ENGLISH

YEAR 9 DEBATING SUCCESS

Over the course of Terms 1 and 2, McKinnon's intermediate debating teams have competed in the Debaters Association of Victoria schools’ competition (Brighton Region). 

At the end of the competition, both McKinnon teams finished first and second on the ladder, meaning that they faced off in the final on Wednesday 19 June. The final was a fun event where all speakers demonstrated their skills to a high level. 

Congratulations to the affirmative team on their victory on the night, but more importantly to all debaters, their families and our Debating Coordinators: Andrea Zappner, Fusun Ozcagli and Jessica Catterall. 

The team will now progress to the next stage of the competition, taking on the best debaters in the state. 

Sam Florence

English Learning Area Manager

BOOK CLUB

Book club takes place every Thursday in L02. We spend lunchtime each week discussing and analysing our favourite stories and recommending books to one another. 

Book club gives us a chance to converse over some of the most outstanding literary feats and share our own stories with each other. Though it is just a short session once a week, book club provides us with the opportunity to express ourselves and share with our friends our most treasured literary memories (and other random ones too). 

With free snacks and the occasional song, book club would be a highlight to anyone’s week. Anyone is free to come along. Just bring a book and enjoy a lunchtime of fun! 

Maia Norgate-Burke

Year 7 Student

YEAR 10 LITERATURE - ERN MALLEY POEMS

Year 10 Literature has recently been looking at poetry, particularly procedural poems - pieces crafted through chance, collaboration, and collage. 

As part of this unit, we examined the Ern Malley Hoax, the famous Australian literary prank played by two conservative poets who created a fake writer - Ern Malley - and a suite of poems - collaged from Shakespeare, random textbooks, a scientific study of mosquitos, and a rhyming dictionary - intended to mock modern poetry. Intended to be laughed at, this poetry ended up being hugely influential. Indeed, the original poets who created Malley have almost been lost to time, replaced by their alter ego. 

Following this, our poets in Year 10 Literature were tasked with creating their own fake poets, along with their most famous ‘poem,’ which they assembled from newspapers, poetry anthologies, and Ron Calcutt’s Complete Book of Fishing. 

Dr David Dick

Year 10 Literature Teacher

Claude Fernandez

Although the imitators of one kind

I didn’t feel much while using it

Knowing themselves too well in one another

It never fails to enchant thanks to an ever-changing kaleidoscope

Standest thou still and hearest such a calling? 

At the fort, the Kings Army was waiting 

Skill and patience achieve more than force

Gossips are to be seen

If you can understand why it won’t work

The moderate sort of men thus qualified 

The civilization may not sink

The straggled soldier halted

May I feel said he, No birdsong yet,

no cricket, nor does the trout 

But what - I dream!

Erik Hennequin, Year 10

Mabel Sinclair 

Once upon a gym session

There was a rich man whose wife lay sick

She was the largest of them all

“Let us kill her at once”

Everybody agreed to the King’s plan

The giant did not know what to say 

“I think I will sit on it a little longer” 

“But be a good girl run into the garden and bring me a pumpkin”

The wild duck flew up 

Into Costa Rica’s Talamanca Mountains

He was a very bad goblin

The king and priests were on their knees in the churches

There's no one size fits all formula

Not even a king could change the message of the stars

Look you, now we’re going to begin

Isla Rood & Isabella Dekarta, Year 10

Alessandro Vittorio Farnese 

With winged haste, who is the fool?

Doomsday is near, attached to the glaciers we can see in the distance

By the mass, lad, thou sayest true, but the signs are ominous

In golden coats like images, die all, die merrily

For a sentiment can be a souvenir, chasing waterfalls

A country is not it’s leader: courteous or a passionate lot

I’ve never cried so much, it enchants me with its timeless charm

Images of unattainable perfection, the key to your future

The full moon unwinds in wanton rushes

A simple life - the better parts of valour

No secrets, no small talk

Pick your flavours, altogether governed by humours

O, I am ignorance itself, seldom, but sumptuous

With all my heart, should you be nothing but musical

I killed myself, and saw thee dead

Shishir Sajit, Year 10

Irene Banasiak

The Fall

All arrogance of earthen riches,

Purged the hall of unremitting humiliations.

The heart rouses, it was the love of love.

We are all too feeble,

The edge of the sea.

Clasped in my longing arms,

Melting through kindness, flaming in desire.

Mocking married men,

Through thou waters warm.

Icarus drowns.

Anonymous, Year 10

Alexandrew Goldmanstein 

Virtue calls

Condemned to hope’s

The merchant to secure 

I may no more

With no allaying Thames 

Up kingly walls

It has proven abortive

To leave a distant post

Flake after flake

At any size small

Whetstone for sharpening 

A python wound around your arm

Taken to fold

Danger zone down deep

Never gained the acceptance

It appear to be

Your own disgusting odour

Presses on deep structure 

A natural resting or holding

In the daylight hours

Do not be uneasy 

You are a rude crown

The time is running out

Whatever the number

Unlawful in your country

Does not guarantee

That any action

Subject to automated processing

Lia Erlich, Year 10

Morris Gray 

Signs

Weakness in predators that 

bite, returning signals to

my dying rest of simplicity

Care for burning, lust. 

Married to a complete slipper. 

Rob my soul.

Quiver, deep bodied in 

excluding either strangle

or touch.

Your red, month.

Felicity Constance, Year 10