Year 8 English Update

Currently in Year 8 English at Staughton College we are running a second Text Response Essay centred on the topic of ‘Growing Up’ in Australia. The focus of the unit is to have students critically read and respond to various texts which all detail the ‘Growing Up’ stories of their authors. Students alongside their teachers are going through stories such as Tourism, written by Benjamin Law and Stand Up, an episode from the ABC’s Redfern Now Series. These stories allow students to explore themes such as belonging, sacrifice and societal expectations - as the characters present the realities of Growing Up in Australia. The purpose of the second running of the unit is to strengthen and consolidate the skills learnt and practised in the initial text response unit run this year. 

            Students are making strong connections between the themes presented in the texts studied and the numerous influences impacting their lives as they mature into young adults. As the students begin to analyse the texts being presented to them - they are being guided through lessons which centre on how the text uses various text structures and features to convey complex meaning to the reader. The Year 8s have examined how ‘camping’ is used as a symbol by Benjamin Law to explore the ideas of belonging and cultural adoption. Students are also exploring how characters in texts handle the complexities which come with growing up within changing family structures and relationships. 

            Upon having read and analysed the texts students are expected to write numerous views and values statements which will later be formulated into full body paragraphs to be housed within their essays. This deliberate instruction around writing sees students defining what the author's message about a particular theme is before defending this identified position with evidence directly from the text. This repeated practice of writing with clear structure and parameters is done in order to further develop the writing skills of our Year 8 Students. 

            Writing is important beyond the bearing it has to the successful completion of classroom assessment. Despite what may be perceived, writing is a biologically secondary process - meaning it does not come naturally unlike the ability to speak and listen. The skill requires constant practice and so the motivation of students to write is of paramount importance. The learning that occurs as a student begins to write more complex sentences and text types transcends the skill of writing itself; students become more able to articulately convey meaning, elaborate on complex ideas and express a multitude of thoughts and feelings. The persistent practice of writing creates stronger thinkers, better orators and naturally more equipped writers. 

            But what do the students themselves have to say about the unit and the skills contained within it? 

Ryan from 8A said that the incident whereby an emu nearly has its head ripped off whilst stuck in a car window stood out to him the most. Continuing to say that he liked the way the author presented the numerous family trips to second rate theme parks in Queensland in a comical fashion. Ryan plans to write around the ideas of familial love, family and marriage in his upcoming essay. 

Aryam, also from 8A, is looking forward to this next text response essay and hopes to have ‘better time management this time around’. She stated that drafting for her was the most difficult stage, due to the fact that she has to formulate her ideas about the text into full sentences on the page. One strategy she identified to further her learning and writing ability for this unit, is to work more closely with the planner in order to best structure her ideas. Aryam identified extending her vocabulary and using more complex and compound sentences as a goal for her learning in this unit. 

Finally, some evidence of what the students are doing! Here is a short sample of the writing that Cecilia from 8A is producing: 

In the short story Tourism, Benjamin Law investigates the topic of culture. Law explores the complexity of being Chinese whilst trying to fit into the Australian community while out at theme parks. “We’d make our Australian accents more pronounced and end our sentences with ‘eh’ … our trousers were pulled further downwards, away from our navels. We refused to wear bum bags, and spoke English very loudly, with proper grammar and syntax.” Law shows here the effort that he and his siblings put into seeming less ‘typically’ Asian while at the theme parks. When he talks about speaking loudly while pronouncing his sentences correctly, he is detailing the lengths he and his family went to, in order to ‘fit in’ more as an ‘Australian’.