Orbital - Individual Lessons
Explore 14 ready-to-teach lessons for Samantha Harvey's Orbital, designed for VCE English and EAL.
Each individual lesson includes an editable PowerPoint slideshow, student worksheet and sample answers. Individual Teacher and English/EAL Faculty — One Campus licence options are available.
Select a lesson below to view its focus, included materials and purchasing options.
Lesson 01: Introducing 'Orbital' - Reading a Different Kind of Novel
Students adjust their expectations of conventional plot and character development as they examine the novel’s reflective, cyclical structure. They track recurring patterns, analyse the opening and connect carefully selected evidence with broader interpretations of time, perspective, Earth and human life.
Lesson 02: Understanding Shaun and Nell: Ambition, Relationships and Contradictions
Students examine Shaun’s ambition, insecurity and relationships before considering the tensions within Nell’s identity and personal life. They analyse how Harvey constructs complex characters through contrasting qualities, memories, relationships and private reflections, then compare Shaun and Nell to develop an interpretation that moves beyond simple character description.
View Lesson 02
Lesson 03: Understanding Chie and Roman: Memory, Grief and the Experience of Time
Students examine how Chie’s grief and memories of her mother shape her experience aboard the spacecraft, while analysing Roman’s different experience of time and the distance between his life in orbit and his relationships on Earth. Through close analysis of photographs, memories and temporal shifts, they develop a broader interpretation of how human beings experience connection, loss and time.
View Lesson 03
Lesson 04: Understanding Anton and Pietro: Emotion, Progress and Human Vulnerability
Students examine Anton’s emotional sensitivity, concealed fear and sense of responsibility, while tracing Pietro’s changing ideas about progress as beautiful, energetic, destructive and connected with human pride. They challenge simple descriptions of Anton as the spacecraft’s “heart” and Pietro as its “mind”, recognising the uncertainty, compassion and vulnerability within both characters.
View Lesson 04
Lesson 05: The Crew as a Collective: Connection, Isolation and Interdependence
Students consider how life aboard the spacecraft creates connection, isolation and interdependence as they examine the station as a “nationless, borderless outpost” and explore the limits of the crew members’ understanding of one another. They move beyond individual character analysis to develop interpretations of shared experience, cooperation and the ways in which the astronauts remain both together and emotionally alone.
View Lesson 05
Lesson 06: Perspective and Scale: Human Insignificance and Importance
Students examine moments in which Harvey “zooms in” on individual lives and “zooms out” to view humanity from a cosmic perspective. They analyse representations of human insignificance, consider the relationship between language, knowledge and power, and explain how shifting scale develops the paradox that human beings can appear both insignificant and deeply important.
View Lesson 06
Lesson 07: Time, Mortality and Transience
Students examine different forms of time within the novel, including orbital cycles, human routines, memories and irreversible change. They identify what returns and what changes, analyse the vulnerability of human bodies and their temporary shelter, and develop an interpretation of life as cyclical, fragile and transient.
View Lesson 07
Lesson 08: Earth: Beauty, Fragility and Environmental Responsibility
Students analyse passages that present beauty and threat within the same view, track the development of the typhoon and examine signs of environmental damage visible from orbit. They consider how the astronauts’ elevated perspective reveals both Earth’s extraordinary beauty and its vulnerability, developing interpretations of environmental responsibility without reducing the novel to a simple warning.
View Lesson 08
Lesson 09: Progress, Technology and Human Ambition
Students distinguish achievement from progress, examine the forces that drive human ambition and investigate the paradoxes within technological advancement. They compare different visions of space exploration and develop a balanced interpretation of progress as inspiring and imaginative, but also potentially destructive, unequal and driven by pride.
View Lesson 09
Lesson 10: Borders, Nationality and Human Unity
Students examine the multinational crew, analyse the apparent absence of national borders from orbit and classify examples of difference, division and connection. They compare competing visions of human unity and develop a nuanced interpretation of how shared humanity can connect people without completely erasing cultural, national and personal differences.
View Lesson 10
Lesson 11: Narrative Structure, Style and Perspective
Students explore the novel’s circular experience of time, shifting perspectives and movement between external events and philosophical reflection. They analyse how Harvey’s imagery, sentence structures, comparisons and language choices enable the novel’s distinctive structure, style and perspective to shape the reader’s understanding of human life and Earth.
View Lesson 11
Lesson 12: Developing Sophisticated Interpretations of 'Orbital'
Students compare stronger and weaker interpretations, diagnose common problems and revise simplistic or overly certain statements. They examine the wording and assumptions of analytical topics before developing precise, defensible interpretations that recognise the tensions, qualifications and contradictions within Harvey’s ideas.
View Lesson 12
Lesson 13: How to Brainstorm an Analytical Response
Students identify key words, define important terms and test the assumptions within an analytical essay topic. They brainstorm possible positions, select and group evidence, transform examples into supporting arguments and write a one-sentence contention that reflects the direction of the complete response.
Lesson 14: How to Write an Analytical Response
Using their completed essay plan, students write and improve an introduction, analyse the structure of a model analytical paragraph and construct their own body paragraph using the TEEAEAL framework. They then examine the purpose and structure of an effective conclusion, bringing together their work on interpretation, argument, evidence and analysis to produce a coherent sustained response.