Modelling Essay Writing

Earlier this year I had the pleasure to write a student resource textbook on The Merchant of Venice for the HSC 'Texts and Human Experiences' Common Module. I wrote this at the invitation of Into English (the book can be found here [digital e-book] and here [print edition]). It was something I did separately to my teaching as I actually taught my 2019 Year 12 class Nineteen Eighty-Four for the Common Module, and this means that I haven't had much of a chance to reflect on the module from a Merchant of Venice standpoint. Anyway, long story short, I've received some questions over the last few months about essay writing for The Merchant of Venice and this prompted me to write a sample paragraph. 

This paragraph can be viewed as supplementary material in support of one of the sample questions in the Into English book. The question itself isn't too important as the piece is predominantly designed to just demonstrate the components of a paragraph addressing human experiences, and can hopefully be used as a model for students to look at.

Here's the paragraph in question:

Sample Paragraph

The Merchant of Venice, through its exploration of the way in which people respond to appearances, reveals particular inconsistencies inherent in the human condition. This is perhaps best exemplified by the Prince of Morocco's observation that "All that glisters is not gold", an aphorism in which the deceptiveness of appearances is rendered concisely on multiple levels. Primarily, this remark is made in response to the false selection of a gold casket in the test for Portia's hand in marriage. It also doubles, however, as a metaphor for one of the play's key themes, wherein society often projects a shiny veneer that covers uglier truths. The antipathy that exists between Antonio and Shylock similarly conveys this context, with Antonio using the simile "like a villain with a smiling cheek" to describe Shylock's offer to loan him money, highlighting the apparent act of kindness as being inherently deceptive and evil. The inability of Christians and Jews within Renaissance-era Europe to see each other's true nature is further reinforced by Shylock's rhetorical identification of Antonio's hypocrisy, exemplified by the line "You called me 'dog' - and for these courtesies I'll lend you thus much money?" From a 21st century context, the audience is positioned to give equal weight to both the Christian and Jewish standpoint, and Shakespeare's depth of understanding becomes clearer from this more enlightened vantage point. In his examination of deceptive appearances, Shakespeare utilises these discussions to bring to the surface a range of inconsistencies in human behaviours and attitudes in order to demonstrate how conflict originates in such duplicity.

Annotated Paragraph

To assist with breaking up the above paragraph into its constituent parts, I have also attached an annotated version below.

Here it is: The Merchant of Venice and Human Experiences

I wanted to put the annotations up here directly but I couldn't figure out how to do it within a blog. I mean, to be honest, it's the end of the year and I'm feeling pretty exhausted so I didn't really invest too much time in trying to figure out how to convey annotations in the blogging format. 

Okay, look, if I'm really honest I didn't invest any time in figuring out how to convey annotations here. It's been a long year.

I would like to add that I wish you all the best over the upcoming holiday break!

What Are You Looking For? (Things That Have Worked For Me #3)

This post is part of a series of things I've picked up over the last 9 years that have turned out to be incredibly helpful. Obviously their mileage will vary depending on your context and I don't expect them to work for everyone, so feel free to either take these on board or put them in your brain-bin - I won't mind either way.

3. Look for the Positives rather than the Negatives

This one sounds so simple on the surface but in practice it can be quite difficult to maintain. Any cursory look at a behaviour monitoring database held by a school will include entries that cover various behavioural events. These can be positive or negative, including things like a student completing a particular lengthy and high quality piece of classwork (positive) to a student becoming argumentative with the teacher (negative). In a lot of cases there will be an imbalance between these events, with a higher quantity of negative events being listed because these are the sort of things we've been trained to 'jump onto' as quickly as possible.

But when we think about it (or even look more closely at the data) there is often a pattern that reveals that the negative events are restricted to a very comparatively-small percentage of the student population. A look at the complete roll of students in any class will make it clear that the vast majority of students are doing the 'right' thing or, at least, not doing the 'wrong' thing (which in most eyes is considered the 'right' thing by default).

Child psychologists (such as Doctor Roberto Parada) will be among the first to tell you that recognising desired behaviour in children has a much bigger impact than acknowledging the kinds of behaviour we don't want. In a classroom, this can be admittedly difficult, but the long term effect of pushing further in this direction cannot be be underestimated and undervalued.

Here's a scenario called 'Picking Your Battles' that makes the thinking a little more explicit:

1. A student with a history of defiance comes into the classroom late while wearing a hat or listening to headphones. He sits down and begins working on the class activity like everyone else in the class, perhaps doing some work for the first time in weeks.
2. The teacher pulls the student up on breaking the school rule about wearing hats, listening to headphones, or coming to class late.
3. The student responds defensively, or aggressively, or both.
4. The student stops working on the class activity.
5. The student continues to break the original rule AND/OR gets detention for arguing. 
6. Any opportunity to build a positive relationship with the student during this lesson is now gone, PLUS no work has been completed.

If the student had gone unchallenged then we would've had a different scenario play out. The undesired behaviours, such as coming late or listening to headphones, could be dealt with afterwards when the student doesn't have an audience.

U.S. Educator Annette Breaux makes a few points that relate to the above scenario:

• If a student is angry, leave them alone and give them space.
• Weigh up the reality of what you're asking them to do - are they going to react favourably?
• If there is a choice of you having them working while breaking a minor rule, or not working at all, then what is more important in the long run? 
• Is it more likely that the student will listen to your instructions about following rules if you show them first that you care foremost about them getting the work done rather than having them accept your authority? 
• Is challenging a disruptive student going to ease the issue?
• Is their education the most important aspect of their being at school? How can we make this clear to them?

I'll add to the above that our syllabus doesn't include behaviour management. I'm not saying that behaviour management isn't a part of our job (that would be insane) but I'm saying getting students to meet syllabus outcomes is the first priority. If you can manage to get students to meet syllabus outcomes then the chances are that they won't have time to be able to break rules too much. Besides, what is a parent going to query more - the teacher disciplining their student or the teacher educating them in line with the syllabus requirements? If we're successfully teaching a student our subject then I'm arguing that that's the better goal.

I know it's not ideal but it's preferable... we don't live in an ideal world and there's a higher chance of teacher burnout when we strive to create an ideal world in our classroom. As Breaux suggests above, a student (and their parent) are more likely to listen and respond reasonably to our management of undesired behaviours if we're actively demonstrating that the student's education comes first (more on that in the next blog) or if we're waiting until after class to discuss the issue (proving that it isn't about humiliating them in front of their peers).

There's another really clever chap called Adam Lefstein who talks a lot about 'face-work', which is the idea of teachers becoming preoccupied with looking a certain way in front of their colleagues. This is nominally because we're worried about having our behaviour management judged. The more we can break the appearance of judging our colleagues, keeping an open door to our classrooms, and being honest about the challenges we face, the more we can start changing the conversation to being about the things that students are doing right in the classroom. Yeah, okay, there's four kids chatting and not focused on their work, but look at the twenty-odd other students who have done everything you asked! Is the visiting teacher seeing that part of the lesson?

The challenge here is to walk into a 'challenging' class you have this week and decide to only acknowledge the 'good' things happening, even with the students who are still exhibiting undesired behaviours. This could be awarding points in a system of some kind, chucking out some lollies, giving award certificates, promising a positive phone call home to their parent... but whatever you do, unless something completely un-ignorable happens, try to avoid even seeing the 'bad' stuff. We've all had enough lessons like that. We've had plenty of lesson where we only saw the things that went wrong, so what's the harm in trying the opposite just once?

Don't approach this as a sentimental or emotional exercise; try to drop any preconceived ideas you already have from your time teaching these same students in the past. Approach the lesson as scientifically as possible, identifying and rewarding desired behaviours only, and watch to see if student completion of work improves.  

Settling the Class (Things That Have Worked for Me #2)

This post is part of a series of things I've picked up over the last 9 years that have turned out to be incredibly helpful. Obviously their mileage will vary depending on your context and I don't expect them to work for everyone, so feel free to either take these on board or put them in your brain-bin - I won't mind either way.

2. Don't Wait for the Class to Settle

If you're nearly 7 foot tall, and look like Conan the Barbarian, then you'll probably have no problem quelling the dissent of the class with a booming voice and a threatening neck-vein the size of a rope. For the rest of us, however, relying on physical intimidation or authoritarianism isn't necessarily going to work. I spend a lot of time telling student-teachers they should play to their strengths and that, if their strength isn't in presenting a strong and authoritative presence, they may need to rely on other strategies to shape a learning environment based on engagement. 

The time spent waiting for a mixed-ability class to become quiet is almost never time well spent. There are likely somewhere between 20 and 30 individual students (all with their own drama going on) and waiting for every single of one of them to simultaneously fall silent and pay attention can be an immense challenge. The probability of different interactions between this many people is so high that you can't predict how settled the class will be each time you see them (think about it - if you have 25 students then how is each individual potentially going to react to any combination of their 24 peers on a particular day? I'm not a Maths teacher but I'm sure the figure for the amount of student-combinations is quite high). 

I've most often fallen into the trap of waiting for the class to be quiet usually just before I'm about to play a film clip of some sort. Waiting for the students to be quiet before I play the clip (while forcing myself not to yell at them in order to make it happen) is almost always futile. This can be the same for a range of other activities, including whole class instruction. 

What surprisingly sometimes works instead is just moving straight into the clip or activity while the students are still unsettled. The activity becomes the thing that settles the students. If I have a task that requires instruction then I'll put the instructions up on the board or hand out the sheets... this will get those who understand (and are willing to work independently) to engage with the work. Then, while this half of the class is getting underway, I'll start moving around and instructing the other students one-on-one. This works because:

• The amount time spent moving around and doing one on one instruction tends to be equal to the amount of time it would get me to settle the whole class at once.
• Even if I do manage to settle the entire class and they become quiet, this doesn't mean that they are all attentive or capable of understanding the instructions. Just because a class is quiet and compliant it doesn't mean that they're listening. Once the activity gets underway, speaking one-on-one guarantees a higher level of engagement across the class as it allows for differentiated instruction. There are students who struggle to follow the more traditional lecturing-style of whole class instruction and moving around to them once their peers have started working gives them an opportunity to listen and interact with you.
• Even if I do decide to try and settle the whole class at once and it somehow takes less time then just putting the activity in front of them, I can usually be fairly certain that my personal stress level will be higher as a result. I want to be in this for the long haul, so it's better overall if I don't break myself trying to get over 20 students to simultaneously be quiet. If I can let go of the idea that my authority needs to be recognised (and let's be honest here, no syllabus includes 'recognition of teacher authority' as an outcome) then I find myself a lot less stressed by the settling section of a routine lesson. If being authoritative works for you then that's fine, but for myself it's not one of my strengths so I've had to develop and adopt the other aforementioned strategies to save my sanity.

Non-verbal cues are also good. This can include the tried-and-true methods of:

• Holding my hand up and waiting for silence. Students should reply by putting their own hands up so other students can see that I want some quiet. Yelling for silence has always felt counterproductive and contradictory to me so I've found modelling silence in this way a bit more logical. 
• The above can be accompanied by quietly counting from 1 to whatever until the class settles. If I have to, I'll resume from whichever number I got to at any point in the lesson and this becomes the amount of time some individuals from the class might owe me.
• Proximity. Standing near the most disruptive students usually has a dampening effect on their off-topic conversations. 
• Walking around and pointing to clear, simple instructions that have been written on the board can be effective too. Many students are disruptive or disengaged simply because they don't know what to do and they aren't able to understand verbal instructions. 
• Write personalised instructions on a note and quietly place it in front of the student. This works especially well for students with Autism Spectrum Disorder. 
• This isn't exactly non-verbal but choice theory can be really effective with students who might be categorised as naturally oppositional. Quietly give them two choices (both choices need to be positive ones, EG. You can do this work, or this work) and then walk away and let them decide without you hovering over them or waiting for a response. The act of waiting for a response can often exacerbate the opposition we're trying to circumvent. 

One more caveat before I finish up. I'm aware that behaviour management is very subjective and can be complex in light of school policies, and I'm also aware that nothing above is particularly revolutionary. My recent experiences teaching English Method to pre-service teachers has had me thinking a lot about articulating my processes and, as a result, I've been thinking of these blogs as living documents to help me sort and solidify pedagogy that I've found helpful. 

Hopefully there's something here that might prove useful to you too. 

Classroom Schematics (Things That Have Worked for Me #1)

Followers of this blog may have noticed that I've slowed down a little in the last few months in terms of sharing resources.

There are a few reasons for this, chief among them is the fact that recent times have been awfully hard for myself and my wife. I look at this blog sometimes and, much like George Harrison and his guitar, my life goes on while it gently weeps. Another reason for the absence is a much more positive one though, being that I've been working on a range of writing projects in various stages of germination. This includes a textbook on Under Milk Wood for Into English, some writing on Aboriginal history, and a few other projects that should hopefully cement themselves in the near future. 

As of last week I just finished supervising my tenth student-teacher. It's a nice round milestone and one that has given me pause for thought. I always find supervision of student-teachers to be a very fulfilling practice as it provides a great open dialogue around pedagogy, and it re-positions my daily focus onto the part of my job that matters most: the actual teaching. The idea of articulating the teaching process becomes more concrete and it always forces me to reconsider the reasons why I do particular things, and observing someone else as they teach across a block of 5-6 weeks has consistently proven to be a valuable learning experience. 

Anyway, thinking about my teaching habits led to the question: what are the main things that I do that have worked well for me?

This post is the first in a short series of five things I've picked up over the last 9 years that have turned out to be incredibly helpful. Obviously their mileage will vary depending on your context and I don't expect them to work for everyone, so feel free to either take these on board or put them in your brain-bin - I won't mind either way.

1. Classroom Schematics

When I started teaching I was working as a day-to-day casual. This meant that I was often teaching outside of my subject area and was a complete unknown to the students. When students don't know who you are, they often jump to the conclusion that you don't know who they are either - and when you're a new teacher or working casually this can very likely be true. 

And if you don't have their names then it's all over. 

They'll pretend to be the wrong student, run away from you when you try to hold them back after class, or completely disengage on the basis that you can't identify who they are without their help. The one chance you have to get their name is when you mark the roll, because most students realise that they'll be marked as truanting if they don't answer truthfully at this point. So you have to use this chance wisely.

Here's what I do. I can't remember who I picked this up from but it's been such a useful thing to do, and I still do it every time I start with a new class. 

1. Draw a map of the room. 
2. As you mark the roll, ask each student to put their hand up so you can see them. Don't move onto the next student until you have sighted each one.
3. Write the names of each student onto your map/schematic of the room.

It doesn't matter how long this takes it's always worth doing. Even if the students are noisy or wandering around or if it takes a full 10 minutes, spending the time doing this will be the best thing you can do with a complete group of strangers because - once you have their names - you have the basics of behaviour management in your hands. Anything can be followed up if you know exactly who each student is.

A positive impact from this is that it also allows you to address each student by their name, which can help build valuable rapport. In my teaching context, Western Sydney, students tend to become significantly less stand-offish once you address them by their name. You're letting them know that you see them.

Galway Man: Stage 5 English

Hello and how are you? It feels like only yesterday that the 2019 school year was just starting and now here we are in Term 4. Before you know it, the last assessment tasks will be done and dusted, reports will be written, and students will start thinking about building forts in the woods and riding their BMXs down to the river (kids still spent their summer holidays doing that, right?)

In the last few weeks of Term 4 I usually find myself needing a few stand-alone lessons. It's important that these lessons don't feel like 'throw-away' content... when students cotton on that you don't attach value to what they're doing then they'll tend not to value it either. The antidote to this can be to work on the skills needed for ongoing success in English.

This lesson below is a Stage 5 activity that I usually use for Year 9 as part of a genre unit focused on creative writing. It can also double, however, as something that can be used to help students develop specialised literacy skills at any point in Stage 5 - for example, the ability to identify genre through recognition of common motifs and generic conventions used, the ability to monitor a text for adjectives and adjectival groups, and utilising comprehension skills to predict the direction a text will go in.

Context

Teaching Stage 5 English in a mixed ability classroom often means working with a broad range of students. Differentiated curriculum can take many forms when we teach and, perhaps most often, it tends to come into the classroom in a flexible rapid-response form via the teacher adapting to the fluctuating levels of ability exhibited by individual students. 

One of my favourite forms of differentiation is the the lesson planning process adapted from the Gagne model and used by GERRIC. This involves creating material that targets three separate tiers of ability within the classroom - mainstream material for the core of the class, adapted material for those who may be struggling to meet outcomes, and extension material for those who may be considered gifted. It's important to acknowledge here that 'extension' doesn't mean extra work, it should instead take the place of work undertaken by the main core of the class.

Another thing to acknowledge is that it's near impossible to differentiate every single lesson of work in this way as it essentially means doing three times the work. Instead, it's worth aiming to just do this every now and again so that you can assess what level your students are working at and evaluate how they cope with material that more specifically targets their ability level.

The Lesson: Galway Man

The crux of this lesson is a short horror story called Galway Man. This piece has been designed as something that should be suitable for a Year 9 class exhibiting a range of different abilities and behaviours.

What this means is - it's relatively short to allow for engagement of students who struggle with attention in the classroom, and it's written in a way to allow accessibility for students who may have reading levels as low as those typically encountered in Stage 3. It's important to push student reading levels by exposing them to material that will challenge them but this is something that should be done purposefully and not all the time. If we're looking to build things like vocabulary, sustained understanding via extensive comprehension of cohesion, or an ability to parse sophisticated sentence structures then, of course, we should be challenging students with texts beyond their usual reading scope. However, if we want to work on introducing students to other skills like understanding symbolism and imagery, or the ability to explain genre, then we need simply-constructed texts that can allow for these things to be the focus.

Resource: Galway Man - short story.

The Lesson: Pre-Reading

Before reading the text it might be worth doing a quick check of student understanding regarding the phenomenon of bog bodies as this is the main idea behind the 'horror' of the text. These bodies are human remains that have been accidentally preserved for thousands of years after being submerged in swampy peat-heavy marshland. Bog bodies tend to occur in Western Europe and date from the Bronze Age.

Resource: Pre-Reading - PowerPoint Presentation.

The Lesson: Post-Reading

Students can undertake one of the activity sheets after reading the short story. There are two ways to approach determining who does which sheet:

1. Hand out the three different levels of sheets according to which students you think fit into the 'core', 'adjusted', and 'extension' groupings of ability. If any students question why they can't have a different sheet then, by all means, let them have a go at the sheet they prefer. If they find it too easy then you've both learned something, if they find it too hard then at least they challenged themselves.
2. Let students pick the sheet they want to do - I usually place the sheets on a table underneath the whiteboard with arrows pointing down to the three piles labelling them as 'Regular', 'Hard', and 'Hardest'. It can very educational for the teacher to see which students pick which one. 

The sheets roughly correspond to the same pattern of learning broken into 4-5 sections.

• Prediction: After students have been taken through the pre-reading PPT, ask them to think about what a short story called Galway Man might be about. Students then compare their prediction to how the story turned out.
• Adjectives: Monitor the text to locate and isolate adjectives/adjectival groups.
• Character or Flashback: Students actively consider the process of characterisation. This looks different on each sheet - ranging from a visualisation activity to an opportunity for students to draw explicit connections between a character and his purpose in the text. Some sheets may add or replace this with an examination of the story's use of a flashback as a structural narrative device.
• Genre: Students identify the ways in which the story fits into a specific genre, developing increased awareness of the significance of code and convention.

Resource: Adjusted Activity sheet
Resource: Core Activity sheet
Resource: Extension Activity sheet

Craft of Writing: Stream-of-Consciousness, Reported Speech, and Anadiplosis

Here is one more installment of some Craft of Writing mini-lessons before the HSC examinations are upon us. These are mini-lessons designed to support students in practising writing craft all year-round. Below are three writing techniques or elements that can be brought into close-up to make the craft of writing more explicit for students. 

Stream of Consciousness 

What is it: In psychology this refers to a person's thoughts and reactions and the way they can be perceived as a continuous flow. In literature it refers to an author's attempt to represent this by an uninterrupted stretch of the character thinking, uninterrupted by dialogue or a traditional narrative.

Example:

• "Should he cast by type or against type? Uglies in parts that call for beauty, a gorgeous hunk for Caliban? Put them into roles that will force them to explore their hidden depths, or are those depths better left unexplored? Challenge the audience by showing them well-known characters in surprising and possibly disagreeable guises?" - Hag-Seed by Margaret Atwood.

Why use it:

• Developed by a group of early 20th century authors to put the reader inside a character's head and demonstrate greater depth of characterisation.
• Can convey to the reader a greater sense of a character's motivation in regards to the narrative.
• Authors can use it to explore a character's past through glimpses of flashbacks.
  

Quick Activity: Pick a supporting character from Hag-Seed or The Tempestand write a paragraph (using stream of consciousness) that explores their feelings mid-way through the narrative. 

Reported Speech

 

What is it: There are two kinds of speaking in literature. Direct speech refers to speech that takes place in quotation marks, such as "Hey, what's up?" The other kind, reported speech, refers to a character paraphrasing or reporting what a character has generally said.

Examples:

• "She's insisting on greenery, she's making him eat kale" - Felix indirectly conveys Miranda's dialogue in Hag-Seed by Margaret Atwood
• "When the doctors came they said she had died of heart disease." - From the short story 'The Story of an Hour' by Kate Chopin.
  

Why use it:

• Allows for the narrator to retain 'control' of the story; what the audience 'hears' is only what the narrator tells them. This can also reinforce an author's attempt to create an unreliable narrator.
• The author can use reported speech to blend dialogue and action together more seamlessly.
• Creates a greater distance between the reader and the events of the text, and can help to condense time into smaller amounts of text.
  

Quick Activity: Pick a segment of The Tempest or Hag-Seed that uses direct dialogue and rewrite it as a short paragraph that shows both direct speech and reported speech.  

Anadiplosis

What is it: A rhetorical form of repetition in which the last word or clause of a paragraph/sentence is repeated near the beginning of the next section of text. The word 'anadiplosis' comes from the Greek word for 'doubling / folding up'.

Examples:

• "Fear leads to anger. Anger leads to hate. Hates leads to suffering" - Yoda in The Phantom Menace, directed by George Lucas.
• "It begins, I think, with that act of recognition. Recognition that it was we who did the dispossessing" - 'Redfern' speech by Paul Keating (1992)
• "Don't blame me, blame me fucking hormones" - Hag-Seed by Margaret Atwood
  

Why use it:

• To emphasise the significance of a particular word or idea.
• The changing placement of the key word or clause in question helps to shift the way a reader thinks of it. 
• Can show a chain of events / cause and effect when used multiple times in close proximity.
• Allows writers to sometimes indicate multiple meanings associated with one word.
• Can make a suggestion or an order more effective when delivered with authority.

Quick Activity: Write a short persuasive speech that includes an example of anadiplosis. This speech should be about why the voting age should or shouldn't be lowered to 16. 

You can find all these together on one handy sheet below:

• Writology Issue 8

Happy writing!

Texts and Human Experiences: The Merchant of Venice

Not too long ago I had the opportunity to present some material relating to The Merchant of Venice within the context of the HSC Texts and Human Experiences Common Module. These resources are a small part of the textbook The Merchant of Venice, which I wrote for Into English at the beginning of this year.

With kind permission from the publisher, I have uploaded these presentation materials here for anyone potentially considering The Merchant of Venice as their Common Module text when teaching Year 12 English next term. This was initially presented in 2019 at the ETA NSW Conference. The version below is an updated/adjusted version that was presented to Aurora College for their HSC Seminar Day in 2022.

• Texts and Human Experiences: The Merchant of Venice - PowerPoint Presentation
• The Merchant of Venice - Resources
  

The textbook can be purchased digitally or in material form from the following places:

• Into English 
• Australian Curriculum Supplies 

The play itself is, as expected, an incredibly rich and layered text and is actually perfectly crafted as expression of human experiences.

Advanced English: Infographics

My Year 12 Advanced English class is currently quite deep into 'revision mode'. Naturally, the students want to prepare as best they can for the upcoming HSC exams and, naturally, I want them to do this by writing as many practice responses to essay questions as possible. We're currently meeting about halfway on this and, in the spirit of preparation, I hoped to provide a useful overview that summarised some of the key concerns of the modules and the prescribed texts. 

Below you will find some graphic organisers for Common Module - Texts and Human Experiences: Nineteen Eighty-Four and Module A - Textual Conversations: The Tempest & Hag-Seed. As they're hand-drawn they aren't as flash as I'd like them to be but I think (as far as first drafts go) that they'll do the job. Apologies for the font on the Module A one - I was experimenting and I guess I won't be using that particular font again!

Download full size Nineteen Eighty-Four
Download full size The Tempest & Hag-Seed

I'm thinking I'll get the students to have a go at looking at their Craft of Writing texts in this fashion as part of their revision too.

Craft of Writing: Ellipsis, Anthimeria, and Antithesis

 

Time for another installment of some Craft of Writing mini-lessons. As mentioned in more detail previously on this blog, these are mini-lessons designed to support students in practising writing craft all year-round. Below are three writing techniques or elements that can be brought into close-up to make the craft of writing more explicit for students.

Ellipsis

What is it: Anything that has been 'cut out' or omitted from a text. This is often explicitly denoted by three dots '...' but can also be implicitly used without the punctuation marks, such as when a key detail is deliberately left unsaid or taken out of the text.

Examples:

• "Did he... peacefully?" - The Dubliners, James Joyce
• "Honestly, Vernon Gregory, if your father was here..." - Vernon God Little, DBC Pierre

Why use it: 

• Omits unnecessary words in everyday language, EG. "I asked for a Pepsi, [I did] not [ask for] Coke."
• Indicates in dialogue when someone loses a train of thought, or gets cut off, or deliberately leaves something unsaid. Can build tension in this way, or reinforce characterisation.
• Used by academics and journalists when quoting, with [...] to signify when a quote has been trimmed down for usefulness.
• Conveys 'jumps' in thinking during stream-of-consciousness.
• In a broader sense, ellipsis is used to remove parts of a narrative that are either unnecessary (the Harry Potter series takes place over 7 years but Rowling only includes the parts of Harry's life that are relevant to the main narrative) or intended to be ambiguous (certain details related to Laura Wishart's life and death are left unsaid in the novel Jasper Jones).

Quick Activity: Write an exchange, using ellipsis, between a character from The Tempestand a character from Hag-Seed.

Anthimeria

What is it: Taking a word and using it in a way contrary to its normal grammar function. This could be using a noun as a verb, or a verb or noun as an adjective. Anthimeria can often start as a form of slang before becoming a permanent part of the language. It demonstrates the way the English language is constantly changing.

Examples:

• "Way to red plague go!" - Hag-Seed, Margaret Atwood
• "Teach me how to dougie" - the song 'Teach Me How to Dougie' by Cali Swag District; about a dance named after the '80s rapper Doug E. Fresh.

Why use it: 

• Cultural changes can lead to words being used in new ways, such as a proper noun (Orwell) being used as an adjective (Orwellian).
• Can be used to build a distinct shared lexicon between a set of characters when they talk to each other.
• A lot of neologisms (new words) are often examples of anthimeria - 'texting', 'hashtagging', etc. 
• Used in pop culture to grab attention or emphasise new ideas. 

Quick Activity: Invent two anthimeria and then use them in a sentence each. One must be a noun turned into a verb, the other a noun turned into an adjective.

Antithesis

What is it: An opposition between two things. This can include opposition between two statements or ideas. These pairs are presented in a similar fashion, or in close proximity, and to qualify as antithesis there must be parallel use of grammatical structure or equal weight given to each of the ideas.

Examples:

• "She is ten times more gentle than her father (is ten times) crabbed" - The Tempest, William Shakespeare
• "That's one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind" - Neil Armstrong, moon-landing (1969)
• "We will extend a hand if you are unwilling to unclench your fist" - Inaugural speech from Barack Obama (2009)
• On a conceptual scale, Ariel and Caliban are presented as the antithesis of one another in The Tempest - both are servants to Prospero but one is linked to the air, the other the earth.

Why use it:

• To show contrast in order to emphasise one side of the contrast.
• Separating an idea into two halves in this manner can demonstrate its duality and/or complexity.
• Separating an idea into two opposing halves can indicate a sense of tension between the halves.
• Builds a sense of difference between ideas when presented on a larger scale. 

Quick Activity: Write a 4-8 line piece of poetry about the view from a window. Make sure that it demonstrates antithesis.  

You can find these all together on a handy sheet below:

• Writology Issue 7

Happy writing!

The Secret River: A Study Guide

The Extension English 1 Elective Literary Homelands offers both teacher and student the chance to parse some quite accessible texts in a sophisticate fashion. The choice of texts for Extension English, perhaps more so than those prescribed for Advanced English, are representative of the fine-toothed wire upon which our culture sits. There's a sharpness, an edginess, a robust and stinging conversation that echoes through some of the texts that have been made available for study in this part of our syllabus.

One such text is Andrew Bovell's dramatic adaptation of Kate Grenville's The Secret River - a play that courted some degree of controversy upon its release and will no doubt provide fertile ground for discussion in the Extension English classes that grapple with its polemical and forthright narrative of colonial confrontation.

What follows is a study guide for the play that seeks to identify key quotes or examples from the text that allow for analysis in relation to Literary Homelands. Each example is paired with both the kernels of analysis (the second column) and an evaluative/critical breakdown of how this links to the elective (the third column). Approximately two out of every three examples are accompanied by some prompts outlined in bold, which students can use to demonstrate their understanding of how the text can be synthesised into an understanding of the elective. 

Study Guide: The Secret River (click to download)

A few key overarching ideas to note that will help students crystalise the play's placement within the elective:

• The impact of our postcolonial perspective on the way the colonial narrative of settler-era Australia has been represented in The Secret River. Think also of the colonial structures that exist in the way the Thornhills do things, express themselves, and project expectations onto the Dharug.
• The parallels, commonalities, and disparities between the Thornhill/Hawkesbury community and the Dharug people. This can be framed from the standpoint of cross-cultural transition and cultural exchange. 
• The way that notions of homeland shift and change from character to character, particularly Sal and Will Thornhill, over the course of the play. 
• The freed convicts as migrants. Keep in mind, however, that the migrants in this case exist within multiple hierarchies. When compared with the Dharug, the migrants are constructing a dominant power structure rather than settling into a marginalised space. In contrast with this though, the convicts have come from their own marginalised space as an underclass in British society. 
• Consider the above in relation to which voices are privileged marginalised or silence.
•  The role that beliefs play in the shaping of identity and claims to 'homeland'.
• The role of language and dialect as representational elements utilised by the author.
• The nature of transgression in relation to values expressed and reinforced by each cultural group within the text.

Happy reading!

Romeo and Juliet: A New Translation

 

About a year ago I put up a new 'translation' of Shakespeare's Macbeth that could be used in a mixed ability Stage 5 classroom. The provision of this as a single PDF allowed for the printing of booklets that could be read by the students without scanning back and forth to compare the modern English with Shakespeare's English (as is the case with the No Fear Shakespeare editions). Below you will find a similarly translated version of Romeo & Juliet that can also be used in a mixed ability Stage 5 classroom.

My reasons for doing this are as follows:

• I've gotten a lot of use out of the No Fear editions over the years but I wanted something that Western Sydney kids could engage in an easier way. Some of the language in the No Fear editions can feel 'clunky', or overly slavish to the original text - sometimes to the point of losing the essence of what Shakespeare was actually trying to say. For example, references to ancient Greek or Roman deities just don't make the same impact on teenagers these days. Why not replace such a reference with something else that gets the same point across?
• I've found that junior students can sometimes get confused by the reading pathway of the No Fear editions as they present the two versions of the text side-by-side. This is great for examining specific extracts but I think it can slow down the process of just enjoying Shakespeare's characters and plotting, especially if these are students who are already resistant to reading a 400 year old play.
• By working through the text and translating it myself I found I got a much clearer idea of what was happening in the play. This kind of close reading was incredibly valuable to me as a teacher. 

Undertaking this process also helped me form new opinions on things I hadn't really considered. I mean, it probably doesn't help that I'd never read the entire play from start to finish as an adult, but anyway... here are some of my favourite realisations!

• Romeo isn't in love. He just wants to have sex. By modern standards, the relationship he has with Juliet is actually kind of toxic. It's hard to read it so closely and not get the impression that Shakespeare is knowingly exloring the emotional detriment of a codependent relationship.
• Nurse is an incredibly irritating and self-contradicting character, and possibly one of my favourite Shakespearean comedy creations.
• It's actually a really rude text - plenty of people have written about this, but I never quite realised how rude it was until I got to the bit about medlar fruits and open arses.
• I take back what I said about Nurse, I think Peter might be my favourite comedic character in this play. The bit where he tries to talk to the musicians who have arrived for Juliet's wedding is still funny after all these centuries.
• Friar Lawrence is the most important character in the whole text. He encapsulates the play's theme of duality and reflects the Elizabethan concept of the Great Chain of Being through his discussion of the spectrum that exists between sin and virtue.
• The random introduction of the character 'Petruchio' into the Tybalt-Mercutio-Romeo fight scene led me down a Wikipedia rabbit hole about ghost characters. These are essentially characters that writers put in early drafts of texts and then later, while removing said character, accidentally remain in one or two references. Another ghost character, Valentine, is also mentioned earlier in the play - intended as Mercutio's brother but mostly removed when Shakespeare wrote later drafts.

Anyway, enough waffle, here is the play:

• Romeo & Juliet translated

(Disclaimer: apologies for any typos in the PDF above - I didn't get a chance to do a second draft as I was keen to give the text a try with my Year 9 students this upcoming term) 

Extension English 1: Literary Worlds

Hi students (and teachers!), here you will find materials associated with the Extension English 1 Common Module Literary Worlds, as presented at the Central West HSC Enrichment Seminars at Denison College, in associated with Charles Sturt University.

This is the PPT on Literary Worlds.
This is the booklet of material that goes with the PPT.

Practice makes perfect!

Textual Conversations: The Tempest & Hag-Seed

Hi students (and teachers!), here you will find materials associated with the Module B: Textual Conversations Tempest / Hag-Seed option. 

 

This was initially presented in 2019 at the Central West HSC Enrichment Seminars at Denison College, in association with Charles Sturt University. The versions linked here have been UPDATED to reflect what was presented for the Aurora College HSC Study Seminars in 2022.

This is the PPT on The Tempest / Hag-Seed.
This is the booklet of material that goes with the PPT.
And here are some additional resources on these two texts:

• An annotated version of The Tempest.
• Annotations from Hag-Seed.

Happy textual conversing!

Craft of Writing Resources

Hi students (and teachers!), here you will find materials associated with Module C: Craft of Writing, as presented at the Central West HSC Enrichment Seminars at Denison College, in association with Charles Sturt University.

This is the PPT on The Craft of Writing.
This is the booklet of material that goes with the PPT. 

And here are some additional resources on The Craft of Writing:

• An overview of Standard English Craft of Writing texts
• An overview of Advanced English Craft of Writing texts

And mini-lessons on writing craft:

• Asyndeton
• Parentheses & Tricolon
• Hyperbaton
• Personification & Semicolon
• Modality, Pathetic Fallacy, & Iambic Pentameter
• Brachyology, Shared Lines, & Congery
• Irony & Symbolism

Get writing!

On Grief

Here's a poem I wrote today after staying in the Glasshouse Mountains for the last two nights.

On Grief

Gecko-clicks drag me away
from my novel, a tropical Chinese water drip
pressed flat against glass eardrums
and punctuating the warm winter night
without tone.

Without compass, I search for
structure to the glottal soundtrack of the evening;
syncopated against my pulse,
defiant and small and godforsaken,
and sincere.

Aural memory echoes soft
on the first birthday of my erstwhile sleeping daughter.
The pulsing ultrasound roar
a third percussive layer out of time.
Once even, now erratic.

Her silent face magenta-still.
Beyond my grasp.
The gecko-clicks stop as I move towards them, and
their absence becomes
another burden.

New Assessment Approaches in Stage 6 English

The 2019 ETA Conference emphasis the progression of 'Passion to Practice', which covers a range of conceptual pedagogies for their implementation in the English classroom.This particular session was borne of consideration pertaining to Outcome 9 in the NSW Senior English syllabus and the new HSC specifications rolled out by NESA in the past 18 months.

Extract: With the arrival of the new HSC specifications for Stage 6, the time has never been better for examining new approaches to essay writing that take students away from the stress and anxiety of formal exam settings. In this presentation we will cover how peer editing, conferencing, annotation, and Assessment as Learning can be used to build both confidence and valuable writing skills in senior English students. Teachers will also be given access to a variety of materials that can be adapted to their own classrooms and a number of Year 11 and 12 modules. 

Here is the presentation, which covers multimodal assessment, peer editing, conferencing, lexical density testing, feedback (or analytical) criteria, and dynamic assessment.

• New Assessment Approaches

(I'll add here, as it's as good a place as any, that none of this is really 'new' - it's just new in the sense that these approaches provide alternatives to commonplace formalised assessment strategies that require stripping back in light of the new HSC specifications).

Here are the resources that go with the presentation:

• Resources

Thanks!

Craft of Writing: Irony and Symbolism

Hello! Our cohorts should be passingly familiar with both irony and symbolism by the time they reach Year 12 but it never hurts to revisit these keystone elements of writing, especially as students are preparing themselves to engage with the Craft of Writing module in the HSC. Below are some mini-lessons designed to support students in their consideration of writing craft. Students are shown how to use a technique, alongside examples, and then put it into practice. 

Irony

What is it: Irony occurs when words are used to indicate something opposite to their actual meaning. There are three types of irony, all of which reflect a difference between appearance and reality. These are:

1. Verbal irony - which can take the form of sarcasm, exaggeration, contradictory phrases, or deliberate understatement.
2. Situational irony - when an audience's expectation of something in a text is not fulfilled. Otherwise known as 'subversion'.
3. Dramatic irony - when the audience is aware of something that some of the characters are not.

Examples:

• Verbal Irony: "Some animals are more equal than others" - Animal Farm by George Orwell
• Situational Irony: A woman receives a letter about her husband's death and struggles with the news. When her husband then miraculously shows up, she dies of a heart attack from the idea of not being free of him (subverting the audience's expectation that she is upset that he has died). - The Story of an Hour by Kate Chopin
• Dramatic Irony: The audience knows right from the outset that Iago is manipulating Othello in regards to Desdemona's handkerchief, however, Othello is driven into a jealous rage at the ideas that Iago suggests as he is unaware of the truth. - Othello by William Shakespeare.

Why use it:

• Irony brings an additional level of meaning to a situation, and calls attention to ideas through a contrast between what is said and reality.
• Readers are forced to use their imagination to consider the full implications and underlying meanings when irony takes place.
• Verbal irony can work effectively to create humour when used in conjunction with kairos (the right time and place).
• Situational irony helps writers subvert reader expectations for more effective and original storytelling. It can add extra dimension and impact to the emotional connection between the reader and the text. 
• Dramatic irony if often associated with the tragedy genre as it emphasises the fatal impact of a character misunderstanding something. Dramatic irony also assists an author in building reader engagement as it creates a tension between the reader (who knows what is happening) and their need for a character to realise what the reader already knows.

Quick Activity #1: Write a paragraph using characters from either The Tempest or Hag-Seed that demonstrates one of the three forms of irony.

Quick Activity #2: Write an explanation of which irony you used in your previous exercise and how it was demonstrated.

Quick Activity #3: Did you write about Hag-Seed or The Tempest last time? This time write a paragraph using the characters from the other, and use a form of irony that you didn't use last time.

Quick Activity #4: Write an explanation of which irony you used in your previous exercise and how it was demonstrated.  

Symbolism

What is it: The use of symbols to represent ideas or qualities. Symbolism is closely related to the human ability to think abstractly, which is what led to the creation of language. The moment humans could think of things that didn't exist in the physical world was the moment that they needed to come up with symbols to represent them. Written language is symbolism at its most basic; a series of symbols representing different sounds.

Examples:

• "Rosebud," the final word of the ruthless entrepreneur Charles Foster Kane on his deathbed,is revealed to the bed of his childhood sled. The sled symbolises the happier childhood that he lost forever at age 8. - The film Citizen Kane directed by Orson Welles. 
• The Golden Country, dreamt of by Winston repeatedly, symbolises the pleasant world he can never live in. - Nineteen Eighty-Four by George Orwell.

Why use it:

• Adds depth to a text and its ideas, and demonstrates the abstract themes that 'power' the text.
• Can allow authors to 'say' things without having to explicitly say them, which in turn allows the audience to bring their own interpretation to the text.
• Symbolism can help the reader identify the sort of text or story they are reading, due to the associations and connotations that come with more well-known symbols (such as the generic convention of a full moon in a horror text).  

Quick Activity: Consider the masque scene in The Tempest, and the discussion in Chapter 28 of Hag-Seed where different ways of staging it are discussed. In what way (different to those discussed) would you stage it? Justify how your version would symbolise one or two themes from the text.  

 

Here are these two writing elements on the one sheet for ease of use:

• Writology Issue 5

Happy writing!

Craft of Writing: Brachyology, Shared Lines, and Congery

Hello! Here are three more Craft of Writing mini-lessons designed to support students in practising writing craft all year-round. As mentioned in previous blogs on other writing elements - here, here, here, here, and here - this approach involves covering a writing technique in a ten minute segment at the start of each lesson. Students are shown how to use a technique, alongside examples, and then put it into practice.

Brachyology / Brachylogia

What is it: A form of condensed writing or speech where a longer form of expression, be it a noun group or a figure of speech, is reduced to a much shorter version.

Examples:

• "They'll relate to it well. The Ministers. Guaranteed." - Felix in Hag-Seed by Margaret Atwood
• Black: "How many would you say you read?" / White: "I've no idea" / Black: "Ball park" - The Sunset Limited by Cormac McCarthy.
  

Why use it: 

• Allows the speaker or writer to express things concisely; could denote that the speaker is working in a time-sensitive scenario.
• Representative of characters that are laconic (laid-back / chill) or characters with a high-constructed way of speaking.
• Also links to youth culture and the forging of new lexicons representative of new ideas, new ways of thinking.
  

Quick Activity: Write an internal dialogue of a character thinking through how they will perform the role of Caliban. Ensure that you include an example of brachyology to convey the actor's state of mind as they get into character.

Shared Lines

What is it: A generic convention of Shakespearean drama is to format the lines of dialogue in a way that directs the actors in how to perform them in quick succession. This is reliant on iambic pentameter, with the arrangements of shorter lines of dialogue making up the full amount of iambs.

Example:

PROSPERO: I will tell no tales.

SEBASTIAN:                            The devil speaks in him!

PROSPERO:                                                                      No.

(From The Tempest by William Shakespeare)

Why use it:

• Even though the characters are interacting and conversing with shorter lines of dialogue, the use of shared lines allows for the playwright to maintain the rhythm and poetry of blank verse.
• The formatting of shared lines assists actors in performing against and off each other's dialogue, IE. Knowing when to speak, and how quickly to speak.
• Can establish a comical interchange, or convey a confused tone due to many characters speaking almost at once.

Quick Activity: In a group of 2 or 3, create a sequence of dialogue about imprisonment. Used shared lines and then perform it.

Congery

What is it: A rhetorical device in which multiple words are used to convey the same idea or meaning. Congery is related to the technique 'tautology', in which two words that mean the same thing are unnecessarily used together.

Examples: (all from Hag-Seed by Margaret Atwood)

• "How he has fallen. How deflated. How reduced."
• "Ejected! Tumbled out! Discarded!"
• "When you walk in here, you shed your daily self. You become a clean slate. Then you draw on a new face."

Why use it:

• Can be used to emphasise a point by revisiting the same idea in multiple ways.
• Helps to effectively build characterisation through the establishment of a specific kind of voice or vocal inflection used in everyday conversation.
• Features as a persuasive device; the repetition of a point through the use of wide vocabulary is designed to appeal to a wide audience - IE. If one articulation of the idea doesn't make its impact on one particular person, then another version might.

Quick Activity: Write a short argument, using congery, that expresses your feelings (positive or negative) about a food.

Here are these three writing elements all in the one sheet for ease of use:

• Writology Issue 4

Happy writing!

Craft of Writing: Modality, Pathetic Fallacy, and Iambic Pentameter

Hello! Here are another three Craft of Writing mini-lessons designed to support students in practising writing craft all year-round. As mentioned in previous blogs on other writing elements - here, here, here, and here - this approach involves covering a writing technique in a ten minute segment at the start of each lesson. Students are shown how to use a technique, alongside examples, and then put it into practice. 

Modality

What is it: A choice of words indicating how definite the writer/speaker is about something. High modality language is certain and definite, whereas low modality makes the author sound unsure about their subject.

Examples:

• "'We need Duncan to make the call.' I guess that's what he says. There's much noise" - Lullaby, Chuck Palahniuk
• "Historians have always written their work in narrative form" - The Killing of History, Keith Windschuttle

Why use it:

• High modality language is used to persuade the audience to agree with a point of view, or for purposes of characterisation.
• Low modality language can lull the reader into a false sense of security, or to create a kind of character.

Quick Activity:

1. Use high or low modality to write 2-3 sentences describing a fictional politician.
2. Swap with the person next to you. Rewrite their sequence in the opposite modality.
   

Pathetic Fallacy

What is it: A kind of figurative device that highlights the relationship between a character or author's emotional state with the world around them. Most commonly represented through the weather acting as a symbol for a character's feelings. The term 'pathetic' is used here because it relates to pathos (using emotions to persuade).

Examples:

• "Some say the Earth was feverous and did shake" - an Old Man in William Shakespeare's Macbeth describes the strange weather that occurred during King Duncan's death.
• "The white cold virgin snow upon my heart / abates the ardour of my liver" - Ferdinand in The Tempest, William Shakespeare.

Why use it:

• In Shakespeare terms, nature and the weather were seen as reflections of God's feelings or a way for God to communicate with the world. As the King was seen as God's representative on Earth, this meant that the weather was closely tied to the King's wellbeing. 
• By externalising emotions in this way (or using these kinds of comparisons), writers are able to deepen the reader's understanding of abstract feelings.
• Offers a unique perspective on familiar feelings. 

Quick Activity: In regards to Shakespeare's The Tempest, use pathetic fallacy to describe the emotional state of Caliban, Miranda or Prospero.

Iambic Pentameter

What is it: A form of writing presented as 'blank verse' (unrhymed poetry). Each line is made up of five (the pentameter) double-syllable units (the iambs). More technically, the iambs are made up of one short syllable followed by a longer 'stressed' syllable. The stresses direct how each line is spoken by the performer.

Examples:

• "Dull thin, I say so: he, that Caliban / Whom now I keep in service. Thou best know'st" - Prospero in The Tempest, William Shakespeare
• "Faith, sir, you need not fear. When we were boys, / Who would believe that there were mountaineers" - Gonzalo in The Tempest, William Shakespeare
• "These tags I'll pop, and boast in rhyming verse / That what I wear puts swagger in my gait; / Though twenty shillings have I in my purse, / My self-esteem and manhood both inflate" - Shakespearean version of Thrift Shop by Macklemore, found on that most magical of places: the Internet.

Why use it:

• The Elizabethans used this precise and consciously rhythmic form of writing in their poetry to represent the grand and highly educated nature of the nobility.
• Allows the writer to shape the pace and intonation of the actor or performer reading their verse.
• Believed to give dialogue a natural and poetic sense of rhythm due to the way the iambs mirror the beat of the human heart.  

Quick Activity: Go back to a previous paragraph you have written for one of these activities and convert it into four lines of iambic pentameter.  

Here are these three writing elements all in the one sheet for ease of use:

• Writology Issue 3

Happy writing!

(Picture sourced from East Riding Theatre Twitter feed. Not sure who drew it!)