Text and Representation: W. H. Auden - Revision

Teaching HSC Advanced English last year was an absolute joy and whilst this was helped in no small part by a fantastic class of intelligent, funny, and hard-working students, it was also due to the great sequence of modules that my Head Teacher Kira Bryant had put together. As we enter the final year that such a progression of texts is possible (next year will see the debut of the new prescribed texts and modules for the HSC) I've been using the opportunity to share some modelled analysis that my students used in their study and revision for the Big Show. 

Here's the sequence:

• Area of Study: Discovery - Go Back to Where You Came From
• Module A: Intertextual Perspectives - Metropolis and Nineteen Eighty-Four
• Module B: Critical Study of a Text - Hamlet
• Module C: Text and Representation (Representing People and Politics) - The poetry of W. H. Auden

I loved teaching Auden as part of the People and Politics elective. Far better people than me have attempted to define Auden and failed, and his poetry is so diverse in both content and delivery that I think nearly all Advanced English students should find at least one piece of interest in the prescribed suite from the HSC. Auden's mastery of a variety of genres in conjunction with using poetry to explore the political concerns of his time is perhaps unparalleled, and this is something that makes him perfect for our students in exploring the way public concerns interact with the private sphere.   

Here's the analysis sheet: Auden.

The table in the above document lists a collection of pertinent quotes from each of the prescribed W. H. Auden poems for Module C:

• O What is the Sound which so Thrills the Ear?
• Epitaph on a Tyrant
• Spain
• The Unknown Citizen
• September 1, 1939
• The Shield of Achilles
• In Memory of W. B. Yeats

The quotes are paired up with some loosely paragraphed modelled analysis next to each one. On reflection I'd probably rewrite some of these paragraphs a little more formally but I was recall being a bit under the pump last year as my students hurtled towards the HSC exams. Nonetheless, the idea is to show students how to connect their ideas and quotes up so I feel like it still gets the job done.