English News

Junior English

Students in Year 7 have been exploring how poets capture people and places.

 

Year 8 is exploring the relevance of the fairy-tale form and exploring how we keep adapting the stories in new ways to reflect our culture and values. The question ‘What if . . .” has been the focus of Year 9’s Speculative Fiction genre study.

 

Year 10 has been asking about the value of classic texts and how we define the literary canon.

 

Junior classes will all be issued assessment tasks over the next week. They will be due in Weeks 9 - 10 of this Term 1. Encourage your student to break the task down in to parts and do a little each night. Taking the time to draft and edit their responses carefully is very important if they are to achieve to their full potential.

 

To help students with their task you can:

  • Encourage them to spend 20 mins on it each night
  • Listen to their ideas and ask questions about what they want to say
  • ask them how they are shaping and organising their ideas.

Questions you can ask at home:

  • What texts have you been exploring in class?  What is the message of the text?
  • What are the ways the author communicates this message?
  • What idea/s are going to be the focus of your answer?
  • How will communicate those ideas?

Where to go for help?

  • Contact the classroom teacher through the office or Compass
  • Students can seek assistance at Study Club Tuesday- Wednesday afternoons till 5:00pm
  • Contact the Leader of Learning – Heather Burke

 

Senior English

The Year 11 students have settled in well to the rigours of senior study and have been focusing on finding their ‘writers voice’ and their own unique style. It has been wonderful to see how they learn collaboratively, articulate their understanding and push each other to achieve. Students were issued their first assessment task this week.

 

Here are some of the micro narratives they have crafted in class:

 

Taniel

As her hand rests on my spine, making me feel an intense experience of deep affection, 

we saunter out of the adoption centre together smiling. I finally feel loved again. I felt lost before she helped me out of here, I could tell she would take care of me.

“I always find the best novels at the charity store” She grins.

 

Man-Wolf by Lillian

After the man-wolf bit me, I experienced a terrible transformation.

Now, when the full-moon rises, my flesh shudders and my bones crack and my body rebuilds itself into this grotesque new shape.

A mouth full of teeth that cannot bite,

A stomach that gets sick at the taste of blood,

And a spine made for hunching over an office desk.

I miss the forest…  

 

Georgia

The case squeaks open, the light as bright as the sun, I am free. I am free to explore the world, my frame darting from point to point as I move through my world. While the sound of flicking paper excites me, a lamp lights up my eyes. 

My adventure begins now. 

My ends tuck perfectly behind the ears of a young girl, hair falling over. A black bridge connects the two parts of my world. A, B, C’s.. join together like pieces of a puzzle.

I am delighted to be the lenses that my owner enters another world through.

 

Year 12 Students are now at the half way point of their studies. They have been issued their second assessment task this week. Please encourage them to start the tasks now – developing a mature understanding and refining how they express it is very important if they are to achieve their best results.

 

Above: Year 11 Students working collaboratively to develop their writing skills.

 

English Outside the Classroom

Book Club meets each Friday of Week B and all students are welcome. Writers Club will begin in Week 8 of this term. Look out for details on our Writer in Residence Program.

 

Heather Burke

Leader of Learning - English