English News
Poetry in English
Recently, in Dr. Schroor’s and Ms. Winton’s Year 9 English class, a task was set to create visual representations of poems from the book “The Penguin Anthology of Australian Poetry”. Each student had to pick one poem that was interesting to them and draw the poem as what they visualised it in their head.
This task helps students to think about poems for more than just their words, but their meanings too, delving into and decoding the details of each poem and incorporating them into their drawing. This really helped students think about the poems and gave insight about people who wrote these poems and made students wonder about why these artists would write these poems and how life was when these poems were written.
After these drawings were complete, students had to pick the best drawing out of the ones in their table groups. This decision was not to be made based on artistic skills but on how detailed the drawings were. One by one, the best drawing from each table was shown to the class whilst someone from the same table justified this decision and analysed the poem and drawing briefly. During this part of the task, students were able to see how others interpreted poems and put that on paper. They were also able to learn the interests of others and the genre of texts they like to read, which is helpful since they are trying to learn more about each other as well.
Karreena Thivakaran
Year 9
Literature 3/4 Valentine’s Picnic
In Picnic at Hanging Rock, a group of staff and students from Appleyard College go picnicking near Hanging Rock on Valentine’s Day. However, as four girls from the group decide to journey through the bushes and approach the Rock, three of them mysteriously disappear, with one teacher also vanishing shortly thereafter. To experience the environment described in book for ourselves, our Year 12 Literature class went for a picnic outside on February the 14th, behind building A – where there were birds, trees, and teeming insect lives. We read aloud passages about the picnic from the text and replicated each situation as we went along. When a character from the text “helped herself lavishly to cream”, we too, helped ourselves to some delicious cream. At the end of our picnic, we also recreated the Hanging Rock incident in detail; we had people back at the camp reading books and checking watches as the four girls made their way towards the rock (but don’t worry no-one disappeared for real).
Of course, there were also lots of food and drinks. Each one of us brought something to the table – ranging from picnic equipment like mats and baskets to homemade cakes, scones and even Doritos. We had so much food I didn’t even have enough space for recess. We also came to the picnic wearing a variety of hats, both to protect against the sun and to fit the occasion. Before we packed up, we even made a toast to Saint Valentine, just like in the text. It’s not often that you can go for a hat-picnic while everyone else is in class, and we had a wonderful time.
Tristan Akbar & Asif Kabir
Year 12
ICAS English Competition
During the last period of a Wednesday just like any other, the year 11 Literature students, as well as some year 9s and 10s sat the ICAS English competition. Perhaps participating in a competition may not have been the most important thing on everyone’s minds, as some of us eagerly waited for lunch to start, however, we all certainly put our best foot forward.
In particular, this was my first time doing an ICAS competition online, remotely from home, and I was curious to see how the experience would go. Despite the frantic messages, ‘are you on the website yet?’, and ‘is the code working for you?’ the students in my literature class sent to each other at 12:20, we were soon able to start the competition, and I was excited to see that it consisted of reading comprehension questions, which I have always been very fond of for some reason. I enjoyed reading the various types of texts and answering questions based on them, and in my opinion, it was definitely more entertaining than the methods class I was supposed to have.
The online format of the competition was easily accessible and we were given plenty of information beforehand, so it went smoothly, and a few minutes after 1:20, we all collectively let out a sigh of relief from our various homes. Then of course, the competition was forgotten until results came out.
To say I was shocked would be a bit of an understatement, as I had never imagined in my wildest dreams that I would ever win an ICAS medal. I am extremely grateful to Mrs Webster for organising this competition and allowing us to challenge ourselves and aim high whilst having fun. It was a great experience during lockdown, and definitely something students should make the most of if they get the chance.
Chandrima Mukherjee
Year 12
In 2021, Nossal High School students rose to the challenges of remote learning and registered some incredibly positive results for the ICAS English competition. Despite completing the competition in a remote learning setting (I was convening it from my lounge room!) the results were incredible.
We are celebrating Nossal's best ICAS English results since we started doing the competition way back in 2015. As well as several High Distinction and Distinction results, Nossal had 3 GOLD MEDAL winners, you should have seen Dr Schroor's face when these were delivered to us. This is the first time we have had a GOLD MEDAL for ICAS - so to have three is very exciting!
Well done to Kuhu Sharma (Year 11), Chandrima Mukherjee (Year 12) and
Zeana Cole (Year 10), and I look forward to doing it all again in 2022!
Kat Webster
English Teacher