AC9E3LY06
Official content description
plan, create, edit and publish imaginative, informative and persuasive written and multimodal texts, using visual features, appropriate form and layout, with ideas grouped in simple paragraphs, mostly correct tense, topic-specific vocabulary and correct spelling of most high-frequency and phonetically regular words
What AC9E3LY06 actually looks like when you teach it
This descriptor is the whole writing process in one line, and the temptation is to weight it towards drafting because that's what produces something to display. Editing is where the learning concentrates and it needs to be taught as a set of specific passes rather than a general instruction to check your work. One pass for tense, one for sentence boundaries, one for spelling of high-frequency words. Publishing matters too: children write differently when the audience is real, and a piece that will actually be read by someone gets more care than one that goes into a book.
What the class will get wrong — and what to do about it
The error
Treating editing as reading the piece through once and changing nothing, because the child reads what they meant to write rather than what is on the page.
How to confront it
Make each pass single-purpose and name it. Reading aloud to a partner catches sentence boundaries that silent rereading never will — the partner stops at the full stops that aren't there.
Ready to put on the board
We are learning to plan, draft, edit and publish a piece of writing.
- I can plan my writing before I start.
- I can edit for one thing at a time.
- I can publish a piece for a real reader.
Three passes
- Pass one, in blue: sentence boundaries only. Read the draft aloud to a partner and mark where you actually paused.
- Pass two, in green: tense. Check it doesn't change partway through.
- Pass three, in red: spelling of high-frequency words only — not every word, just the ones on the class list.
- Nothing else gets changed. The constraint is the point; general editing produces general results.
- Publish: neat copy, and decide together who's going to read it. A real audience changes the effort.
Free to use in your classroom. Written for AC9E3LY06, not adapted from another year level.
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The Year 3 English planning scaffold
A one-page planning sheet with the official achievement standard, every content description grouped by strand, and space for your assessment and week-by-week sequence. Print it and plan on paper, or use it as the skeleton for a unit.
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What Year 3 English students should achieve
Coverage is judged against the achievement standard — not by ticking every content description. These are the official Year 3 English standard sentences this code builds towards:
- They write texts using letters that are accurately formed and consistent in size.
- They group, logically sequence and link ideas.
- They use text structures including paragraphs, and language features including compound sentences, topic-specific vocabulary and literary devices, and/or visual features.
- By the end of Year 3, students interact with others, and listen to and create spoken and/or multimodal texts including stories.
- They create written and/or multimodal texts including stories to inform, narrate, explain or argue for audiences, relating ideas including relevant details from learnt topics, topics of interest or texts.
- They use language features including topic-specific vocabulary, and/or visual features and features of voice.
The Literacy progression either side of AC9E3LY06
A class can only meet this descriptor if they were taught the one before it. If yours hasn't, that's where the lesson starts — not here.
Taught before · Year 2
- AC9E2LY01identify how similar topics and information are presented in different types of texts
- AC9E2LY02use interaction skills when engaging with topics, actively listening to others, receiving instructions and extending own ideas, speaking appropriately, expressing and responding to opinions, making statements, and giving instructions
- AC9E2LY03identify the purpose and audience of imaginative, informative and persuasive texts
Builds towards · Year 4
- AC9E4LY01compare texts from different times with similar purposes and audiences to identify similarities and differences in their depictions of events
- AC9E4LY02listen for key points and information to carry out tasks and contribute to discussions, acknowledging another opinion, linking a response to the topic, and sharing and extending ideas and information
- AC9E4LY03identify the characteristic features used in imaginative, informative and persuasive texts to meet the purpose of the text
Other Year 3 Literacy codes
- AC9E3LY01recognise how texts can be created for similar purposes but different audiences
- AC9E3LY02use interaction skills to contribute to conversations and discussions to share information and ideas
- AC9E3LY03identify the audience and purpose of imaginative, informative and persuasive texts through their use of language features and/or images
- AC9E3LY04read a range of texts using phonic, semantic and grammatical knowledge to read accurately and fluently, re-reading and self-correcting when required
- AC9E3LY05use comprehension strategies when listening and viewing to build literal and inferred meaning, and begin to evaluate texts by drawing on a growing knowledge of context, text structures and language features
- AC9E3LY07plan, create, rehearse and deliver short oral and/or multimodal presentations to inform, express opinions or tell stories, using a clear structure, details to elaborate ideas, topic-specific and precise vocabulary, visual features, and appropriate tone, pace, pitch and volume
- AC9E3LY08write words using joined letters that are clearly formed and consistent in size
- AC9E3LY09understand how to apply knowledge of phoneme–grapheme (sound–letter) relationships, syllables, and blending and segmenting to fluently read and write multisyllabic words with more complex letter patterns
Content description and achievement standard © Australian Curriculum, Assessment and Reporting Authority (ACARA), Australian Curriculum Version 9, used under CC BY 4.0. TeachKoala is not affiliated with or endorsed by ACARA.