ENGLISH

Here is a snap shot from several English classes this year. English is indeed everywhere! 

Our small Year 7 class particularly enjoyed their poetry unit, learning about how Baker Boy and late Uncle Archie Roach craft songs from their experiences and strength as First Nations’ artists. Creating their own portfolio of poems, the students explored aspects of themselves and their values to express who they are in the form of acrostics, quatrains, autobiographical and diamante poetry, to name but a few.

Year seven has been a year of consolidation and exploration for the students in English 4. As a group they have studied a short film, New Boy, and in the process they had the opportunity to take on the persona of one of the main characters and to write dialogue from a scene to represent their viewpoint. Students have explored the world of advertising as a gateway to some of the language and techniques available when persuading an audience. They were able to use some of the persuasive language devices such as identifying the target audience, repetition and the use of logos to sell a product. Finally, students watched ‘Ride Like a Girl’ in preparation for studying film as a text. Again, they were required to re-write a scene to show an understanding of a chosen character within the story and their understanding of the ideas, themes and motivations of that character. It has been a year of developing good work habits and of learning to listen to and collaborate with other students as they all settled in to their first year at KSC.

8ENG2 with Ms Kennedy became quite invested in Andy Mulligan's 'Trash', starting with an investigation into how people come to live in or by the dumpsites of the world and presenting their findings to the class in groups. The lessons in the unit included learning how to create a setting that acts as another character of the story, experimenting with how Point of View changes the way we see what is happening in a story and using 8 Ways of Learning (Indigenous Knowledge) to understand more deeply what is happening in the different parts of the story that helps give us the WHOLE story. From here the students created their own chapter that required them to present a scene from the point of view of a different character from the original narrative. It was these creations that demonstrated how well the students had appreciated what an author works to achieve when inviting a reader into new world!

7/8 Like Minds English

While studying the novel ‘Divergent’, students formed their own factions and thoroughly assessed what their utopian society would look like. We had all types of societies develop, from sporty, nature loving, all inclusive, artistic and creative, and hunting and futuristic. It supported us to consider the different beliefs and thoughts that we all have, and supported engaging difference in our classroom. We then moved onto our Passion Projects about our favourite things.  These projects were also very diverse and included European Geography, Cooking, Magma, Gymnastics, Scooters, K-Pop, Little Women, Border Collies, Gaming, Lord of the Rings, Guinea Pigs, Politics, AFL, Enduro Racing, the Xbox, Cricket, and Taylor Swift.  Students made games, models, children's books, Minecraft exhibits, reviewed books on their topic, demonstrated skills, wrote songs, and created teacher snacks (which were delicious)😊.

And in Year 9 … What do you get when you take: an ‘unattractive’ product, mix it with rhetorical questions, critical thinking, large scale environment issues, well-thought-out arguments, reason & evidence, a clear contention and a strong point of view? A poster about either the benefits or pitfalls of drinking RECYLED WASTE WATER! 

Ms Neill’s  9ENG2 class went above and beyond in English this year with the creation of a persuasive text which demonstrated their research skills and their ability to use powerful images and text to position an audience to – become D.A.F.T. (to Do, Act, Feel or Think in a particular way!) This work was part of the Year 9 English unit on Analysing Language and Presenting Arguments, which culminated in a CAT including detailed analysis of newspaper texts, research into a current media issue and an oral presentation of the students’ point of view – to the class. 

ENGLISH IS EVERYWHERE and this class worked incredibly hard on a huge range of tasks including: Shakespeare’s plays, analysing song lyrics, the study of classic 1960’s American literature, Australian film study, and the classic Horror genre! A great year of learning and fun. 😊

The VCAL students of 2022 came together as a class during Semester One to write creatively and to reflect on their own life experiences. This was a new format for many of the students but they thrived on the idea of writing in both formal and informal modes to share some beautiful insights and reflections. Year Ten students where given the opportunity to use persuasive devices and to analyse how persuasive devices have been used in ‘Fast Fashion’ as a focus before selecting their own area for research. In an effort to include a text study at Year Ten, students were tasked with reading ‘The Story of Tom Brennan’. The ideas and events generated some deep reflection and discussion about risk taking and responsibility. This was a valuable time for writing a reflection for the students. Finally, the film for text review, ‘The Secret Life of Walter Mitty’ allowed for analysis of themes. The fragility of life was explored as the main character assumed the role of breadwinner forgoing his dreams of real adventure to become a daydreamer. Students used summarising and character analysis to delve into the deeper ideas within this film as text.

Merry Christmas everyone

The English Team