Year 11 Subject Selection – English

Course Description The study of English contributes to the development of literate individuals capable of critical and creative thinking. This study also develops students’ ability to create and analyse texts, moving from interpretation to reflection and critical analysis. Through engagement with texts from the contemporary world and from the past, and using texts from Australia and from other cultures, students studying English become confident, articulate and critically aware communicators and further develop a sense of themselves, their world and their place within it.

Why Study this? Work Tasks Assessment tasks Reading a number of texts Discussion Questions Analysis activities Creative Writing Watching films Analysing scenes and elements from the novel / film Comparing and contrasting novels and films Class discussions / presentations In English the assessment tasks are designed to allow students to respond critically and creatively to texts. By doing so students examine why people respond to texts the way they do, and what the author was thinking whilst writing the text. Students will explore, interpret and reflect on different ideas and values represented in literary texts and use evidence from the texts to support a response. Students will also write creatively using the text as a basis for writing. Students analyse a persuasive language and deliver an oral presentation arguing a point of view. The different forms of assessment include:: An analytical essay an imaginative piece of writing responding to a text/s studied an oral presentation A comparison of two texts. Analysis of persuasive language and argument.

Subject pathway…. The skills students gain through analysis, planning, responding, proof-reading are skills needed for higher education, small or large business and life in the world today. The ability to explore, interpret and reflect on different ideas and values represented in literature also allows students to apply these skills in their every day lives. The study of English allows students to express themselves in a number of ways – analysis, creative and orally – in order to interpret and present their own views on the novels and films studied in class.

Extra activities/costs? English students are given the opportunity to spend time with an author in residence. This gives them a unique insight into the world of an author, their motivations and processes for writing. A still from ‘The Weir’, a play that Literature students went to see in 2015.

More information…. Staff contacts Mrs Paterson: spaterson@nagle.vic.edu.au Mrs Greenland: ggreenland@nagle.vic.edu.au Mr O’Sullivan: josullivan@nagle.vic.edu.au