs

  • Compare and contrast or discuss cause and effect through sequenced paragraphs

  • Create factual and historical accounts that incorporate broader contextual information

Persuasive purposes
  • Choose text formats with appropriate text structures, features and language to persuade a target audience

  • Group ideas to develop a statement of position, and clear, logical lines of argument that synthesise points, and structure a rhetorically effective conclusion

  • Create objective, impersonal arguments

  • Combine personal and objective arguments for persuasive effect

  • Present arguments from one or multiple viewpoints to persuade target audiences

  • Use rhetorical devices targeted to the audience

  • Use modality to qualify or strengthen arguments

Text features for multiple purposes
  • Control tense across a text according to purpose, shifting between past, present and future tense if required

  • Maintain correct noun–pronoun referencing, subject–verb agreement and use temporal, conditional and causal connectives to build cohesive links across a text

  • Use word repetition and word associations as cohesive devices across texts

  • Substitute specific nouns with all-purpose words as a cohesive device to replace verb groups, noun groups or whole clauses

  • Experiment with figurative language for effect and to engage the reader, including metaphor, hyperbole, oxymoron and allusion

  • Create written texts that include multiple paragraphs with clear, coherent transition of ideas

  • Choose multimodal features suited to a target audience and purpose, to reinforce and extend ideas

  • Acknowledge sources of information to add credibility and authority to arguments and information

Sentence-level grammar
  • Experiment with the use of non-finite verbs in adverbial clauses

  • Make choices about verbs and verb groups to achieve precision and add detail

  • Experiment with embedding adjectival clauses with the subject and/or object of other clauses, to modify the meaning or to add detail to a noun or noun group

  • Experiment with the placement of adverbial clauses, to modify the meaning or to add detail to a verb or verb group

  • Include appositives to provide details to nouns and to vary sentence structures suited to text purpose

  • Create nominalisations to convey abstract ideas and concepts succinctly and authoritatively

  • Make choices about the use of declarative, exclamatory, interrogative and imperative sentences to suit text purpose, and for meaning and effect

  • Vary sentence structures or lengths when using simple, compound and complex sentences, with a focus on achieving clarity and effect suited to text purpose

Punctuation
  • Use capital letters at the beginning of a sentence, to indicate proper nouns, for headings and subheadings, to indicate the beginning of a poetry line, for emphasis, and when using acronyms

  • Use a comma to separate a subordinate clause or a phrase from the main clause, or to separate information within a sentence, or to separate items in a list

  • Use quotation marks consistently across a text to distinguish words that are spoken by characters in dialogue or words authored by others

  • Understand that texts, such as poetry, may include innovative use of punctuation, and experiment with punctuation to suit purpose and for effect

  • Use parentheses in the first instance when abbreviating names using acronyms, and when acknowledging a source

  • Experiment with dashes and parentheses for humorous or ironic effect

  • Understand and use simple hyphenation generalisations

Word-level language
  • Use topic-specific Tier 2 and Tier 3 vocabulary intentionally to add credibility and enhance authority

  • Experiment with word choices to create humour, for clarity or emphasis, to suit audience and purpose

  • Control modality related to probability, occurrence, obligation or inclination for precision

  • Select and use a range of synonyms in a longer text, for precision and to create variety for reader engagement

Planning, monitoring and revising
  • Select text formats for combined purposes, creating hybrid texts for target audiences

  • Use print or digital tools to plan, sequence, create, revise, edit and publish texts

  • Research and summarise information from several sources to plan for writing

  • Create texts using digital technologies suited to a target audience and purpose, to support and enhance the development of ideas

  • Assess the reliability and authority of sources, including digital sources, when researching and acknowledging texts

  • Reflect on own writing by explaining and justifying authorial decisions regarding text-level features, sentence-level grammar, punctuation and word-level language

  • Re-read, proofread and edit own and other’s writing, and use criteria and goals in response to feedback

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