ENGLISH

YEAR 12 ENGLISH COMPARATIVE PERFORMANCE

On Tuesday 1 August, the Complete Works Theatre Company came to our school and performed select scenes from the two texts from the Comparative Text Response unit: Fred D’Aguiar’s The Longest Memory and Wesley Enoch and Deborah Mailman’s The 7 Stages of Grieving. While I was not expecting it to be a waste of time by any means, nothing could have prepared me for how spectacular of an experience it would be.

One a play and the other a novella, the performers needed to choose specific scenes from each text to compare and contrast, which would provide a comprehensive view of both the plots, as well as some of the most prominent symbols and messages from the source material. This very act in and of itself imitated our role as students with this task, which required us to find both similarities and differences between these factors - as well as many others such as the form, tone and structure - and discuss them in an insightful and nuanced fashion.

While certainly achievable with the texts alone, this performance enhanced our understanding of how characters feel in certain scenes, our interpretation of the manner in which certain lines were delivered, and our perceptions of various literary features. Not to mention, it was simply an entertaining way to spend a double period and was a magnificent way to connect with the play and the novella in a new medium that engaged and awed us.

Our thanks to the Complete Works Theatre Company, as well as the Year 12 English teachers for organising such a fantastic event.

Atahan Ozcagli

Year 12 Student

WRITER OF THE MONTH - JULY WINNERS

Well done to the students who entered Writer of the Month in July. In particular, we celebrate our hugely talented Year 11 Literature class, with three superb entries! 

HUGE congratulations to: Adi Bornstein 11B, Katy Do 11D, Roshan Jivanjee 11G, Suen Kee 11G, Kerry Lyons 10J, Nakita Kumar 10H, Emma Rhode 10M, Solomon Batkilin 8C, Samuel Hicks 7B and Alexa Rhode 7B.  

These students have each won a $50 (Senior) and $30 (Junior) voucher from Benn’s Books and gained 50 points for their house. You can read their wonderful pieces on the ‘WOTM’ Google site HERE.

Entries for the August competition need to be shared with your English or Literature teacher no later than 3:30pm, Friday 25 August.

Keep up the fantastic writing, McKinnon students!

Dr David Dick & Ms Ashley Matthews

Writer Of The Month Coordinators