Feature Hunt

Overview

Students revisit the informative School Journal Level 2 text Kaitiaki of the Stream by Pātaka Moore and Monique Lagan. They identify how organisational and visual features guide readers, then explain the main idea of a short passage about the Mangapōuri Stream.

Learning intentions

• WALT identify title, subheadings, captions, diagrams and bold terms in an informative text.
• WALT explain how text features help readers find and understand information.
• WALT state the main idea of a passage in one clear sentence.
• WALT use respectful language when discussing kaitiakitanga and Māori relationships with the natural environment.

Success criteria

• I can correctly label the key features in an informative text.
• I can explain what a feature helps the reader to do.
• I can write a sentence that states the passage’s main idea.
• I can justify why an author has chosen a particular feature.

Prior knowledge

Students have read or discussed Kaitiaki of the Stream and know that the Mangapōuri Stream was important for water, kai and community life. Briefly revisit the ideas of kaitiaki and kaitiakitanga: caring for and protecting natural resources for present and future generations. Acknowledge that the text shares a Māori viewpoint and avoid presenting kaitiakitanga as simply an English translation.

Vocabulary

• kaitiaki / kaitiakitanga – a guardian; the practice of caring for and protecting the natural world
• informative text – writing that gives factual information
• title – the name of the text
• subheading – a smaller heading that introduces a section
• caption – words that explain or add information about an image or diagram
• diagram – a labelled drawing that explains how something works or is organised
• bold term – a word printed in darker, thicker type to draw attention to it
• main idea – the most important message in a section

Curriculum links

• Comprehension: text form, structure, style, and features — identifying structure used to communicate ideas clearly.
• Comprehension: text form, structure, style, and features — identifying language and visual features and explaining their impact on the audience.
• Comprehension: text form, structure, style, and features — understanding how diagrams, illustrations and graphs support information.
• Comprehension: text form, structure, style, and features — using organisational features such as headings and subheadings to navigate a text.

Lesson structure (60 minutes)

1. 0–7 min · Connect and notice. Display the opening image and heading from Kaitiaki of the Stream using the opening stream image and question. Ask: “What does a reader notice before reading every word?” Students turn and talk, then name visible features and share what they already know about the stream, tuna or caring for waterways.

2. 7–17 min · Explicit modelling. Show the passage “Why is the stream important?” and the “Fat tuna!” section from the text on the feature examples and teacher think-aloud. Model locating the title or question heading, subheading, caption, diagram and bold terms. Think aloud: “The heading is phrased as a question, so I expect the paragraph to answer it.” Model a main-idea sentence: “The stream was important because it provided water, food and a place to store kai.” Clarify that a feature is not decoration: it has a job for the reader.

3. 17–25 min · Guided practice. Re-display one page and ask pairs to identify a feature, point to evidence and complete: “The ___ helps the reader to ___.” Invite responses, checking that students distinguish a caption from a heading and a diagram from a photograph. Co-construct a class feature-and-purpose chart on the guided-practice prompts. Check understanding with thumbs up/down and ask students to correct one deliberately misplaced label.

4. 25–43 min · Text Feature Hunt. Distribute the text-feature hunt passage and labelling organiser. Students label the short informative passage’s title, subheadings, captions, diagrams and bold terms, then write one sentence stating its main idea. They work independently for the first five minutes, then may quietly compare ideas with a partner. Circulate and ask: “What information does this feature add?” and “Where is the evidence for your main idea?” Students needing the Enable pathway use the pre-labelled graphic organiser and match the cut-out definitions/cards to the features before transferring labels to the passage.

5. 43–54 min · Extend and discuss. Students who are ready annotate the passage with justifications, using prompts on the author-choice challenge: “Why might the author use a diagram here rather than words alone?” and “How does the caption make the diagram easier to understand?” They explain how at least two features support a reader learning about streams or tuna. Partners share one annotation; the class discusses how features make information quicker or clearer to locate.

6. 54–60 min · Reflect and exit. Ask students to complete the final reflection box on the reflection and exit response: “One feature I can find is ___. It helps the reader because ___.” They also write the main idea of the passage in no more than one sentence. Invite two students to share different but defensible answers and briefly revisit the WALT.

Resources

• School Journal Level 2 text Kaitiaki of the Stream
• the complete feature-hunt teaching deck
• the text-feature hunt passage and labelling organiser
• Photocopies of the selected informative passage
• Scissors and glue for the Enable matching cards
• Coloured pencils or highlighters
• Whiteboard and markers
• Optional classroom map or image of Ōtaki and the Mangapōuri Stream

Assessment

• During modelling and guided practice, listen for accurate feature names and explanations of purpose.
• During independent work, record whether each student can label features, identify the main idea and use evidence in an explanation.
• Use the exit response to identify students who can name a feature but cannot yet explain its effect, or who confuse a topic with a main idea.

Differentiation

• Enable: Provide the pre-labelled organiser, feature icons and matching definition cards. Read the passage aloud, allow oral rehearsal, and reduce the number of features to be labelled initially.
• Multilingual learners: Pair each term with a simple definition, symbol and repeated oral sentence frame: “The ___ helps me to ___.” Accept drawing, pointing and oral explanation before written responses; invite students to connect the idea of guardianship with concepts in their own cultures.
• Dyslexia or reading difficulties: Use a clear sans-serif font, generous spacing, tinted paper if helpful, short sections and a ruler or reading window. Offer text-to-speech or an adult reader, and assess feature knowledge separately from spelling and handwriting.
• Extension: Require detailed annotations for two or more features, comparing the usefulness of a diagram, caption and paragraph. Students may suggest one feature the author could add and explain its likely effect on the audience.

Likely misconceptions

• Students may call every large or bold heading a title; revisit that the title names the whole text, while a subheading names one section.
• Students may describe the topic (“the stream”) rather than the main idea; ask what the author wants readers to understand about it.
• Students may think a diagram must be a realistic picture; explain that a diagram organises or explains information and may use labels, arrows or stages.
• Students may assume bold terms are automatically the main idea; clarify that bold print signals important vocabulary, not the whole message.

Next steps

Use exit-ticket evidence to form a small teaching group. Revisit any confused features with a familiar classroom text, then have students compare how two informative texts use headings, images and diagrams to communicate information clearly.