English News
Year 9 Reflection
Year 9 English at Nossal was a very unique experience. I think what pops out to me the most about Year 9 English is just the sheer amount of creative freedom you have with the main assignments. It's practically like your own choose-your-own-adventure sort of thing. You get to choose the mode and medium of each of your responses. You get to choose the specific texts you want to do. You get to come up with your own prompt to respond to. There's just... somuch creative free rein that it was honestly a little overwhelming at first. For this subject, you have to take a lot of responsibility for your own learning. There's no hand-holding or anything. The teachers equip you with the essential skills you'll need to complete the task, and off you go. Yeah, it's difficult. You don't get a lot of time to prepare for / work on each task. But at the same time, I think it's really beneficial to gain these creative and time management skills now rather than later.
If you were to ask me what my favourite task was, I'd probably say genre text. For genre, I did an oral persuasive on the anime 'Death Note'. The prompt I came up with was "The death penalty should be abolished". I found it fascinating to explore the topic and learn about wrongfully executed convicts, how modern-day executions are still not done humanely, how the death penalty doesn't actually deter criminals from crime, and how effective criminal rehabilitation actually is. Although I didn't get to hyper-analyse my favourite series like I wanted to, it was still a lot of fun researching about the topic.
Stepping away from assignments, I found the discussions our class had about Merchant of Venice extremely interesting and honestly a lot of fun. We debated about the morality of each character. We questioned certain aspects of the play (like that whole 'if you fail to choose the right casket you can't marry anyone else ever again' thing. Like, what are you gonna do about it if the suitor doesn't keep that promise? Walk up to his wedding and tell him no? How are you even going to know whether he ends up marrying someone in the first place?). We poked fun at the characters, discussed themes, looked into relationships-- It was just all so very engaging. Honestly, I didn't expect Merchant of Venice to be all that interesting, but here we are.
Year 9 English was unlike anything I've ever experienced before, and the things I learnt from it will most likely be very valuable to my future years in English.
Stephanie Chhua
Year 9
Creative Writing - 2020 KYD School Writing Prize
We are thrilled to announce that two students from our school namely Neha De Alwis and Ruth Jarra had great success in the 2020 "Kill Your Darlings" School Writing Prize Competition.
Neha De Alwis was announced the overall winner of 2020 KYD School Writing Prize with her story titled “Termites.” Neha received a $500 cash prize, editorial mentorship with KYD staff, and publication in KYD.
“Neha’s short story Termites is an inventive and engaging depiction of obsessive-compulsive disorder that not only provides a compelling description of the illness’s physical manifestation but engages with the important issue of cultural stigma and under-diagnosis of mental health conditions in young people of colour.” (Quote from KYD-website https://tinyurl.com/yxqfnnna
Here is the link to Neha’s story “Termites.”
https://www.killyourdarlings.com.au/article/termites/
Ruth Jarra’s story “The price of inaction” was very highly commended
Kamla Reddy
Director Information Resource Centre