a narrative text that shares ideas about human nature, motivation, behaviour, and experience. Stories can record history, reflect a personal journey, or explore identity. Stories can be oral, written, or visual, and used to instruct, inspire, and/or entertain listeners and readers.

Oral traditions are the means by which cultural transmission occurs over generations, other than through written records. Among First Peoples, oral traditions may consist of told stories, songs, and/or other types of distilled wisdom or information, often complemented by dance or various forms of visual representation such as carvings or masks. In addition to expressing spiritual and emotional truth (e.g., via symbol and metaphor), these traditions provide a record of literal truth (e.g., regarding events and/or situations). They were integrated into every facet of life and were the basis of First Peoples education system. They continue to endure in contemporary contexts.

Students should be prompted to understand the influence of family, friends, community, education, spirituality/religion, gender identity, age, sexual orientation, land/place, settlement patterns, traditional First Peoples teachings, economic factors, political events (local and beyond), and colonial policies; to understand that authors write from a perspective influenced by such factors; and to understand the relationship between text and context.

Students may consider the relationship between form and function (e.g., considering the role in various texts of elements such as negative space in graphic novels, advertisements on websites, lighting and camera angles in film and photography, use of music, paragraph length, line breaks in poetry, silence and intonation in spoken word, and use of colour).

Strategies used will depend on purpose and context. These may include making predictions, asking questions, paraphrasing, forming images, making inferences, determining importance, identifying themes, and drawing conclusions.

includes independent and collaborative settings, and formal and informal situations

Consider the extent to which material has credibility, currency, and significance for the purpose, and whether it resonates with personal experience.

Consider point of view, bias, and propaganda, and voices omitted or misrepresented.