A comprehensive and engaging teaching unit for Trash by Andy Mulligan, designed for Years 7–8 English classrooms. This resource supports students in developing comprehension, analytical, and writing skills while exploring themes of poverty, corruption, friendship, justice, and resilience through this fast-paced contemporary novel.
What’s included
• Analysis of context, themes, characters, and cultural assumptions
• Exploration of inequality, corruption, human rights, and social justice
• Language features, text structures, and figurative language analysis
• Study of narrative voice, multiple perspectives, and suspense
• Close reading and comprehension tasks
• Paragraph and extended writing support
• Discussion tasks and engaging classroom activities
• A structured teaching sequence with multiple learning activities per week
• Classroom-ready activities throughout

Teaching approach
This resource is activity-based rather than a scripted lesson-by-lesson program. It is designed for teachers to select and adapt tasks to suit their own lessons and classroom needs. The unit emphasises discussion, interpretation, and student engagement rather than worksheet-driven instruction.
File info
• Provided as a non-editable PDF
• Not designed as an editable PowerPoint
How to use
• Upload to your LMS (Google Classroom, Canvas, etc.) for digital use
• Print selected pages for classroom use
• Display pages to guide discussion and activities
• Upload to presentation or design platforms if you wish to adapt for your own use (formatting may vary depending on the program used)