New textbooks update

One of the really exciting things that we get to do at SEV, thanks to the support of our members, teachers and students across the state, is create textbook for each of our VCE subjects. We're a very small publisher, with all the proceeds from our textbooks being reinvested back into running SEV as a non-profit teacher association. This allows us to support you and develop resources with the needs of the community front-of-mind.

With the release of the new study designs for VCE Politics and VCE Sociology, we’ve tried to improve our texts based on feedback from members (whether via social media, members' surveys, or just the numerous conversations we've had with you day-to-day).

We’re really excited to share a bit about these texts with you, along with sample pages which will be available for download from our website before the end of Term 3. We’re well on track to be able to deliver printed textbooks to booksellers towards the end of Term 4. We’re also working with eBook distributors to ensure economical options for students who might prefer to purchase just the eBook edition, or purchase print and online versions together in a 'bundle'.

Details for all of our texts (both old and new), which are available to all booksellers who offer book listing support to schools, are available on our website here:

sev.asn.au/resources/textbooks

Zooming in on the new VCE Sociology: Units 3 and 4 textbook

With the relatively minor changes to the VCE Sociology study design, we’ve been able to capitalise on the experience our teacher-authors have developed throughout the current study design and really ‘zoom in’ on exactly what students need to be able to do. We’ve also worked to tag some of the widespread points of potential confusion which we've seen occasionaly trip up students and teachers in the current study design.

The feedback we've received on the previous textbooks had some practical and unsurprising implications – we want the texts to use student-friendly and accessible language, we need key knowledge points and questions within activities to be numbered and well-signposted, and we need the text to closely follow the sequence of the study design.

We’ve put some significant effort into unpacking the skills that students need to build to succeed, balancing this with the 'content' requirements set out in key knowledge.

We know the value of our textbooks in supporting teachers who may be the only teacher of the subject at their school, so providing really detailed case study examples was a big priority for us – as well as a really comprehensive coverage of core study design concepts.

Each of our textbooks have been guided by a lead author, who are amongst our most experienced teachers of each study area. With our support they’ve been able to collaborate with the team of authors, reviewing and supporting the development of ideas and approaches in each chapter to help bring each text to its full potential.

One way in which our lead authors have improved each text is by providing more explicit guidance to students in regards to how best to break down exam questions. An example of what this looks is below – we model how to carve up the question into the relevant key knowledge indicators, ‘limiting words’ and command terms:

We’re basically obsessed with giving students access to authentic, ‘real-world’ texts and so, where possible, we’ve included transcripts and adaptations of high quality, accessible and relevant articles and other resources for students to engage with. This has partly been in response to teachers telling us about the very different levels of access to technology experienced by their students, and also to provide a text that included a diversity of voices and caters to a variety of learning styles – all essential elements of good pedagogy in humanities subjects. 

First Nations author contributions

Sociology AoS 3.1 holds particular importance for all of us – there aren’t many other places in the VCE where students are given the opportunity to dedicate a term’s worth of study focusing exclusively on the cultures and experiences of First Nations peoples. Working with First Nations educators on this chapter was a priority for us, so we reached out early to partner with Culture is Life to collaborate on this chapter.

Over many months, Thara Brown (Yorta Yorta) and I have worked through the curriculum and content to develop a chapter which prioritises the voices and perspectives of First Nations people while hitting all the marks prescribed by the study design.

We’ll have more updates and teasers for our other upcoming texts (VCE Sociology: Units 1 and 2, and VCE Politics Units 1 and 2) to share with you over the next few weeks – but in the meantime, you can start talking with your textbook suppliers about book listing details (not to mention making a pre-order for your own copy), if you haven't already.