Year 10: Assessment Task 4: Australia's Regional and Global Links

So you guys have the latest assessment (see below) due Friday 19 August. And, as I promised, you guys are more than ready to go on this one. Most of the work that you did on your website will be directly applicable to this assignment. (If only you put a bit more effort and completed the work.)

What do you need to do today?

1. Read the assessment (including the marking criteria).
2. Ask questions about the assessment.
3. Listen to Mr. Cav talk to you about the assessment (and hope he doesn't get too long-winded or whack me in the head with his crazy hand gestures). 
4. Choose two countries.
5. Get started.

Cav's Initial Points:

• Don't just transfer the work you did on the website task to this assessment. You certainly will used a bunch of the info but you'll need to upgrade the detail level and dig a bit deeper in your research.

• CITE YOUR SOURCES!!! This assignment is notorious for plagiarism. As a result every Geo teacher is on red alert looking for a suspicious sentence. DON'T DO IT! You will have all the time necessary to put this work into your own words. This doesn't mean that you shouldn't use other people's work. It means you have to give them credit when you do. Anytime you include something that you didn't think of yourself give credit to where the idea came from.

• Make it look good. Using visual elements in your presentation. Maps, graphs, images, ect. are highly encouraged and can really take you work to the next level. But, just having images isn't effective. If you don't use them well and/or they are poorly presented, it can detract from the quality of your work, not enhance it.

• Write well. There is always a tendency to put something together that is a missmash of factual information that together makes little sense and is painful to read. This should read well and my suggestion is that you write it similar to an opinion piece like the one we read on Australian Aid. Take a position regarding Australia's relationship to the country that you choose. You will certainly need to included factual information to make your point and include information that may be against your position, but come to conclusions about how Australia relates to this country in the present, past and future.

• RESEARCH! The tendency is to dive in and go 'control c' 'control v' crazy on Wikipedia and other informative websites. These are useful websites but they won't help you with my previous point. You need to get on Google news and do some searching. Read the articles that come up and start to formulate an opinion while gathering important information (and keeping a record of sources for your bibliography). There is a good aphorism for this task and for most in our lives. If you only have so much time to chop down a tree, spend most of it sharpening the blade. Do your research and the writing part (chopping the tree) will come so much easier. (And what you produce will be of infinitely greater quality.)