9A English

Students were required to read, discuss and analyse a number of stories/poems from the anthology ‘Things a Map Won’t Show You’. Contemporary Australian writers from various cultural backgrounds and interests were asked to write specifically for the collection. Their works explored common themes of culture, identity, the individual’s place in the world and ways of being Australian. Importantly, the text studied addressed the priorities of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander culture and literature and literature from the Asia Pacific region.

This class demonstrated excellent essay writing skills and a strong ability to compare and contrast the themes of the text. Here are some example paragraphs taken from students’ essays.

Akual Akok

One of the stories included in this collection is ‘Cloud Busting’. This is a short story written by Tara June Winch that mentions the struggle indigenous Australians have been through, including the removal of children from their homes and family. This tragic event is known as the Stolen Generation. “All my brothers and sisters had been put into missionaries”, says Alice as she tells her daughter a story. This tells us the character Alice had been separated from her siblings, only leaving her with memories. As Winch continues on with the story, she introduces a new character by the name of Samuel. He was a salesman wishing to sell pots and pans. “Mum told him then that she couldn’t afford it” says Alice’s daughter. They couldn’t afford the pots because one, the pots were really expensive and two, because Alice was poor. “Mum worked extra hours…taking home the ironing, hoping to get a little more extra”. Living in poverty makes it difficult to purchase simple items, especially when they’re expensive. “Three years and seven months it took her”, this shows the determination when things are tough. Both separation and poverty are hardships explored in ‘Cloud Busting’ and furthermore ‘Things a Map Won’t Show You’.

Tyler Harvey

‘The Exotic Rissole’ written by Tanveer Ahmed explores the idea of multiple cultures in a community. The author does this by pairing a Bangladeshi child, Tammy, and an Australian child, Daryl. Tammy starts to realise the difference of cultures with the food they eat. Tammy’s family prepares meals with traditional Bangladeshi spices and herbs to make curry dishes. “…my house always smelt like curry…”. An idea also linked to this is racism. Ahmed makes references to suggest that no matter where you live many individuals will be subject to racism. The author touches on this lightly when Tammy is describing his suburb. “Some people thought we lived there because the flooding and poverty resembled Bangladesh.” The family’s beliefs and values were different as well. Tammy’s family believed in strong academic performance and looking nice, whereas, Daryl’s family were less concerned. Tammy request for a ‘rat’s tail’ shocked his family “…believing it would be my first step towards ending up in juvenile justice.” Tammy felt embarrassed being smart and so in order to fit in he intentionally lowered his grades. The author used these themes to demonstrate no matter where you live there will be different traditions operating concurrently within our society.