Help students explore the power of connotation through this engaging five-day text exploration pack built around the original mentor text, The House on the Hill.

Designed for Years 7–8, this pack focuses on how authors carefully choose words to shape readers' perceptions and influence the way settings, characters and events are interpreted. Through Mia's observations of a mysterious house overlooking the harbour, students discover how words such as grand and imposing can create completely different impressions of the very same place.

Across five carefully structured lessons, students revisit the text multiple times, building their understanding of vocabulary, connotation, imagery, inference, author's purpose, themes and evidence-based responses. Students are encouraged to explore how the house may represent more than simply an old building, and how the author's deliberate language choices invite multiple valid interpretations supported by evidence from the text.

This pack includes:

• Original mentor text
• Five days of structured learning
• Explicit WALTs and success criteria
• Author craft and language analysis
• Extended metaphor analysis
  
• Inference and interpretation tasks
• Theme and author's purpose exploration
• Evidence-based response scaffold
• Student self-reflection pages
• Comprehensive teacher guide with answers and alternative interpretations

Perfect for:

• Whole-class reading
• Guided reading follow-up
• Literacy rotations
• Independent literacy tasks
• Figurative language instruction
• Explicit comprehension teaching

Students will explore how connotation influences meaning, why authors carefully select particular words to shape readers' thinking, and how assumptions and perspective can affect the way we interpret people, places and situations.

Curriculum Focus: Reading Comprehension, Author Craft, Connotation, Vocabulary, Inference, Themes, Evidence-Based Responses
Year Level: Years 7-8
Lesson Length: 15–20 minutes per lesson
Pack Focus: Author Craft
Week Focus: Connotation
Theme: Perception

Scope and Sequence: Pack B, Week 6

Key Learning: Students explore how authors use extended metaphor, hyperbole and symbolism to communicate ideas that cannot always be expressed directly, discovering how an ordinary mountain can represent overwhelming challenges, changing mindsets and personal growth, while recognising that perseverance often begins with one small step and that resilience comes from changing ourselves rather than our circumstances.