English Studies

ENGLISH

Who said it’s just reading about boring old poets?

Literacy in the SACE is about developing “skills to understand and interpret a variety of texts and people in a range of different situations and countries. It is an every-century skill. Literacy is reading, remembering, writing, understanding, creating, and speaking.”

It is vital that our students are equipped to interpret and process many different styles and text types That students have the ability to understand books, poems, plays, films, graphs, charts, cartoons, advertisements, posters, blogs, online journals and forums, the layout of a front page, and that what is NOT written can influence us and manipulate us is imperative. Our students must then be able to communicate this understanding and show that they are aware of the ‘text’ as a construct. By reproducing, emulating, and subverting the stylistic features and structure of texts they can do just that!

In all English and English Literary Studies classes across Years 10- 12 students’ literacy – spoken, written and visual - has been tested and enhanced by ‘doing’. They have certainly displayed the ability to deconstruct and craft texts successfully in a range of styles and forms. There were many opportunities for students to display their flair for fashioning fabulous original texts in areas that both interested and challenged them.

Some of the works produced across both courses are:

• Creative pieces – descriptive, personal, persuasive and argumentative texts to name a few

• Short films or multimodal pieces

• Original poetry anthologies

• Scripts

• Magazine articles for a range of publication points and purposes

• Performances – play reading, spoken word and more

• Short stories

• Web pages and blogs

I am always amazed by the creativity of Eynesbury students and the way that they get involved with the topics they choose to discuss. Aileen Bourne explored stereotypes and gender roles in her spoken word piece You know the type suggesting;

‘She's the type of girl whose legs I notice, stems that look like they’re about to snap, the weight of the pressure just all too much fragile tendrils under the weight of blossoming. Or maybe it’s the weight they need to gain.’

*often student work quoted is an extract from a longer piece.

And then there was Emily Cooper who boldly called out catcalling in the ferocious piece Smile which opens in a confronting way with;

‘Hey, hey bitch! Why don’t you smile, bitch?

To the two middle-aged, white men who, living up to their stereotype, hit each other on the arm to inform each other of my presence — or rather, the presence of my ass and the non-attendance of my teeth. Hey, hey bitch! Why don’t you smile, bitch?

Mechanical bitch face, lips locked, steel bar, determined, chained bitch face…’

Dante McDonald challenged what it means to be Australian, personifying Australianness as Matilda, confronting her with the comment

‘Ad - vance Aus - tra-lia Fair’? / Are you kidding me? / We’re incapable of advancing whatsoever.’

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Tahlia Jameson gave voice to adult magazine addressing the reader as ‘sugar’, ‘darling’ and ‘honey’ in Well hello there, the magazine’s sultry tones declaring;

‘I am draped in a fine, glossy layer of plastic perfection, just enough to differentiate me from these flimsy pinups that call themselves entertainment. They share my shelf, reproduced with no meaning, to be concealed in the top drawer of every stingy motel room…’

‘I crouched beneath a thundering sky. Blinding flashes punctuated the horizon like a ragged chain of white fireworks. Viscous air drenched in dark ash seared my nostrils and turned my breathing raspy. Acrid gunpowder residue coated my teeth and tongue like bitter sand. Charred remnants of burnt flesh floated in the fetid air and dusted my skin in the warm throated sobs of dead men. Howling planes scurried across the canopy of our confrontation. I was both soaking wet and achingly thirsty. Terror was replaced by a sense of vacant desolation.’

Thomas Zadow

Then there is beauty - Imogen Weston created a thoughtful and contemplative piece using allegory to convey the story of the Rose, Earth and Sun.

‘Winter had been harsh. Icy winds buffeted the soil, and cold rain had washed away any source of nourishment from the edge of the frozen earth. There was no warmth, no place of respite. But slowly and surely the cold winds faded. Little microorganisms began their long task of returning nutrients to the soil. Life returned and magnificent Mother Earth was renewed. Small bugs scurried around in the undergrowth. Birds began singing their harmonious songs once again. ‘Spring has come,’ Father Sun whispered, ‘it’s time to wake up’.

The little rose gingerly opened its buds. Sensing the warmth, new leaves sprung forth from its stem, soaking up the sunlight. Its roots burrowed deep as it drew nutrients from the soil. The little rose grew strong, its stems thickened, dotted with thorns, leaves now a deep green. Small rosebuds formed, still closed, still shy, sitting gently on the end of thin twigs. When the time was right, slowly the buds began to bloom. Caressed by sunlight, the rosebuds opened, fragile and fragrant. A wondrous perfume filled the air. The small flowers were of such a brilliant colour that all passing animals stopped to see them…’

Some students captured moments real or imagined. Rich experiences can take place when we travel and Eva Marker recalled a memorable experience.

…When we emerged from the station, we were thrown into mid-city mayhem. Everyone was commuting to work, and we were a few clueless tourists. It was crazy how diverse the city was. There was an ancient church next to a brand new apartment. The iconic red telephone boxes were sprinkled about. Patches of grass broke up the concrete ground. The smell of smoke was hidden behind the smell of fresh rain. Through all the people and the worn down footpaths, London seemed peaceful, almost timeless.

The first thing I remember seeing was Big Ben. It was under construction so I couldn’t see the bottom section. I was blown away. Wow, I thought, this is real. When I walked around the entire churchlike building, Big Ben was as large as it was tall. We wandered through a courtyard of vibrant flowers to the river where we could see the London Eye. Circular patterns shimmered on the water from the rain earlier that morning. The air was still fresh on my face as we crossed London Bridge…’

And what about the toasts? Jackson Erhart –Bruce wrote a celebration of The Little Things.

‘…Tonight is about you. You, the onions that go with the sausage. You, the bacon that so vastly improves the burger. You, the cover of the novel, that makes people go, “hey this might be worth a read.”

Tonight is about the last cookie, in a packet, and the way it winks at you mischievously. The last minute in an hour. The euphoric feeling you get from crossing the last thing off your to-do list. Because this is a toast for the little things, for the forgotten things, for the things that don’t get talked about…’

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Then there were the poems. Year 10 English students played with poetry. They experimented with figurative devices and different poetic forms coming up with fun and evocative images. Oliver Corfield crafted a powerful piece on politics tied to the saying The Elephant in the Room. Other students crafted vivid pictures using simile and metaphor.

The thought is a spider, dragging its thin legs through my brain. It corrupts my every thought. Spinning a fine web around my happiness, never allowing it to escape.

Ella Christensen

Sometimes I am like a brain. Fragile, high maintenance, but highly resilient and surprisingly knowledgeable.

Rory Rasmussen

The moon is a sly old cat, her eyes yellow and bright. Slowly does she prowl, ready to pounce, for the old cat’s hungry and she feeds on light. She swipes at the world with her velvet soft paws, Purring whilst licking her sun specked claws. And at last when she’s full and the world has gone grey, She closes her eyes to begin a new day.

Abby Douglas

Humour can also allow a student to reveal their personality and engage the reader. Cameron Pozza reinvented the fairy-tale The Emperor’s New Clothes, transforming it into a retro-styled rap The Emperor’s New Groove complete with musical accompaniment.

It was a long time ago, with the flyest of clothes, there was a rich Emperor spending all of his gold, he didn’t care much for many other problems, he just wanted clothes, Oh boy did he want ‘em. When a couple of swindlers, they came by, saw how much he spent, and he didn’t bat an eye. They said they could weave, the Emperor was ecstatic, they saw his mind was weak, and knew he had to have ‘em.

CHORUS

The Emperor’s new groove, all in the nude, he should have thought twice, it was a trick so crude. The Emperor’s new groove, all in the nude, he should have thought twice, it was a trick so crude. When they were done the Emperor couldn’t believe it, he didn’t see anything, he thought they had weaved it - a special garment that no one else had,

but really he was naked, standing out, unclad. The swindlers were laughing, they had just played a trick, he was too late but that wouldn’t make him quit. Standing out waving, into the crowd, the Emperor was duped, but he stood out proud.

REPEAT CHORUS

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What is also wonderful is our students’ ability to then analyse their writing and demonstrate awareness of its construction and purpose. It is important that students can convey their understanding of the process of creation. Michael Thompson constructed a clever reworking of the nursery rhyme The Crooked Man using a multiplicity of voices. A segment from his reflection on its development reads:

‘The original The Crooked Man reads very differently to how it would have in the early twentieth century; it is a nursery rhyme, sung by children. But, as is seemingly tradition with all nursery rhymes, a darker precedent is set in today’s world, contextualised by history. Reading today, the ominous undertones of the original piece are unmistakable. What exactly is the crooked man? Is he deformed, a hideous monster? This certainly seems to be the interpretation in popular culture. The piece is an attempt to bring the original rhyme to its lighthearted self once again. While it could still be considered a story of crime and corruption, it is light in tone and consequence; characters are exaggerated versions of early 2000’s British crooks and cops. It is a setting that is silly but takes itself seriously.

There are many allusions to crookedness throughout the narrative, every character in my piece is crooked in some fashion, though without the adjective of crooked ever being mentioned. The setting’s presentations represents this as the apartment block itself is cramped and the flats are oddly shaped. The chiro is ‘crooked’ in the sense that he embezzled his patients out of excess amounts of money through medical bills but also through the nature of his profession. Officer Cadence, the officer representing Nottingham PD is the cat in the narrative; their crookedness stems from the “investigative tax” they demand be paid. Much like the cat that catches the mouse in the nursery rhyme, Officer Cadence is after Rodney O’ Heart, the piece’s mouse; his name bears some resemblance to the word ‘rodent’ itself. Rodney is quick to back down after being threatened, as it is in his implied nature…’

Yes, critical literacy is important and by providing students with the tools and opportunities to create a text, take a text apart, shred it, jump up and down on it, and ultimately rebuild it we can strengthen their ability to analytically view a text. They learn to comprehend what they are bombarded with every day on the internet, television, fiction, film, newspapers and magazines.

Oh yes, there were plenty of essays too…

Melanie Smith Key English Teacher

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