Patterns of Study in HSC English - Reflections and Ideas

If there's one part of the English syllabus that attracts my attention more than others, it's the Prescriptions List. I'm endlessly fascinated by the way in which this list interacts with the Literary Canon, intensely curious about how these texts are selected by NESA, and highly interested in what combinations of texts teachers select for their classes. It's the what and the why that I want to know. 

When I invariably ask someone what text they've chosen, and why was it chosen, I never get quite the same response. I think this is great and I'd love to see a big enough sample size to identify specific trends. Of course, this is complicated somewhat by the changeover between Prescribed Text lists, which occurs every 5 years or so.

The last Prescribed Text list released by NESA applied to 2015-2020. This essentially meant that a HSC Pattern of Study could be run for 5 consecutive times before a new text list would get released. The syllabus document from this time (released in 2014) indicated that the Area of Study module (which has now been replaced by the Common Module) would be reviewed in 2018 for updating in 2019. I'm not sure what the reasoning for this was if the rest of the syllabus was scheduled to run until 2020... seems a little needlessly complicated, would love to hear an explanation if anyone knows!

Anyway, I'm not sure what happened, but the Prescriptions List was reviewed prematurely in 2017 and the changeover of the entire syllabus was brought forward to 2019. This is our current syllabus, which was initially scheduled to run from 2019-2023. The unforeseen circumstances of the Covid pandemic, however, means that it's likely to be extended to 2024. I say 'likely' as, even though there's been some communication that this is what's happening, our experience of the 2015-2020 syllabus indicates that we can't plan that far ahead.

We can reflect, however, on what we've taught and what's worked. And perhaps also what hasn't worked, and what we'd do if we had another run at it.

The current Advanced English syllabus for Year 12 specifies that we teach:

• FOUR texts from the main prescriptions list.
• ONE of which must be PROSE fiction (in other words, a novel).
• ONE of which must be SHAKESPEARE.
• And ONE of which must be either POETRY or DRAMA (this would be in addition to Shakespearean drama).
• The FOURTH text can be an additional text from any of the above options OR one of the non-fiction or film/media options.
• TWO texts from the Craft of Writing prescriptions list.
• This can be any two texts from the list, and you're free to teach more than two if you like, though be aware that this particular part of the syllabus remains contentious among teachers due to inconsistent assessment at the HSC Examination level.
• This year's exam (2022), for example, did not require students to call upon any knowledge of their prescribed Craft of Writing texts.
• It's also been embedded in the syllabus that students learn about Imaginative, Persuasive, or Discursive writing forms - but the prescribed list does not delineate which texts are which. The Imaginative texts are the fictional ones, obviously, but the non-fictional texts often combine Persuasive and Discursive elements. It's probably fair to say, though, that there aren't really any strictly Persuasive-only texts included in the list. I mean, let's be honest here, these terms are inventions of the syllabus and are being retroactively applied to texts that didn't set out to be 'Discursive' or 'Persuasive', so the whole thing is problematic unless we're told how we should categorise each text according to the module descriptor. It feels like there's some awareness that Craft of Writing has become unstable due to contradictory interpretations by teachers, and this is perhaps best evidenced by the fact that the 2022 HSC exam question ignored the 'Persuasive' option and instead specified that students write only in the Imaginative or Discursive genre. 
• Let's not even mention the inclusion of poetry in Craft of Writing and how this fits in.
  

The current Standard English syllabus for Year 12 specifies:

• THREE texts from the main prescriptions list.
• ONE of which must be PROSE fiction (a novel).
• ONE of which must be POETRY or DRAMA.
• ONE of which must be FILM/MEDIA or NON-FICTION.
• TWO texts from the Craft of Writing prescriptions list.
• The same rules (and issues) apply as seen in Advanced English.
  

The above specifications allow teachers to design their 'Pattern of Study' for Year 12 in accordance with what will be assessed in the HSC Examination. There are some additional mandated elements in both the Advanced and Standard syllabuses too:

• The range of text types must be 'inclusive' of prose fiction, drama, poetry, nonfiction, film, media, and digital texts. This seems to reinforce the specific choice of texts from the Prescribed List though, in the case of Advanced English in particular, you can choose a pattern of study that does NOT include Film/Media or Non-Fiction, so it seems like this additional caveat is asking for some supplementary material to be included at some point that allows for these text types to be included.
• The texts studied must also include Australian authors, specifically Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait Islander authors. Given that there are no Torres Strait Islander authors represented in any of the Prescribed Texts, this could potentially be seen as confirmation that these authors might be represented in the form of supplementary texts rather than Prescribed ones. I'm not sure how many Advanced English teachers would spend any significant time looking at supplementary texts though.
• The texts studied should also be representative of a range of cultural, social, and gender perspectives. I would interpret this as meaning that, among other things, there should be a mix of male and female authors represented in your pattern of study. As indicated by the dot point above, this is wholly interpretative and I doubt that all teachers approach this in the same way. Incidentally, there is only one non-binary author represented in the entirety of the NSW Prescriptions List (Kae Tempest, who has a performance included as one of the Advanced English Craft of Writing options).

Reflecting on Patterns of Study

I've had the opportunity to teach the Advanced English HSC year three times within this current syllabus. My pattern of choice for two of these times was:

1. The Common Module: Nineteen Eighty-Four by George Orwell (Prose).
2. Module A: The Tempest by William Shakespeare and Hag-Seed by Margaret Atwood (Shakespeare).
   
3. Module B: Under Milk Wood by Dylan Thomas (this covers the Poetry/Drama requirement rather neatly as it's sort of both. It's also technically a Media text as it originated as a radio play [the only text of its sort in the Prescriptions List] and can be played to students in this form). 
4. Module C: I tend to focus on 'Love and Honour and Pity and Pride and Compassion and Sacrifice' by Nam Le (an imaginative text) and 'Eight Days in a Corset' by Siri Hustvedt (one of the purest examples of discursive writing in the list). I also introduce some others if there's time so students have an opportunity to look at a variety of texts and independently study one that works better for them - these are 'How to Marry Your Daughters' by Helen Garner, 'That Crafty Feeling' by Zadie Smith, and 'Eulogy for Gough Whitlam' by Noel Pearson.
   

For Standard English, which I've taught less, my pattern of choice at the moment is:

1. The Common Module: Billy Elliot directed by Stephen Daldry (Film/Media/Non-Fiction requirement).
2. Module A: Inside My Mother by Ali Cobby Eckermann (Poetry / Drama requirement).
3. Module B: The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time by Mark Haddon (Prose requirement).
   
4. Module C: 'The Pedestrian' by Ray Bradbury and the 'Funeral Service of the Unknown Soldier' by Paul Keating.
   

Other Patterns

I'm not completely attached to any particular pattern of study as I actually like most of the Prescribed Texts. So, from a personal perspective, I can see the merit in most combinations of texts. That said, I would tend to design a pattern of study based on whatever my school and/or classroom context requires. If I was someone else who did NOT enjoy the vast majority of texts in the Prescriptions list, I would also factor in my enjoyment and/or appreciation of certain texts.

(DISCLAIMER: I'll also mention here that there are a lot of really cool patterns of study that just aren't possible due to the frustration of both a mandated Shakespeare and poetry/drama requirement. If Shakespeare could at least count as Drama then this would solve a lot of problems. More on this in a bit.)

Here are some examples of patterns of study and potential contextual reasons (I'll leave out the Craft of Writing as it doesn't impact on the rest of the pattern).

Advanced English

Example A.

1. The Common Module: Nineteen Eighty-Four by George Orwell (Prose)
   
2. Module A: Richard III by William Shakespeare and Looking for Richard directed by Al Pacino (Shakespeare).
3. Module B: Selected Poems by T.S. Eliot (Poetry/Drama).
   

Reasoning: This is a 'traditional' approach that sheers pretty close to the Literary Canon. For students and teachers who aren't afraid of the Classics (capitalisation intended), this combination would also be potentially useful if you're strapped for resources and ideas - they've all been taught so much and so widely that it should be relatively easy to find collegial support and resources both online and printed.

Example B.

1. The Common Module: All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr (Prose).
2. Module A: The Tempest by William Shakespeare and Hag-Seed by Margaret Atwood (Shakespeare).
   
3. Module B: A Doll's House by Henrik Ibsen (Poetry/Drama)
   

Reasoning: This is a 'heavy readers' combination that allows for contemporary connections to be made to big concepts with lots of discussion points. For students who have the time or inclination to read (All the Light... is a very large text to ask busy students to read, so I would keep this in mind and watch how students approach texts in the lead-up to Year 12).  

Example C.

1. The Common Module: The Crucible by Arthur Miller (Poetry / Drama).
2. Module A: The Tempest by William Shakespeare and Hag-Seed by Margaret Atwood (Shakespeare AND Prose).
3. Module B: Good Night and Good Luck directed by George Clooney (Film option) 

Reasoning: It's really difficult to make some combinations work and, invariably, this will mean one of the two Module A Shakespeare options need to be used just to meet requirements. This pattern of study could yield some fantastically deep thinking if you have a cohort of students who are interested in or already studying Modern History - the combination of The Crucible and Good Night and Good Luck makes use of a shared contextual understanding of McCarthyism and the Cold War. 

Some problems... I don't want to get too bogged down in patterns of study that don't work but I'll outline one example just so it's clear why some things can't happen, and this is purely down to the mandatory Shakespeare/Drama issue:

EG. If you wanted to do an Art/Classical/European approach that makes use of The Hare with the Amber Eyes by Edmund de Waal (Module B) then you'd have to sacrifice a lot of other texts that would potentially support its study - if there was a Module A combination that uses a Poetry/Drama text with a Prose text then you could at least do The Merchant of Venice for the Common Module. 

Standard English

Example A.

1. The Common Module: Go Back to Where You Came From directed by Ivan O'Mahoney OR Waste Land directed by Lucy Walker (Media).
2. Module A: Shafana and Aunt Sarrinah by Alana Valentine (Poetry/Drama).
   
3. Module B: Feed by M.T. Anderson (Prose). 

Reasoning: If you're looking to challenge the thinking of your class without relying too much on the cohort having developed literacy skills, then this pattern could work well. There's lots to talk about in connection to our modern global context across all of these texts.

Example B.

1. The Common Module: Past the Shallows by Favel Parrett (Prose).
2. Module A: The Castle directed by Rob Sitch (Film) OR One Night the Moon (Media).
3. Module B: Coast Road by Robert Gray OR Oodgeroo Noonuccal (Drama/Poetry).

Reasoning: This pattern allows for a broad look at Australian culture and could work well for regional or suburban classroom contexts where student cohorts have a strong preference for this sort of thing. You could potential present this pattern to students alongside some others so they feel like they have some agency and input into their HSC. 

Example C.

1. The Common Module: Rainbow's End by Jane Harrison (Poetry/Drama).
2. Module A: Reindeer in My Saami Heart directed by Janet Merewether OR Unpolished Gem by Alice Pung (Media/Non-Fiction).
3. Module B: The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time by Mark Haddon (Prose).
   

Reasoning: This approach has a strong focus on identity and advocacy, with students able to examine the challenges surrounding issues such as the Indigenous experience, multiculturalism, and disability. There are strong links in particular that could be made between Rainbow's End and Reindeer... as both deal with indigenous peoples and explore a common global context. 

Some problems... as above for Advanced, I don't want to dwell on the negative, but the biggest problem across the Prescriptions list for Standard English is the lack of Prose fiction options in Modules A and B.

EG. In order to make use of non-Prose options in the Common Module, teachers only have four options across the other two modules to choose from. This will most likely end up being The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time, which (oddly) is the most accessible text of the four options. The other straightforward option is Feed by M.T. Anderson, but it will depend on the level of interest and patience your class has for quirky science fiction as to whether this would work. The other two options are Henry Lawson's short stories (again, there may be engagement issues with some classrooms) and Small Island by Andrea Levy (a staggeringly long novel of more than 500 pages). 

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If you're a teacher reading this, or a student who's just finished looking at each of the modules, let me know below what pattern of study worked or didn't work for you. Have you come across an unusual pattern that works? I'm very interested in knowing!

Advanced Module A: Textual Conversations

Unlike other electives and modules in the Year 12 syllabus, the Prescribed Texts in Textual Conversations aren't organised in order of text type. This is due to the intertextual theme of the module, which can take a variety of forms and combines text types in different ways. A breakdown of these is as follows:

• 4 novels, 3 plays (2 of which are Shakespeare), 3 films, and 4 suites of poetry.
• 9 male composers, 5 female.
  
• 6 English composers, 3 American, 1 French, 1 Moroccan, 1 New Zealander, and 1 Canadian.
• 1 written in the 16th century, 2 in the 17th century, 1 in the 1920s, 1 in the 1940s, 1 in the 1960s, 2 in the 1990s, 2 in the 2000s, 2 in the 2010s.
• Pairs are as follows: 1 play and film, 1 book and film, 1 book and book, 1 poetry and play, 1 poetry and film, 1 poetry and poetry, 1 play and book.
  

Richard III by William Shakespeare and Looking for Richard, directed by Al Pacino
What are they: Richard III chronicles the rise of King Richard III as he schemes and manipulates his way to the crown by having just about everyone in his family murdered. As a character piece, it's a fascinating look into the supposed mind of one of the England's most reviled monarchs, and a meditation on the means employed by despotic rulers to shape events around them. The 1990s documentary Looking for Richard works on two levels (three, if you also look it as an ego-project for Al Pacino in his personal quest for greatness); as a performance of the play by American actors and also as a 'behind-the-scenes' look at what makes the play and Shakespeare so enduringly significant.

Scope for Study: Arguably the most commonly studied of Shakespeare's 'History' plays, Richard III works best as a look into what makes a psychopathic would-be tyrant like Richard tick. If students can look past the cast of more than sixty characters, they'll find enough to talk about in regard to Richard's Machiavellian pursuit of power and the concept of a man entertained by the game of evil perhaps moreso than the ends it achieves. Al Pacino's documentary works as a living, breathing study guide to go alongside the play - with Pacino himself unpacking key scenes, character motivations, and the changing context of the play when performed in the 20th century and for overseas audiences such as those in America. 

NESA Annotations: Annotations for these paired texts can be found in the 2009-14 Annotations document from when they were included as part of the Exploring Connections elective. Note is made of Pacino 'celebrating hybridity of form' and the 'complex processes involved in the negotiation between Shakespearean text and performance', as well as the three 'narrative strands' of Looking for Richard - the story of Richard III, the story of the play's historical context, and story of Pacino adapting Richard III.

Verdict: The villainous Richard is a fascinating Shakespearean creation but, as I alluded to earlier, there are a lot of characters in this play so I'm personally a little unsure of how the complicated medieval politics would translate with a class (keen to hear how teachers approach this one as I haven't taught it before). By contrast, Looking for Richard is a relatively straightforward text, even if it does come across as a glorified DVD extra rather than as a film in its own right. Pacino is kind of pretentious throughout and I don't think he achieves what he sets out to do (IE. Make Shakespeare accessible for modern audiences in a new way) - the film poster featured here is a prime example of this, just look at that goofy picture of Pacino standing like Bart Simpson in front of a larger picture of himself. Makes me cringe. 

Mrs Dalloway by Virgina Woolf and The Hours, directed by Stephen Daldry
What are they: The titular protagonist of Mrs Dalloway plans for a party in which the who's who of post-WWI London will be in attendance. She goes about her day, contemplating her past and the possibilities and regrets of a missed romance with her close friend Peter Walsh, and crosses paths briefly with Septimus Warren Smith, a man experiencing 'shell shock' as a result of his experiences in the war. The film The Hours revisits the subtexts of Woolf's novel in multiple, interconnected ways - exploring Woolf's own mental illness during the germination of her groundbreaking novel, the experience of a dissatisfied housewife in the 1950s as she contemplates suicide while reading the novel, and the contemporary relationship between a bisexual woman and her friend - a poet dying from AIDS.

Scope for Study: There's a lot to unpack in Mrs Dalloway. If you'll excuse the anachronism, it's essentially the literary equivalent of a single-shot film. Readers are dropped into the protagonist's life without context and left to figure things out as the narrative slowly moves forward. Students will need to examine the way that the novel is filtered to us through a series of exploratory stream-of-consciousness devices that blur the line between limited and omniscient third person perspectives, and the way that Woolf fugues between direct and indirect speech in order to 'blow up' the miniscule details of each moment. In comparing the novel to The Hours, students will be able to examine the wider context of Woolf's life in creating Mrs Dalloway and the way that its legacy is depicted on the screen across three different time periods (1923, 1951, 2001). The multiple time periods also allow for students to examine changing attitudes to suicide, mental health, and sexuality - all of which feature at different levels in Mrs Dalloway and The Hours.

NESA Annotations: Notes can be found in the 2015-20 Annotations, where these texts are both discussed within the framework of Advanced Module A: Comparative Study of Texts (from the last syllabus). The Hours is highlighted as an exploration of a single day in the lives of each of its characters, thus drawing parallels with Woolf's novel. Further similarities are identified through the way in which both texts examine the lives of women in varying social and cultural contexts, the way in which the past informs the present lives of these characters, and Daldry's postmodernist use of structure to add to Woolf's themes and ideas.

Verdict: I can see the merit of studying Mrs Dalloway but I struggle to imagine it 'landing' with some students - indeed, it would take a keen Advanced class to rise to the particular challenge offered by this pair of texts. Woolf's writing style is... well, it's something. There are so many semicolons, and the added dimension of the text as an exploration of post-fin de siecle Europe only serves to illustrate just how truly dense a work it is. The Hours, by contrast, is a fine film with a lot to say, and the way it handles its multiple plots - while non-linear - is relatively accessible for most viewers. There is definitely a textual conversation between the film and Woolf's book that would provide a lot of material for discussion, but I think it would need passion and hard work in order to do it justice. I could provide the latter, but I'm not confident in delivering the former.

The Stranger by Albert Camus and The Meursault Investigation by Kamel Daoud
What are they: In The Stranger, Meursault, an average French-Algerian colonial of little note, recounts the immediate events leading up to his decision to shoot an Arab dead on a beach. He tells his story dispassionately, seeming not to care that his mother has just died or that his girlfriend Marie is in love with him, and then also recounts the resultant court case in which he is judged more for his oddly nondescript nature than for the fact that he has murdered someone. Many years later, in The Meursault Investigation, the reader is given a view of the same events through the eyes of Harun, the brother of the murdered Arab. Harun recounts the events of his life after the untimely death of Musa (unnamed in Camus' novel) to an unseen listener, recounting the impact of this senseless act of violence upon his mother and how this in turn shaped his own life during Algeria's tumultuous decolonisation period. Harun's life echoes that of Meursault's in a multitude of ironic and deliberate ways.

Scope for Study: Daoud's text works on multiple levels by coming at Camus' famous postmodernist narrative in seemingly contradictory ways - as both an 'in-universe' sequel about the brother of Meursault's victim, and as a metatextual deconstruction of The Stranger's inherent colonialism. There is a wealth of material in The Meursault Investigation that can be spun into a whole range of discussions in relation to Module A's descriptor. Angles include: a comparison of the protagonists within both texts and their relationships with their respective mothers, Daoud's use of a second person point of view and how this disrupts notions of the novel as an easily defined commentary on The Stranger, and Harun as a metonym for the decolonised Algeria. My favourite approach, however, would perhaps be the idea of viewing Harun's narrative as a postmodern erasure of Camus' profundity - a deserved intellectual bathos delivered by the subaltern. 

NESA Annotations: As one of the newer pairings in the Prescribed Texts, notes for The Stranger and The Meursault Investigation can be found in in the 2019-2023 Annotations document. Surprisingly, these annotations focus predominantly on the intellectual weight of The Stranger, with only one of the last five dot points of analysis even mentioning The Meursault Investigation (and, even then, the 'suggested opportunities' are fairly general and non-specific).  

Verdict: I got a lot out of reading this pair of novels over the course of just four days. The way Daoud's sequel envelopes and enfolds The Stranger is a breathtaking tour-de-force - and that's no mean feat when we consider the influence and significance of Camus' novel. I think teaching this as a Textual Conversations study would certainly be challenging but, if the class was up to the challenge and open to the contextual grounding that would be necessary, it would no doubt be a rewarding experience for both the students and the teacher.

A Selection of His Poetry by John Donne and W;t by Margaret Edson
John Donne poetry

• The Sunne Rising
• The Apparition
• A Valediction: forbidding mourning
• This is my playes last scene
• At the round earths imagin'd corners
• If poysonous mineralls
• Death be not proud
• Hymne to God my God, in my sicknesse

What are they: John Donne, a contemporary of Shakespeare, wrote sonnets and other forms of poetry in the metaphysical mode and has been widely recognised as one of the key Baroque poets, who were known for an increased examination of the abstract. The poetry prescribed here explores love, death, and man's relationship with his maker when faced with these concepts. Margaret Edson's W;t is a one act play in which a dying literature professor named Vivian reflects on her life's devotion to Donne's poetry and the legacy of this single-mindedness as she approaches a painful death without human consolation. 

Scope for Study: Donne's poetry is highly metaphorical but also relatively accessible if students are walked through it carefully. The religious context of the poet will need some unpacking in order to reveal the depths of his various 'conversations' with God and the reader, and students will also be able to draw parallels to modern ideas of love and death in their own culture. Edson's play goes some way towards unpacking some of the selected pieces, specifically 'Death be Not Proud' and 'If Poysonous Mineralls', and adds further depth to the themes therein. In engaging with W;t, however, students will be able to look at larger questions relating to the meaning of life and the value we ascribe to the arts and their purpose. 

NESA Annotations: Annotations can be found in the 2009-2014 document, when W;t and Donne's poetry were part of the Advanced English Comparative Study elective Exploring Connections. Emphasis is placed on the way that both texts explore "challenging issues without providing definitive answers", specifically in relation to the nature of death. Mention is also made of the binary opposition between the emotional and the intellectual and how each text explores this opposition.

Verdict: I love Donne's poetry and think there's a lot of material within each poem that can be connected to the personal context of the student. I think an engaging lesson could be spent in particular on letting students lead discussion on 'The Apparition' in connection to notions of gender. Margaret Edson's play is a highly valuable flipside to Donne's conversation as critical analysis can reveal certain dichotomies at play - Edson and her protagonist both provide a feminine point of view and, unlike Donne, Vivien has rejected the pursuit of love altogether. There are also several other rich parallels that bear examination, such as Vivien's relationship with Donne vs. Donne's relationship with God. 

The Complete Poems by John Keats and Bright Star, directed by Jane Campion
John Keats poetry

• La Belle Dame sans Merci
• To Autumn
• Bright star! would that I were steadfast as thou art
• Ode to a Nightingale
• Ode on a Grecian Urn
• When I have fears that I may cease to be
• The Eve of St Agnes, XXIII

What are they: Keats, one of the key English poets of the early 19th century, embodied the intense emotional pathos of the Romantic movement and its obsessions. 'The Eve of St Agnes' is the epic of the selected suite of poems - longer than all the other poems put together, it tells a long-form narrative of secret lovers via a prism of Scottish/English folklore. Other poems reflect Keats' intensity in regard to love ('La Belle Dame sans Merci', 'Bright Star'), nature ('To Autumn') and death ('When I have fears that I may cease to be', 'Ode to a Nightingale'). The film Bright Star depicts the life of Keats during the writing of these poems, his creative struggles and love for Fanny Brawne, and his tragically untimely death.

Scope for Study: Students would perhaps benefit from starting with the film first rather than the poetry. Watching Bright Star would provide a strong contextual framework for Keats' poetry, as well as a 'way in' for many of the prescribed poems. Jane Campion's script and direction do a fine job of drawing out a 'thesis' from the work of Keats, synthesising key themes and presenting them in a more easily accessible and visual manner. Students might consider that poetry in the early 19th century existed as part of an aural culture, that there wasn't an assumption that people would automatically understand Keats' poetry, and the precarious balance between love and distraction that Keats drew upon as inspiration for his work. Each of these ideas exist as key components of Campion's film and will support the ability of students to engage with the suite of poetry in a variety of ways.

NESA Annotations: There are notes on Bright Star in the 2015-2020 Annotations document from when it was included as part of the Module B Texts and Ways of Thinking Elective for Extension English 1. Keats' poetry is also technically featured as the annotations outline the role of specific poems in forming the core of the film, the way in which a contemporary text such as Bright Star can 'embrace' the Romantic period, and the congruence between the film's visual metaphors and Keats' use of poetic techniques.

Verdict: Teaching Keats or any of the Romantic poets successfully would be highly dependent on the teacher's level of interest, however, that said, I think Bright Star provides an effective foundation for the 'textual conversation' angle of Module A. Students could look at the ways in which the prescribed poetry has been reflected in the film. I'm not privy to the design process behind this part of the curriculum but, on watching Bright Star, I wouldn't be surprised if the curation of the prescribed suite was backward-engineered from the film. One caveat I will mention here though is that Bright Star is a quiet and gentle piece of cinema, and I'd bear this in mind when choosing your pattern of study for your Advanced English class as some students may struggle with its pace.

Ariel by Sylvia Plath and Birthday Letters by Ted Hughes
Sylvia Plath poetry

• Daddy
• Nick and the Candlestick
• A Birthday Present
• Lady Lazarus
• Fever 103
• The Arrival of the Bee Box

Ted Hughes poetry

• Fulbright Scholars
• The Shot
• A Picture of Otto
• Fever
• Red
• The Bee God

What are they: Plath's suite of poetry, published posthumously in 1965, is replete with biting anger and obsessive motifs - a series of folding perspectives encapsulating Holocaust and WWII allusions, events in the years preceding Plath's suicide, and the frustration felt by the poet in regard to her husband's unfaithfulness and a feeling of gender-based restriction. More than 30 years later, in 1998, Plath's one-time husband Ted Hughes released his own collection of poetry shortly before his death from cancer. The Hughes suite included here echoes and refracts the events and ideas alluded to in Plath's, offering a more direct view of the marriage, albeit from a subjective perspective.  

Scope for Study: Where do I start? The relationship between Plath and Hughes has been the subject of much controversy over the years and, within the context of the #MeToo movement, it continues to provoke a range of responses - the volatile and vitriolic, the cold and cautious, the invested and engaged. Both sets of poems are worthy of study in the most objective sense - shaped by robust, sharp, highly crafted, and/or superbly incisive language. Students will need to be careful when approaching the context and paratext that surrounds these interlinked bodies of work; careful that this element doesn't unduly weigh against their understanding of the texts from a technical standpoint. That said, a balance needs to be struck in regard to the contextual elements of the poetry - the writing doesn't exist in a vacuum. 

NESA Annotations: Surprisingly, unfortunately, there are no annotations on either Plath or Hughes in any of the last three annotation documents.

Verdict: Is the poetry meant to be read in the order given by the syllabus, or in the order presented by the books? Does it even matter? I would venture that they should be read in the order prescribed... Hughes' poetry in particular has been arranged above to follow a logical order that helps to construct a useful narrative that will assist students with framing their understanding of the relationship between the two poets. Teachers looking to teach this pair of texts might need to have an extra awareness of the wellbeing of their individual students first... I would be concerned that some students might be triggered or pulled off-course by the dark subject matter and the ongoing criticism of the Plath/Hughes relationship. The teacher would need to have sufficient experience. I'd tread lightly... to be honest, as much as I'm personally drawn to the poetry, I would probably just avoid teaching it altogether.

The Tempest by William Shakespeare and Hag-Seed by Margaret Atwood
What are they: The Tempest is one of Shakespeare's last plays and remains an enigmatic work that confounds the usual classification of his work into 'tragedy' or 'comedy' genres, being as it combines elements of both in its tale of exile, magic, revenge, love, and politics. Margaret Atwood''s 21st century novel Hag Seed tells the story of a disgraced director who re-stages the play as part of an education program in a prison, with Atwood portraying the text in its process of adaptation whilst simultaneously retelling Prospero's story through Felix, the director who uses the prisoners to execute his own elaborate plan of vengeance.

Scope for Study: Hag-Seed exemplifies the brief of Textual Conversations as it metatextually comes at The Tempest from two completely separate directions. On one hand, the novel explicitly depicts the staging of the play and features the discussion of its characters and themes throughout in the form of the education program that Felix runs. On the other hand, the novel is also structured along the same lines as The Tempest, with characters, themes, events, and plot points all forming an analogous mirror for Shakespeare's play. Students will be able to examine the layers of Atwood's lightly-staged but heavily intertextual retelling whilst using the original play as a reference point.

NESA Annotations: The new 2019-2023 Annotations outline The Tempest as a text that deals with themes of ambition, authority, power, captivity, and loyalty, and Hag-Seed as "a complex conversation with The Tempest that takes the reader into the worlds of the play". The annotations highlight Atwood's clever use of Shakespearean language, the way that knowledge of The Tempest can enhance an understanding of the character of Felix in Hag-Seed, and the way students can use Atwood's epilogue as a jumping-off point for their own interpretations of Shakespeare's text.

Verdict: One thing that is implicit in this pairing is the concept that Hag-Seed demonstrates the way in which Shakespeare's texts are continuously adapted and re-adapted for new audiences, and how this can both highlight the relevance of his plays in the contemporary setting whilst also creating new meaning that reflects new contexts. I would venture that, with consideration of the way that the Advanced English course is structured and the requirements of the pattern of study, that the Tempest / Hag-Seed combo will end up being the go-to choice within Module A. Considering the accessibility of Atwood's text and its insightful, unambiguous relationship with The Tempest, that's not necessarily a bad thing.

Teaching Context for Stage 4

One of the key components of understanding a text is consideration of its context. We can see this idea echoed over and over again in a range of material related to teaching English and literacy, consider:

• The NSW English K-10 Syllabus, which specifies in the Rationale for students to "examine the contexts of language to understand how meaning is shaped by a variety of social factors".
• Outcomes EN3-5B, EN4-3B, and EN5-3B across Stages 3, 4, and 5, which all mention a need for recognition of different language contexts.
• Content points in the syllabus, which take it a step further through requiring students to "develop and apply contextual" knowledge by describing and analysing the context of texts (EN4-3B). Or for students to "critically consider the ways in which meaning is shaped by context" (EN4-5C).
  
• The English Textual Concepts, which includes Context as one of the twelve concepts - specifying the way in which context changes meaning in the way we read things, the way texts are shaped by outside factors, and the way values can change over time.
  
• The Literacy Progressions, which map the need for contextual understanding of words in both the Understanding and Creating Texts sub-elements from Levels 5-10.
  

For NSW High School English we start with Stage 4, where context becomes an important factor in modifying meaning when writing, or when recognising the parameters of meaning while reading.

It's easy for English teachers to start looking at context by considering the cultural or personal factors of an author, or how texts are reinterpreted and adapted over time (think Baz Luhrmann's Romeo and Juliet, or Clueless as an adaptation of Emma) but sometimes I find jumping straight into this can leave some students behind. It took me a couple of years of teaching before I realised that context wasn't something explicitly taught in Primary School English, at least certainly not to the extent that the metalanguage term of 'context' had become embedded in student thinking. I can say, "What's onomatopoeia?" to a Year 8 class and, without fail, students will start shouting things like "BANG!", "CRASH!", and "CRACKLE!" If I ask, "What's context?", I usually get blank looks from the same group.

A good starting point is to break the term down into four parts:

• Who wrote it and/or to what audience?
• When was it written?
• Where was it written?
• Why was it written?

I want to get students understanding the impact of these elements on a text and, as with learning vocabulary, it's more effective for students to do rather than copy. So the starting point is to consider a single sentence delivered identically in two very different contexts:

"Stop falling asleep"

Who: said to a student vs. to an airplane pilot.

When: in the daytime vs. during a flight.

Where: in a classroom vs. on a plane.

Why: they should be doing their work vs. they should be flying the plane!

Once students understand this, give them a series of sentences and have them devise their own contexts to go with each one. They should create two separate contexts per sentence with the challenge being that these contexts should be as different as possible. Once they've finished, discuss as a class and compare the responses students came up with, exploring the idea of just how much context can matter. Considering this for single sentences is the building block of considering larger extracts of text, to short stories or articles or films, to whole novels, to whole genres or literary movements. The advancement through the progression will depend on the sophistication of the student as they work their way through the stages and courses towards their final year in High School.

Here's a worksheet that lays out the above-described context activity for students to complete: Context Worksheet.

English Studies: Your Friend and Mine

English Studies is crafty and... okay, look, here's a picture of a fox!

Today I presented some material on the English Studies course and how it fits in with the new syllabus. Like all good courses, English Studies is a subject that continues to evolve under the scrutiny of teacher interpretation and re-interpretation, and the arrival of the new syllabus has seen it undergo some consolidation. The PPT attached below gives an overview of what the course is, what each module looks like, and how we can use the course to empower students who don't have a history of success in the discipline of English.

English Studies: Your Friend and Mine - PowerPoint Presentation.

Here is some other material on English Studies that might be of interest:

• Fully Resourced English Studies Units - developed by the Department of Education as part of its mEsh initiative. I worked with a colleague, Ebony Toth, to create resources and a program for two of the modules.
• English Studies: What It Was, and Where It's Going - some notes from the 2016 English Studies Day organised by enthusiastic Studies advocate Sam Schroder. 
• English Studies: Authentic Assessment as Learning - an earlier version of one of the mEsh units. Might be worth a look as it goes into detail on the implementation of the project-based learning section of the module. 

Happy Term 3 :)