'Cameleers', 'Afghans in Australia'

SAMPLE • • • By the mid 19th century, Australia was in the throes of an exploration era. The only problem was that horses and carts were not at all suitable for harsh journeys across the inhospitable desert. As such, it was decided that camels would be used instead. As nobody in Australia knew how to handle camels, Afghan cameleers were recruited, and that is how the first Afghani people came to Australia. ! Complete the following questions, after reading the passage below. Although the cameleers were known as Afghan cameleers, they weren’t all necessarily from Afghanistan. In fact, some cameleers came from Egypt, Turkey, Iran, Pakistan and India, so spoke a multitude of languages. Most cameleers were young or middle-aged men, and they were all Muslim. Although their skills were valued, the European communities tended to be extremely racist towards them. This was largely due to intolerance towards their Islamic religion and scorn of their pride and independence. The local Aboriginal population was much more tolerant, and it wasn’t uncommon for Arabs and Indigenous Australians to marry and have families. Q1 What person is this passage written in and how do you know?

Q2 What tense is this passage written in and how do you know?

Q3 Write all the adjectives in the passage on the lines below.

Q4 Write all the nouns inSAMPLE the passage on the lines below.

Q5 Write all the verbs in the passage on the lines below.

The sentences below are incomplete. You need to finish them by underlining whichever word makes the sentence grammatically correct. This will require you to draw on your knowledge of tense (past, present and future) and subject/verb agreement (singular subject teamed with singular verb; plural subject teamed with plural verb).

Q1 Underline the correct word to complete the sentence.

a) Cameleers tended/tending/tends to arrive in Australia alone, leaving behind their wives and families.

b) They usually lived/lives/living on sheep and cattle stations or the outskirts of towns, called ‘Ghan towns’.

c) The place where Muslim people go to worship/worships/worshipping is called a Mosque.

d) South Australia was home to the first mosque, which was build/building/built near Maree in 1861.

e) Cameleers accompanies/accompanied/accompanying explorers like Burke and Wills on their expeditions, transported food and supplies to those working on infrastructure projects and towns and delivered mail.

f) Some of the most famous and well-known cameleers include/includes/including Saleh Sadadeen, Sallay Mahomet and Abdul Khalick.

g) Saleh Sadadeen arrived/arrives/arriving in Alice Springs with a herd of 60 camels.

h) His camels carry/carried/carries loads for businesses and local farmers.

i) Saleh was particularly renowned for his spectacular garden, which attract/attracting/attracted hundreds of visitors.

j) Sallay Mahomet was a cameleer and hawker who come/comes/came to Australia from Saudi Arabia.SAMPLE

k) He catch/catched/caught feral camels in the Australian outback and tamed them, even taking some home with him as a gift to his king.

l) Abdul Khalick transport/transported/transporting goods between the centre of Australia and south Australia with his own camel train. Some of the Afghans that came to Australia kept diaries. Abdul Wade, who arrived in Australia in 1879 from Afghanistan, wrote the following diary entry.

! Read the diary entry and then answer the questions below.

I just don’t get it. People tell me that I am the most successful cameleer in Australian history. I came to this nation when I heard all about gold being discovered and the wonderful riches that could be made by someone who can handle camels. I’m now referred to as the ‘Afghan Prince’ by all sixty men who work for me, I own 400 camels and have my own camel breeding and carrying business. I dress European, I’m married to an Irish woman and we have seven children who attend this country’s top private schools. I’ve even been naturalised. Yet, despite all of this, I am constantly ridiculed by everyone but my employees. When I try to buy saddles in town, the shop owners jeer at me and try to convince me that they’re made of pig-skin, which they know is against my religion. I am constantly taunted for my commitments to my religious dietary requirements. I just don’t understand. I don’t want to have to return to Afghanistan – my whole life is here, but I just can’t work out how to truly fit in to Australian society.

Q1 What person in this passage written in?

Q2 Rewrite the passage so that it is in third person. Keep the tense the same.

SAMPLE

• • •

SAMPLE Firstly, thank you for your support of Mighty Minds and our resources. We endeavour to create high- quality resources that are both educational and engaging, and results have shown that this approach works.

To assist you in using this resource, we have compiled some brief tips and reminders below.

About this resource

This Mighty Minds ‘Fundamentals’ Lesson focusses on one subtopic from the NAPLAN Tests and presents this skill through a theme from the Australian Curriculum (History, Science or Geography). This lesson is also targeted at a certain skill level, to ensure that your students are completing work that is suited to them.

How to use this resource

Our ‘Fundamentals’ Lessons are split into two main sections, each of which contain different types of resources.

The student workbook contains • The main title page; and • The blank student worksheets for students to complete.

The teacher resources section contains • This set of instructions; • The Teacher’s Guide, which offers information that may be needed to teach the lesson; • The Item Description, which gives a brief overview of the lesson and its aims, as well as extension ideas; • The student answer sheets, which show model responses on the student worksheets to ensure that answers to the questions are clear; • The teacher’s answer sheets, which provide a more detailed explanation of the model responses or answers; and • Finally, the ‘end of lesson’ marker.

We suggest that you print the student workbook (the first set of pages) for the students. If students are completing this lesson for homework, you may also like to provide them with the student answer pages. SAMPLE Feedback and contacting us

We love feedback. Our policy is that if you email us with suggested changes to any lesson, we will complete those changes and send you the revised lesson – free of charge.

Just send your feedback to [email protected] and we’ll get back to you as soon as we can. In the English language, grammatical mood refers to the different moods verbs can take: infinitive, subjunctive, imperative and indicative. In a NAPLAN context, this topic is much broader and encompasses skills such as tense, person and word types.

Tense Tense is the time in which a sentence takes place. It is primarily determined by the verbs (doing words) in the sentence. There are three main types of tense - past, present and future – and these are further broken down into four types. When explained like this to students it sounds confusing, but from years of talking and knowing which tense to use where, it will most likely be second nature to them. As such, if they get confused, encourage them to try reading the sentence aloud to see if it makes sense.

Perfect Progressive (for Progressive (for Perfect (for Simple ongoing action that will be ongoing action) completed action) completed one day)

Present gaze am/is/are gazing has gazed has been gazing

Past gazed was/were gazing had gazed had been gazing

Future will gaze will be gazing will have gazed Will have been gazing

Subject/Verb Agreement The subject of a sentence is the person, place, thing, or idea that the sentence is mainly about. Singular subjects need to be teamed with singular verbs; plural subjects need to be teamed with plural verbs. • Singular subject/singular verb  E.g. The lion hunts at dusk. • Plural subject/plural verb  E.g. The lions hunt at dusk.

Person Person is the perspective something is written from. • First: Person style, written by a narrator like a diary entry. Words like ‘I’ and ‘my’ are used.  E.g. I cried myself to sleep. • Second: Directed at the reader like instructions. Words like ‘you’ and ‘your’ are used.  E.g. You cried yourself to sleep. • Third: Narrator is distantSAMPLE from the events and reports them without being in the story, like a newspaper article. Words like ‘he’, ‘they’ and ‘hers’ are used.  E.g. She cried herself to sleep.

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Who/whom Who/whom are often confused. • Who is used subjectively, in place of a name, he, or she.  E.g. Kevin Rudd, who was Prime Minister of Australia until 2010, is now the Minister for Foreign Affairs. (He/Kevin was Prime Minister of Australia). • Whom is used objectively, in place of her, him.  E.g. Loretta is the girl whom I met in Surfers Paradise. (I met her in Surfers Paradise).

Nouns Nouns are naming words for people, places, animals and things. • Common nouns start with a lower-case letter  E.g. goldfish, flower, kettle, building, sky, doctor • Proper nouns start with a capital letter  E.g. Isabelle, Egypt, Sydney Harbour Bridge

Adjectives Adjectives are words used to describe nouns.  E.g. brown, feathered, temperamental, gregarious, elderly, kind, chilly • Comparative adjectives are used to make a comparison between two or more things  E.g. Harry is taller than Hermione, but Ron is the tallest.

Verbs Verbs are actions and are also known as ‘doing words’. Their form depends on their tense and whether they are referring to a singular or plural noun.  E.g. trickled, suppose, interjected, climb, hurried, teasing, shine

Adverbs Adverbs are used to describe verbs, other adverbs and adjectives. They usually end in –ly, and most tell you how, when or where something was done.  E.g. quickly, delightfully, early, immediately

Pronouns Pronouns are words that replace nouns, and are used to make sentences less repetitive.  E.g. it, they, his, theirs, ours, your, mine, those  E.g. Julia Gillard is the Prime Minister of Australia. Julia Gillard lives at The Lodge in Canberra with Julia’s Gillard’s partner becomes Julia Gillard is the Prime Minister of Australia. She lives at The Lodge in Canberra with her partner.

Propositions SAMPLE Prepositions are words that link nouns and noun phrases to other words in a sentence. They usually show the spatial, temporal or logical relationship between an object and the rest of the sentence.  E.g. beneath, against, besides, on, at, during, behind, without, along

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Conjunctions Conjunctions are linking words that connect phrases or clauses. There are three types: coordinating, correlative and subordinating. • Coordinating Conjunctions join the same sentence elements, such as a subject and a subject, a verb phrase and a verb phrase or a sentence and a sentence. They can best be remembered with the acronym FANBOYS: for, and, nor, but, or, yet, so  E.g. I wanted to go to the beach, but it was raining. • Correlative Conjunctions are used in pairs. They include ‘whether...or’, ‘either...or’, ‘neither...nor’ and ‘both...and’.  E.g. Neither Sophia nor Teresa are coming to the museum. • Subordinating Conjunctions are adverbs that connected subordinate clauses to a main clause. They show time (after, while, before), opposition (whereas, although, while), condition (unless, if, in case) and cause and effect (because, since, as).  E.g. I want to get to the shops before they close.

SAMPLE Item Description

Please note: any activity that is not completed during class time may be set for homework or undertaken at a later date.

‘Cameleers’, ‘Afghans in Australia’ and ‘Abdul’s Diary’

• Activity Description: • The following worksheets are based on the topic of Afghan immigration to Australia in the 19th century. The first activity provides a passage of text and asks students to identify its tense and person and the adjectives, nouns and verbs contained within. The second activity asks students to work out which verbs are needed to complete various sentences based on their understanding of subject/verb agreement and tense. The final activity is a diary entry written by a famous cameleer, and students have to change it from first person to third person.

• Purpose of Activity: • In completing this activity, students will not only learn about the Afghan cameleers who came to Australia in the 1800s, but will also get to practice their grammar skills. These skills include verb tense; subject/verb agreement; person; and identifying nouns, verbs and adjectives.

• KLAs: • English, History

• CCEs: • Recognising letters, words and other symbols (α1) • Recalling/ remembering (α3) • Interpreting the meaning of words or other symbols (α4) • Translating from one form to another (α7) • Structuring/ organising extended written text (β21) • Classifying (β30) • Justifying (θ48) • Using correct spelling, punctuation, grammar (π9) • Using vocabulary appropriate to a context (π10) • Explaining to others (π26) SAMPLE • Suggested Time Allocation: • This entire lesson is designed to be completed in an hour – 20 minutes per worksheet.

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Item Description – continued

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‘Cameleers’, ‘Afghans in Australia’ and ‘Abdul’s Diary’

• Teaching Notes: • Knowledge of verb tense is something that comes naturally to most students for whom English is their first language. Encourage them to read sentences aloud to determine whether they make sense or not. ESL students will need particular help, as many other languages have nowhere near as many complex verb tenses as English.

SAMPLE By the mid 19th century, Australia was in the throes of an exploration era. The only problem was that horses and carts were not at all suitable for harsh journeys across the inhospitable desert. As such, it was decided that camels would be used instead. As nobody in Australia knew how to handle camels, Afghan cameleers were recruited, and that is how the first Afghani people came to Australia. ! Complete the following questions, after reading the passage below. Although the cameleers were known as Afghan cameleers, they weren’t all necessarily from Afghanistan. In fact, some cameleers came from Egypt, Turkey, Iran, Pakistan and India, so spoke a multitude of languages. Most cameleers were young or middle-aged men, and they were all Muslim. Although their skills were valued, the European communities tended to be extremely racist towards them. This was largely due to intolerance towards their Islamic religion and scorn of their pride and independence. The local Aboriginal population was much more tolerant, and it wasn’t uncommon for Arabs and Indigenous Australians to marry and have families. Q1 What person is this passage written in and how do you know?

The passage is written in third person. I know this because the author does not refer to themselves or the reader directly, and discusses the cameleers from a distance as a third party, using words like ‘their’.

Q2 What tense is this passage written in and how do you know?

The passage was written in past tense. I know this because past tense verbs are used

throughout the text, like ‘were known’, ‘came’, ‘tended’ etc.

Q3 Write all the adjectives in the passage on the lines below. Afghan, young, middle-aged, European, extremely, local, tolerant, uncommon

Q4 Write all the nouns inSAMPLE the passage on the lines below. cameleers, Afghanistan, Egypt, Turkey, Iran, Pakistan, India, languages, men, skills,

communities, racist, religion, pride, scorn, independence, population, Arabs, Indigenous

Australians, families

Q5 Write all the verbs in the passage on the lines below.

known, came, spoke, tended, due, marry Cameleers

Question One:

Students were required to decide which person the passage was written in and explain how they knew the answer.

Model Response: The passage is written in third person. I know this because the author does not refer to themselves or the reader directly, and discusses the cameleers from a distance as a third party, using words like ‘their’.

Question Two:

Students were required to decide which tense the passage was written in and explain how they knew the answer.

Model Response: The passage was written in past tense. I know this because past tense verbs are used throughout the text, like ‘were known’, ‘came’, ‘tended’ etc.

Question Three:

Students were required to list all the adjectives (describing words for nouns) used in the passage.

Model Response: Afghan, young, middle-ages, European, extremely, local, tolerant, uncommon

Question Four:

Students were required to list all the nouns (naming words, including proper nouns) used in the passage.

Model Response: cameleers, Afghanistan, Egypt, Turkey, Iran, Pakistan, India, languages, men, skills, communities, religion, pride, scorn, independence, population, Arabs, Indigenous Australians, families

Question Five:

Students were required to list all the verbs (doing words) used in the passage. SAMPLE Model Response: known, came, spoke, tended, due, marry