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