Extension English: Elective 1 - Literary Homelands

The Literary Homelands elective asks students to explore how individuals and communities express their connections to place, ethnicity, and 'the other'. This is essentially an elective about diversity and voice, values and assumptions, and the impact of one culture on another. All the texts share this last thing in particular as a common thread - they portray worlds in which cultures overlap, intersect, and come into conflict.

There are three novels - two of which are set in India, albeit a century apart. One is written by an Indian writer, the other by a British one. The third novel is an Irish author's exploration of the Irish migrant experience in 1950s America.

The poetry option represents a Singapore-born Chinese-Australian's perspective on migration and cultural identity, and the drama option is an Australian-written exploration of the clash between European and Aboriginal worlds in the early 1800s.

The final text is a feminist one; a British film about London's Bangladeshi community.

Prose Fiction Options

The White Tiger by Aravind Adiga

What is it: Meet Balram Halwai, an impoverished Hindu who watches his father die unattended in hospital and thereafter vows to transcend the shackles of his caste. In his ambition to achieve financial security and independence, Balram becomes a driver for a wealthy Bangalore family engaged in dodgy political dealings in Delhi. His story, relayed in epistolary form to the Chinese Premier, charts his rise from extreme poverty to powerful business mogul. 

Scope for Study: In Balram, the author Aravind Adiga has created a complex and authentic voice that is representative of a class of Indian people often stereotyped or rendered voiceless. What's perhaps most engaging about Balram's narrative is that he is neither portrayed as a victim of circumstances or villified for his extreme actions throughout the novel. The line between satire and cultural expose become somewhat blurred as Balram's highly engaging second-person narration veers from the sharply comic to the brutally sobering and then back again. Students will be able to examine the significance of narrative voice, authorial intent, and literary value (The White Tiger won the prestigious Booker prize just a few years ago).

NESA Annotations: Notes can be found on The White Tiger in the annotations for the 2015-2020 syllabus, when the text was connected to the Extension 1 Elective: Navigating the Global. Most of these annotations focus on the novel's exploration of globalisation which, if you squint enough, can be co-opted to assist with reading the text in connection to the Literary Homelands elective (in that both electives allow for the examination of Adiga's depiction of India as a country shifting under a wide range of social and cultural pressures). The annotations also highlight Balram's role as an anti-heroic narrator.

Verdict: I think this would be a fantastic text to introduce to students. Adiga's novel is both very funny and quite confronting so there will be little chance for students to become bored, and the way the novel is constructed will also provide plenty of scope for lively discussion. In particular, there's a lot of mileage in examining the author's role in shaping his narrative as a complex but recognisable representation of a nation, a depiction that's familiar enough to the average student without losing a sophisticated depth of complexity that justifies the novel's critical acclaim. 

A Passage to India by EM Forster

What is it: Written and set in 1920s British India, Forster's novel concerns the tensions and misunderstandings that arise from the relationship between the British colonialists and their Indian subjects. Much of this is relayed through the friendship of Aziz, a young Muslim doctor, and Fielding, an independently-minded British headmaster - a relationship that is tumultuously tested when Aziz is falsely accused of sexual assault by a visiting Englishwoman who wants to see the 'real' India. 

Scope for Study: Forster's text remains highly relevant (despite its age) due to the complex commentary it offers on colonialism, imperialism, racial differences, and gender. At the time of its release it was considered inappropriate by Western audiences as it challenged and critiqued the concept of British superiority and flew in the face of contemporary Western views on Indian identity. From a 21st century standpoint, the text can be deconstructed from the opposite standpoint as ultimately reflective of Forster's inherent racism and other attitudes that have long since changed - something that students should have no difficulty picking up on.

NESA Annotations: Notes are provided in the new 2019-2023 Annotations, with emphasis placed on the novel's literary value as a key text written by a Nobel Prize-winning author. Opportunities for challenging teaching and learning include analysing the myriad forms that conflict takes within the text, looking at the way the author represents perspectives of different characters seeking a greater understanding of Indian society and culture, and examining the narrative's tripartite structure.

Verdict: If you count Bangladesh as a part of India (and it was at the time of A Passage to India's writing) then there are three texts in this Elective that focus on this multi-religious, multi-cultural country. I don't think I would teach all three of them but I think you'd have to be working very hard to avoid them altogether if you were doing this elective. A Passage to India is probably the most divisive and deconstructable of the three texts if you were choosing to utilise just one Indocentric work. Forster's novel challenged me at several points due to the backwards attitudes of its era, however, it also remains highly pertinent in that it offers a outlying critique of its time that was entirely apart from the common attitude of the 1920s British readership.

Brooklyn by Colm Toibin

What is it: Eilis is a young woman living in sleepy 1950s Ireland who finds herself presented with an opportunity to relocate to New York. Using her connection to a Catholic priest, Eilis moves into a boarding house filled with other Irish girls, gets a job in a department store, and goes to night school to become an accountant. She begins a cautious relationship with a young Italian-American man, however, when tragedy strikes back home in the village of Enniscorthy, Eilis is confronted with a difficult and life-changing decision.

Scope for Study: Brookyln's placement as part of the Literary Homelands elective makes a lot of sense as it provides students with ample scope for examining the notion of a cultural and physical homeland and the effect this can have on a person's sense of loyalty and growth. Eilis is a strange character in that she manages to come across as paradoxical in that she is both strong-willed and unassuming, and students can examine this as a symbolic representation of the way an increasingly divided cultural identity can manifest itself. The dichotomy between 1950s America and Ireland also provides scope for examining the increasing complexity of the modern world; with Brooklyn's social modernity acting as a counterpoint for the cultural decline of the 'village' represented by the rural landscape of Enniscorthy and the backwards attitudes therein.

NESA Annotations: Brooklyn was introduced in 2015 as an Advanced English novel for the now defunct Module C Elective 'Representing People and Landscapes'. As such, notes on Toibin's text can be found in the 2015-2020 Annotations, and concern themselves with the Advanced module rather than the new Extension Elective. That said, there are some useful pointers on the differences between Enniscorthy and Brooklyn, and what Toibin's authorial choices for his character might represent in relation to the novel's themes.

Verdict: Brooklyn is one of a couple of 'new' texts from the 2015 text prescriptions that have been shifted from Advanced into Extension (another that comes to mind is Melissa Harrison's Clay), which may leave a few English faculties across NSW expressing frustration after recently purchasing large class sets. That aside, Brooklyn seems a much better fit with the Extension Elective in comparison to the previous Advanced one. I would be careful about selecting this text; the themes and characters are the sort that would traditionally appeal to a middle-aged literature-conscious crowd, and some teenagers (yes, even the ones who choose Extension) may be significantly alienated and resistant to Brooklyn as a matter of taste.

Poetry Options

Burning Rice by Eileen Chong

• Burning Rice
• Mid-autumn Mooncakes
• My Hakka Grandmother
• Shophouse, Victoria Street
• Chinese Ginseng
• Winter Meeting
• Singapore

What is it: Eileen Chong is a Singapore-born Australian poet who has attracted a diverse array of accolades for her work. The selected poetry from the volume Burning Rice focuses on Chong's migrant and cultural background, straddling her Chinese ancestry and Singaporean upbringing with particular attention paid to the importance of food as a ritualised expression of identity.

Scope for Study: The seven poems selected here offer portraits of captured moments fraught with the emotional charge associated with memory and self-awareness. Chong's use of structure is fluid and free-form, allowing for word placement to slip into unexpected places via the joys of enjambment and split clauses, thus providing scope for students to examine the effect of representing moments in this stylised fashion. In relation to the elective, Chong's hyphenated identity (China / Singapore / Australia) allows for a relatively straightforward examination of the rubric provided in the syllabus. 

NESA Annotations: Featured in the newest annotations, NESA's advice on the selected suite of poetry highlight "the poet's exploration of the tensions of the diaspora" - calling to mind years past when a lot of NSW English teachers taught Peter Skrzynecki's Immigrant Chronicle as part of the 'Belonging' Area of Study. Attention is paid to the poet's use of narrative, imagery, and intertextuality to explore the impact of the past on the shaping of the present.

Verdict: I really love Burning Rice, and not just the poetry selected for the elective. My three favourite pieces from the volume are Chinese Ginseng, Bathhouse Ritual, and Mid-autumn Mooncakes - two of which are featured in the prescribed suite. It's worth noting that this text doesn't just focus on cultural heritage; it's a lot deeper in that it also deals with very personal issues such as infertility and family relationships. A lot could be done with this text in the Extension classroom.

Drama Options

The Secret River by Andrew Bovell

What is it: William and Sal Thornhill are pardoned convicts who, upon hearing that anyone can claim land for themselves by the Hawkesbury River, decide to head into the un-colonised bushland west of Sydney. William finds a few fellow settlers along the river, all battling hardship to make a new life for themselves, but doesn't bargain on the fact that the area is already inhabited by the Dharug people, whose close connection with the land challenges William's concept of what constitutes ownership and civilisation. 

Scope for Study: The foreword before the play goes into Bovell's process of adapting Kate Grenville's iconic novel into play-form and therefore provides great scope for discussing the necessities and strictures associated with crafting a story bound by the dramatic conventions of the stage. Students will also be able to draw connections between the text's content and their own personal context as Australian citizens, perhaps in relation to family histories with a basis for contrast and comparison. Bovell's extensive use of indigenous language is also a unique gift for teachers and students to explore within the totality of prescriptions available across all the English syllabuses.

NESA Annotations: Notes can be found in the 2019-23 Annotations. These outline the clash between European settlers and the Dharug people as representations of conflicting worldviews. Mention is also made of the Thornhill family as a symbol of the fledgling Australian identity, the author's use of parallels to demonstrate ideological similarity and difference between the two races, and the significance of this dramatic adaptation of a novel in that it gives the Dharug characters more defined identities and voices.

Verdict: It's worth carefully reading all the text that preludes the main bulk of the play in The Secret River as it describes Bovell's writing process as a partially collaborative one. His use of the Dharug language is probably one of the most engaging aspects of the text and reflects the input of Dharug performers, making this play at least partially representative of an Indigenous perspective (and in a way that Grenville's novel is not). I really like Grenville's novel and I can understand completely why she would not include the first person perspective of the Aboriginal characters, however, Bovell's pared-down version of the narrative is highly evocative of a lost era and I think there's a lot to be gained through its bi-cultural examination of interracial conflict on Australia's 19th century frontier.

Film Options

Brick Lane, directed by Sarah Gavron

What is it: Set in East London's Bangladeshi migrant community of the same name, Brick Lane tells the story of Nazneen, who leaves behind her home in the rural heart of the sub-continent to raise a family in England with her husband, Chanu. Their marriage is an arranged one and therefore not particularly loving, and Nazneen's isolated life and the increasing racial tension following the 9/11 attacks sees her begin to explore her individuality with a much younger Muslim man.

Scope for Study: In a reversal of A Passage to India, Gavron's film shows the West through an Eastern lens, and can be examined quite easily with multiple readings - a gender-based reading could examine Nazneen's sexual awakening and burgeoning independence as a reflection of the Western values that her daughters have adopted, and a historical reading could examine the significance of using the 9/11 attacks as a backdrop for a story about assimilation and integration. Gavron's direction is also of note in that she represents a female viewpoint in a profession (film directing) where women are few and far between.

NESA Annotations: Annotations can be found in the 2019-2023 Annotations document, where particular attention is paid to the film's context as an exploration of challenges faced by Muslims in the post-9/11 world. Note is also made of the concept of 'home' in relation to the migrant experience, and the director's use of visual metaphor and flashback to portray complex cultural perspectives and the impact of the past/memory on the present.

Verdict: A moving and beautifully-shot film, Brick Lane manages to tell a relatively straight-forward story about cultural dislocation without sacrificing the complexity that comes with living in the interstitial places afforded by close-knit migrant groups such as the Bangladeshi-British community based in East London. Pairing this film with a study of A Passage to India would be a valuable use of the elective in that both texts deal with Indian culture from near-antithetical standpoints. Brick Lane also contains a powerful and heartbreaking portrayal of the impact that 9/11 had on long-integrated Muslim communities in Western countries such as the UK, which links to the unassessable 'values' part of the syllabus in that it allows for exploration and expression of varied dimensions of the human experience.

Standard Module B: Close Study of Literature

Some of the texts in Module B for Standard English

Prose Fiction Options

There are just two options for novel study in Standard Module B: Close Study of Literature, both of which are Young Adult focused. One is from an American author, the other from a British.

Feed by MT Anderson

What is it: In the world of the future nearly everyone is directly connected to the internet through modifications made to their brains. Titus, a typical teenager, finds his 'feed' temporarily severed after having it hacked by a anti-feed terrorist. This disconnection prompts Titus to start a relationship with Violet, a mysterious girl who begins experiencing difficulties with her feed after both her and Titus have them repaired.

Scope for Study: Written in a challenging style that mimics the constantly dense yet vapid flow of information that the protagonist is subjected to, Feed will do one of two things for all readers (students included): it will either be A) Too strange for them to engage with, or B) Both intriguing and relevant in its quirky satire of modern online culture. Feed also gives Standard English students a chance to explore the cyberpunk subgenre of science fiction, with room for drawing connections between generic tropes and a 21st century information-age context.

NESA Annotations: The 2015-2020 Annotations position Feed's relevance within the Standard Module 'Texts and Society', singling out the novel's purpose as a satire of 'teenage consumer culture and saturation advertising'. The annotations also favour MT Anderson's use of teen culture as a point of engagement for our students, with irony and context identified as key elements in the author's use of language.

Verdict: The idea that the characters in Feed will be identifiable to NSW students is, unfortunately, an idea that will date fast (if it hasn't already). Teenage lexicons are a tricky thing to pin down as they are defined in opposition to adult understanding. The moment an author like MT Anderson attempts to project teen culture into a dystopian context with such a heavy emphasis on colloquialism is a dicey proposition that may automatically turn some young readers off. As mentioned before, the novel will either be a really interesting discussion starter and an eye-opener for some students, or something that is just too bizarre for a lot of Standard English students. I actually really enjoyed reading this novel but I kind of think it might have been better pitched at an Advanced English cohort.

The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time by Mark Haddon

What is it: Christopher, a 15 year old boy, investigates the mystery behind the murder of his neighbour's dog. In the process of his detective work Christopher begins to make certain discoveries about his own family, and must navigate a new understanding of the world that fits with his own viewpoint; a viewpoint informed by Autism Spectrum Disorder.

Scope for Study: The author Mark Haddon has made it clear in interviews that this is a book primarily about being different rather than specifically about Autism. It should be noted, however, that students will be able to engage with the way the book tells its story from a perspective that reflects Asperger's Syndrome, with Haddon experimenting with narrative and novel structure in an attempt to demonstrate Christopher's world.

NESA Annotations: Notes can be found on The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time in the 2009-2014 Annotations, a time in which the novel was also used for Close Study by Standard English. The document implies that the use of Christopher's objective viewpoint makes him an unreliable narrator, which would be an interesting concept for students to explore, considering they may not have considered this style of narration before. Generic conventions associated with detective fiction are also mentioned as apt grounds for analysis.

Verdict: It seems a little odd that both of the 'Close Study' novel options for Standard focus on first person narratives delivered by atypical protagonists. Coincidence? Probably not. That said, The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time is a much more tightly-plotted and controlled piece than Feed, and may appeal to students more in terms of accessibility as the language allows for ideas rather than colloquialism to take centre-stage.

Poetry / Drama Options

There are four options in this section, three are from Australian authors (the other is Shakespeare), and two of the three Australian options are Indigenous-focused (though only one is an Aboriginal composer).

Coast Road by Robert Gray

• Journey, the North Coast
• Flames and Dangling Wire
• Harbour Dusk
• Byron Bay: Winter
• Description of a Walk
• 24 Poems

What is it: Gray is a contemporary Australian poet who grew up on the North Coast of NSW and has become renowned for his use of precise imagery in exploring a wide range of ideas and settings. In the selected suite of six poems from Coast Road Gray constructs a challenging vision of coastal Australia that combines the natural and the man-made.

Scope for Study: Teachers can examine the way that Gray uses figurative and descriptive language in service of creating imagery in the reader's mind, and the importance of the landscape in the author's psyche. There is also much that can be made of looking at the poet's use of minimalist and accessible language to allude to complex motifs, such as the clash of the human world with the environment. 

NESA Annotations: Some of Gray's poetry is written about in the 2015-2020 Annotations in relation to the Discovery Area of Study, however, only 1 of these ('Journey: the North Coast') is now in the current Module B collection of poetry. The NESA document highlights the way that Gray conveys 'minutely observed scenes' and the importance of the Australian landscape in the poet's perspective, which is still relevant to the current selection of pieces.

Verdict: Don't be deceived by the ease of Gray's crisp wordplay; the structuring of his poetry will be challenging for some Standard students as it often eschews more traditional forms of scansion in favour of building up an image of place. The brevity of this overall collection will, nonetheless, allow teachers to spend a significant amount of time exploring the language, themes, motifs, and context of the writing in some detail.

This volume of poetry is now out of print.

Oodgeroo Noonuccal poetry

• The Past
• China... Woman
• Reed Flute Cave
• Entombed Warriors
• Visit to Sun Yat-Sen Memorial Hall
• Sunrise on Huampu River
• A Lake Within a Lake

What is it: Oodgeroo Noonuccal was an Aboriginal poet who had not written any poetry for many years, however, upon visiting China in 1984 she experienced a creative re-awakening. This suite of poetry is representative of her epiphany there, and builds upon the common themes of her career - colonialism, the barbarity and cruelty of modern culture, the rights of Indigenous Australians, and faith in cultural identity. The listed poetry can be found on the NESA website, owing to the fact that the Chinese-focused book is now out of print and unavailable.

Scope for Study: The poet's style is minimalist whilst conveying sharp imagery relating to her themes and the Chinese setting. Students will find the writing accessible and evocative but may also be challenged by how sparse the language is, particularly in regards to the way the pieces are structured. Each of the 7 poems allude to the importance of culture, and students will need an understanding of Oodgeroo's Aboriginal context in order to approach a more complete understanding of the themes that she explores.

NESA Annotations: Notes on Oodgeroo can be found in the 2015-2020 Annotations, however, this previous Standard Module B: Close Study of the poet is a slightly different grouping of poetry (5 of the 7 are the same poems). These notes highlight the importance of analysing the cultural and spiritual themes of the poet's work, as well as the significance of Aboriginal oral tradition as an influence.

Verdict: Oodgeroo's poetry is a great way to get Standard students engaged with a wide variety of ideas and concepts, plus the poetry itself is highly readable and thought-provoking in the way that it deals with complex ideas. Normally I would think that 7 poems might stretch the focus of a Standard English class too far but the style, structure, and shared thematic core of this suite should allow for teachers to deal with the text holistically and in a satisfactory enough way to engage students. Plus, how many other texts would simultaneously tick both the Aboriginal and Asia-related Learning Across the Curriculum dot points?

Namatjira by Scott Rankin

What is it: In a two-man, two-act performance, this play explores the life of Albert Namatjira, the Aboriginal watercolour painter who won the favour of white society in a time when Indigenous Australians still weren't recognised as citizens of this country. Rankin, in working with the Namatjira family, has created a multi-perspective dramatic representation of a life and the politics of intercultural relations, for performance in a minimalist and semi-traditional setting.

Scope for Study: The play's connection to the tragic real life story of the eponymous celebrated painter will give teachers a strong way-in with students in terms of exploring context. The 'vignette'-styled structure will also lend itself well to chunking the text into separate pieces for analysis, performance, and further interaction. Discussion should also arise through the identification of issues relating to race and attitudes in both 1950s Australia and the modern day. 

NESA Annotations: The 2015-2020 Annotations cover Namatjira's use in Standard English Module B, highlighting the play's simultaneous exploration of two figures, Namatjira, and his artistic mentor, Rex Batterbee. Themes identified for study include; "mateship, perseverance, opportunity, exploitation and injustice". The notes also point out the play's context as part of a larger cultural project that combines traditional Aboriginal performance with Western stylistic conventions associated with drama.

Verdict: The alien-ness of the dramatic stage can be challenging for Standard English students to connect with due to their unfamiliarity with the genre, and I suspect that Namatjira's complex structure may create some difficulty in certain contexts when it comes to student engagement. There are elements of this play that will provide excellent fuel for student discussion and the themes are highly relevant to Australia's national identity, however, the style and structure will be intellectually confronting for some Standard students. 

A Midsummer Night's Dream by William Shakespeare

What is it: Shakespeare's supernatural comedy concerns an Athenian love quadrangle, feuding fairy monarchs, the mischievous sprite Puck, and a troupe of tradesmen-turned-actors attempting to put on the worst play imaginable. Spurred on by Puck's magical mistakes and tricks, fay love potion prompts conflict as the lovers quarrel with one another and the already ass-like tradesman Bottom develops a donkey-like head!

Scope for Study: If students can get their heads around the complex interweaving of character relationships and the near-Herculean levels of mischief that complicate things further and further, Shakespeare's most 'magical' play has much to offer beyond its adherence to the Elizabethan comedy genre. The friction between male and female, the theme of appearance vs. reality, expectations placed on women in regards to arranged-marriage, and Bottom's misguided attempts to improve the play-within-the-play should all provide scope for discussion.

NESA Annotations: There are no annotations of A Midsummer Night's Dream covered in any of the three annotation documents provided by NESA in the last 10 years.

Verdict: I like Shakespeare, and I like that there is an option to teach Shakespeare to a Standard English class, however, I know that a fair amount of students pick Standard over Advanced nearly solely because of the apparent lack of the Bard's work in the Standard Prescriptions. With this in mind, I think it would be a brave teacher who decides to wade into this one with their class (you'd certainly need to be very passionate and energetic in regards to teaching it!). All that said, it's one of Shakespeare's more crowd-pleasing plays, isn't too long, and features several entertaining conceits that should provoke some interest - even if a lot of the plot's stickier situations are continuously 'solved' by the characters going to sleep, over and over again.

 
Nonfiction / Film / Media Options

The 'grab bag' section of the Prescriptions for Standard Module B features a non-fiction book written by an Australian, an American film directed by an Australian, and an Australian documentary.

Stasiland by Anna Funder

What is it: Australian journalist Anna Funder relocates to Berlin a few years after the fall of the Berlin Wall and explores life in former East Germany. Through interviewing the survivors of the now defunct socialist state, Funder meticulously recreates their human stories as part of a wider narrative about life under the oppressive surveillance-heavy regime of the Stasi.

Scope for Study: Funder takes the reader inside the process of constructing a narrative from non-fiction sources, connecting each person's story to the themes she wants to explore, such as the shifting state of security in a crumbling police state. The author's love of language is evident through her discussion and exploration of the German language's 'sticklebrick' nouns, and the sharp-but-economic observations she lands on the unique characters she meets. In regards to students some time will need to be spent on establishing the novel's highly specific context but, nonetheless, Funder's award-winning non-fiction book utilises language that manages to be both sophisticated and highly accessible.

NESA Annotations: Notes for Stasiland appear in the 2015-2020 Annotation document, with consideration given to Funder's blending of genres in the pursuit of truth regarding East Germany's sometimes confronting history, especially in regards to themes of "privacy, surveillance and free speech". The co-existence of opinion and fact within Funder's style will also test the ability of students to recognise subjectivity and context as driving forces behind investigative journalism.

Verdict: A brilliant and accessible piece of journalism that tells the people's story within the theatre of a grand historical event. Funder's proactive parsing of these stories in the 1990s is a perfect example of someone being in the right place at the right time, and represents her own canny understanding of how important it is to document and preserve history before it disappears forever (something that is highlighted in the last few chapters). The humanity and injustice that characterises the various stories she tells should provide something of interest for a wide variety of students, and it's great to see a historically-relevant text like this included in the Prescriptions for Standard English students to seriously get stuck into. This would probably be my pick if I were teaching Module B.

The Truman Show, directed by Peter Weir

What is it: Truman is a regular, everyday guy who has never left the small town of Seahaven. Little does he know, his entire life has been taking place within a dome where his every move has been recorded for the reality TV program 'The Truman Show'. Truman's reality begins to unravel as he pieces together various clues that lead to the truth.

Scope for Study: Peter Weir's film has a lot going on and teachers should have no trouble pulling it apart for student consumption in a variety of ways. Consider: the constructed nature of Truman's life as a satire of the way reality TV edits narratives out of raw footage, the increasing commodification and banality of Western life represented by the insidious advertising that surrounds Truman, the allegorical nature of Truman as a Biblical figure going to meet his God (named Christof!), and the careful and inspired choice of camera shots used by Peter Weir to suggest a world under surveillance.

NESA Annotations: None of the three annotation documents from the last 10 years feature The Truman Show. If there were earlier annotations prior to 2009 they may have featured some notes on the film, however, such notes don't seem to be available on the NESA website and I'm not even sure that they ever existed.

Verdict: A fantastic film in its own right rather than just as an object for study. Teaching this film has been very enjoyable for me in the past (both with English Studies and Standard English classes) and the key has been just letting the film run through first so students can absorb everything uninterrupted. The scope for discussion of a variety of techniques and themes is wide open for Standard students, and while they should have no problem identifying visual techniques used by the director to tell his story, they will also appreciate the extra depth added through discussion of symbolism, allegory, and context.

Frank Hurley: The Man Who Made History, directed by Simon Nasht

What is it: Frank Hurley, pioneering Australian photographer, is given the documentary treatment in Simon Nasht's clear overview of a complex figure. This TV documentary takes the viewer through Hurley's groundbreaking career - his early use of colour; seminal forays into the documentary genre; nailbiting adventuring through the Antarctic as part of Mawson's historic expedition; his recording of World War I; and surveys into Papua New Guinea, the Australian outback, and Libya in World War II. What emerges alongside this eventful life is the showboating nature of Hurley's 'genius' and his unquenchable thirst for innovation.

Scope for Study: Students will be able to engage with Nasht's themes, such as the problematic nature of Hurley's 'documenting' of history (many photographs were staged or created using composites) and the text's key question of whether Hurley was a 'Giant of photography, or just a conjurer with a camera'? Students can also examine the power of an image and Hurley's role in establishing photography as an art form in its own right, as well as Nasht's use of language to paint an epic tale of discovery and exploration, the questions posed about the idea of a legacy, and the use of photography to form a narrative.

NESA Annotations: Notes for Frank Hurley: The Man Who Made History can be found in the 2015-2020 Annotations, albeit pitched as part of the Discovery Area of Study rather than a Close Study text. Attention is drawn to questioning the 'validity' of Hurley's work and the way the documentary constructs a narrative of the photographer's life. The rest of the annotation is particular to Discovery though and doesn't really apply to the text's re-assignment as part of Module B.

Verdict: This is a great documentary that, thanks to its relatively brief run-time and engaging examination of a fascinating subject, shouldn't be too hard to analyse for Standard English students. One particular aspect of the film that will give the teacher a lot of mileage is the idea of Hurley as a multitude of different characters: the shameless self-promoter carefully creating an image for himself, the failed film director attempting to break new ground in a commercial industry, the 'adventurer' relentlessly looking for his next 'hit', and the jobbing scenic photographer who reinvented himself in order to support his family.

San Bartolo and Monte Alban, Oaxaca (Day 15 - 12/1/14)

Oaxaca is only a couple of states south of Mexico but in a lot of ways it feels like a whole other country.

Today is the day I almost broke. I haven't felt homesick at all during this trip but by the time that today gets to 4pm I feel like I am pretty much done.

Last night I slept terribly. I had these stabbing pains in my stomach. I guess you can only be fearless about Mexican food for so long. Despite the grasshoppers and bucket tacos and other assorted street foods, I think it was a simple piece of chicken in mole sauce that got me in the end.

My frustration has also been escalating due to phone issues. I won't bore you with the details but we'll just say that Vodafone is charging me incorrectly and I was unable to contact them because they were disallowing my calls to them. A girl from Vodafone had assured me back in Australia that if I had issues I could simply chase them up when I got back home, but this morning a new text message tells me that my entire account will be locked if I fail to contact them. Yet I am unable to call them.

That's the short non-boring version of the story. I begin to freak out because we've been using my phone to book hotels, day trips, and transfers between cities. Yikes!

So, between this and my stomach cramps, I am a little over things.

But we soldier on. What else can you do?

We have most of the day in Oaxaca so we decide to grab a taxi and see some things outside of town.

It's hard to know if you have a 'safe' taxi driver in Mexico. Guide books and similar sources tell you that if you just use the gold-and-red government-certified cabs in Mexico City then you'll be fine. This however doesn't seem to extend to other cities like Oaxaca... the taxis don't look the same, so we decide to just trust our hotel when they refer us to a guy sitting out the front. Unlike Alejandro, he speaks no English, so it takes a bit of time checking the phrasebook and pointing to maps to establish our route. Language barrier aside, he seems a little odd. He laughs and smirks a lot while staring at us in his rear view mirror, has a weird orange toy monkey hanging from the roof, and spends a lot of time talking to someone over the CB in Spanish. The Duck becomes a little scared, interpreting his laughter as being directed at us, and this in turn makes me question his trustworthiness and I become uncomfortable and paranoid.

I try to fight this feeling and rationalise things. If this guy did anything bad, it would jeopardise his job as a reputable taxi driver used by a tourist-friendly hotel, yeah?

We'll come back to this guy and his story later. Suffice to say, he drove us to two places outside of Oaxaca and we did eventually make it back to the hotel, but not without incident.

The first of our two locations is San Bartolo. The Duck has had it in her head since we left Australia that we have to visit this town because Bartolo is our last name.

San Bartolo - home of Oaxaca's famous black pottery

 

San Bartolo is a fairly quiet town; a little rundown even, and not really a destination for tourists. I begin to question whether it was worth coming out here (to be honest, I was sceptical from the start). The Duck sniffs something out though. Oaxaca is known for its distinctive black pottery, and most of this is created in San Bartolo. We find some local artisans in an open one-level building and pick up a range of gifts from them (most of which will shatter in our bags on the trip back home... but, hey, isn't that part of the majesty of travel?)

A variety of crafts stalls were pocketed all around this building

All kinds of black pottery

San Bartolo Church

 

The next stop is Monte Alban, Oaxaca state's most important and famous archaeological site. Our driver takes us up a long and winding mountaintop road to Monte Alban and agrees to wait in the carpark for us. Monte Alban is a Zapotec citadel that dates back to 300 AD. It's pretty breathtaking, with huge staircases built into the mountainside, and walled ball courts sunken into the ground, tunnels that snake into the sides of mountains, and a thin layer of grass that covers everything and gives the ruins a sense of life. We spend a while just walking around and being in it.

I don't feel very good about these skulls being displayed in the museum at Monte Alban, but then again I don't feel very good about the fact that so many people were sacrificed by the Mesoamericans. I don't really believe in objectivity but I do try to withhold judgement due to the fact that the Mexican and Indigenous cultures of Mexico aren't something that I'm a part of. What's interesting about the skulls above is the circular holes in the top - this is called trepanning; an early form of brain surgery carried out with a hand-drill.

Cool statuette.

The pictures don't really do Monte Alban justice - it's a large citadel perched on the top of a mountain, and features some pretty sophisticated architecture.

When we return to the carpark we attract the unwanted attention of a local hawker trying to sell... heck, I can't even remember what it was he wanted to sell, but the point is that he wouldn't take 'no' for an answer. I was emphatic with him and even frowned at him with my sternest face. Still, he followed us to our driver's car, and persistently petitioned us to buy his wares. What made it even more awkward was that our driver was fast asleep, laid back in the front passenger seat with his feet up.

I yell, "Hola!" a few times but he does not wake. The local salesman, possibly thinking that we'll pay him for his assistance, starts saying something to me. I think he's trying to tell me how to say 'wake up' so I repeat his words to the driver. Taxi driver still does not rise.

Well. This is awkward.

The Duck, myself, and this hawker just stand around for a few minutes like work acquaintances at a forced Christmas party. Why won't this guy just go away? He stops trying to talk to us but remains standing with us in the car park while the driver continues his siesta, and he just stares at me. He's not going to get a sale out of us. Does annoying someone really work as a sales technique? I stare back at him.

Screw it.

I start knocking on the car's window with a renewed vigour. I don't want to continue standing with this weird local guy. The driver finally awakens with a sheepish grin.

In our travels around Oaxaca we've noticed a Walmart, so we ask the driver to take us there so we can buy some new luggage for our trip out of Oaxaca. He seems to understand but we end up at the fleamarkets in downtown Oaxaca, confirming that he does not understand us at all. Both myself and the Duck are done with this guy and his laughing conversations on the CB, so we decide to use the opportunity of being in a public place to finish our day trip with him. He seems a little put out that we don't want to continue driving around with him and begins to calculate our fare. I just give him 600 pesos (which is intentionally more than we should owe) and he pretends this is exactly the right price. The transaction is over and we're both happy.

We get out of the back of the cab, waiting for him to pop the boot so we can grab our purchases from San Bartolo. Still wary of him, I keep my door open while we indicate for him to open the trunk.

You know what he does? He starts driving off!

"Woah woah woah!" I shout (a universal sound, I'm sure). I refuse to let go of the door even while he drives. The door clangs against a motorbike parked in the street as I'm dragged along and the driver stops the taxi with a sudden lurch. He laughs and plays it off as forgetfulness when I angrily point to the boot. Duck thinks it wasn't on purpose, but I'm not so sure. We grab our things and head into the markets to see if we can find a bag to put our stuff in.

Oaxaca markets

I don't like markets at the best of times. These were a little too claustrophobic for me.

Oaxacan cheese. Yum!

With all my worrying, and the added pressure of needing an extra piece of luggage before we leave Oaxaca tonight, things start getting a bit tense between myself and the Duck. By the time we get a new backpack we're not really talking much, and the long walk back to our hotel is both physically and emotionally draining.

While repacking our bags at the hotel, Vodafone finally call me and agree to delete all the weird debt that has accrued on my phone. It's a small win but a win nonetheless. We head to Oaxaca station for our transfer to the next stop on our journey, the town of San Cristobal de las Casas. The back of my neck is sunburnt; it's so hot it feels like freshly cooked bacon. The bus leaves at 7pm; a coach that will take 11 hours overnight to get to its destination. I think I might just be tired enough to sleep through it. 

Look, I know I already posted a picture of a Mexican toilet previously, but this picture features a pedal-operated flush. Why don't we have these in our public toilets? I'd be far more likely to flush a public toilet if I didn't have to do it with my hand!

Oaxaca City and Santa Maria del Tule, Oaxaca (Day 14 - 11/1/14)

Mitla; the Zapotec 'city of the dead'

I feel so tired. As nice as Oaxaca's Hotel Mision de Los Angeles is, I had a hard time sleeping due to the noise. Part of this is due to some kind of celebration down the road with a big Mexican brass band and more fireworks. Maybe this celebration is something that happens every night in Oaxaca. I don't know. It's not really anyone's fault, it's just part of the local colour, but damn, I wish I'd slept more. I'm less forgiving of the screaming kids who were running around the hotel circa 1 AM, and the loudly gossiping woman who seemed to be right next to my head all night.

Yes, I am officially old. No longer the rager, now the enraged.

Today I am really feeling the frustration of not knowing enough Spanish. I can say a few things that get me by; hola, gracias, cuanto, muy bueno, etc. When I order a continental breakfast, however, it becomes really confusing because I'm not sure what it entails - IE. Will the staff bring it out to me? Or should I use the buffet they had? Is the bill meant to be cash, or is it was added to our hotel tab? And so on. What we had for breakfast doesn't really matter that much, but feeling so isolated amongst all the espanol-speaking staff and fellow patrons doesn't feel like a very positive start to the day.

The Duck and I have been trying to add new Spanish words to our vocabulary every day and today's words are 'bano' (toilet), 'sanitarios' (bathroom) and 'donde' (where). We have another day tour today, this time on a little bus filled with tourists from other parts of Mexico. The guide speaks English but seems put out that we can't understand the local language as it means she has to say everything twice. Sorry lady, we paid knowing that you spoke English! She'll say stuff in Spanish and the others will laugh, and then she gives us a flat two-word explanation (sans joke). It's sans awesome.

Here's what we saw today:

The widest tree in the world (apparently)

El Arbol del Tule

This 2000 year old Montezuma Cypress is the thickest-trunked tree in the world. It's circumference is a whopping 42 metres - 14 metres in diameter - and it stands in a fenced-off garden outside a brightly-painted church in the town of Santa Maria el Tule (which, from what I can gather, translates as 'The St. Maria Swamp'. Great name). 

This tree is yet another perspective moment. It dwarfs everything around it, and it would be a peaceful experience listening to the church bells clanging overhead while we observe it but - goddammit - the people of Oaxaca really love their firecrackers. First you hear the keening wail descending from above in an extremely high pitch like a bomb dropped from a plane, and then the explosion rocks the pit of your stomach, cracking loudly like a shotgun blast in the immediate vicinity. Kids are crying, people are jumping out of their skins everywhere... apparently they like this. It sure isn't the church as I know it. And if that isn't enough punk rock Catholicism for you, a guy playing a tuba comes marching out of the church like he owns the place. Outstanding.

I have a tuba. Tubas are cool now.

Mexican churches are the most beautiful churches I've ever seen

Oaxacan Traditional Weaving

Our first tourist trap of the day is a weaving operation out in the cactus-sticks. We listen to the business owner explain the dying processes used to get all the bright colours used in Oaxacan rugs. The Duck enjoys it but I'm a bit bored by it especially when we then get assigned 20 minutes to look around and buy something.

Mezcal Factory

Mezcal is apparently what most of us really mean when we talk about tequila-with-the-worm-in. Like tequila, mezcal is made from the cactus called agave, but it undergoes a different process before its distillation. I guess it's a bit like the difference between whiskey and bourbon. They both taste a bit wrong to me (mezcal and tequila), though mezcal less so than tequila.

The guide takes us through the creation of mezcal stage-by-stage, and we watch a donkey drag a millstone around a small circle with some encouragement from one of the workers in the distillery. Duck is a bit sad watching the beast of burden but she brightens up a bit when she witnesses it eating from the agave it crushes. She wonders if all these people know that the burro has had its slobbery face in their mezcal before they drink it?

We try about 8 varieties of mezcal. This array of local alcohol excites the Mexican tourists a lot, but for me it's 8 varieties too many.

This is where mezcal comes from.

 

This was the most exciting part of the day for all of the other tourists on the bus.

Mitla

It's hard coming to these ruins after seeing Teotihuacan in all it's godlike glory, but they're still fairly impressive nonetheless. Mitla is known as 'the land of the dead' but our guide doesn't really explain it to us very much so I'm unsure why. It was built by the Zapotec civilisation around 900 AD and its most fun feature is an underground crypt that we have to virtually crawl into. Getting to the ruins is a story in itself. 

All day the driver of our van has been hooning about, and when he gets to the village of San Pablo Villa de Mitla, with all its tiny paved laneways, he seems to show little regard for pedestrians, dogs, or oncoming traffic. His journey slows right down, though, when we suddenly get stuck behind a church procession with a full brass band and, you guessed it, more crazy firecrackers. It's a little bit funny as the van creeps slowly behind the hundreds of people marching up the street to the church.

Need a knife? Just grab some from the markets.

Maya crafts at the markets

A lot of Mexican toilets require payment for entry. This helps ensure that the toilet is clean, case in point - see the picture above. Mexican public toilets are on the whole far cleaner than Australian public toilets.

San Pablo Villa de Mitla

 

The church is a rather beautiful-looking piece of architecture and, much like the Basilica in Mexico City, it has been built directly on top of pre-Hispanic ruins. The ruins are very much visible around the base of this large church, the story being that the Spanish decided to do this so they could keep the 'devil' trapped within the Zapotec tombs (they saw the indigenous civilisations as Satanic... or so they say. It's also helpful to build your church on top of indigenous ruins if you're wanting to subjugate several million natives).

Mitla is unique amongst Mexican ruins for its intricate fresco work.

The Zapotec civilisation flourished between 700 and 1500 AD. It's estimated that approximately 1 million of Mexican's indigenous people are Zapotec.

 

Hierve al Agua

You'll recall that I mentioned Mexican road rules (or lack thereof) when we first got to Mexico City. Well, imagine this cavalier attitude on a narrow clifftop road in a bus averaging 60-70 kms an hour. I was overjoyed. The bus dodges donkeys loaded up with sticks, rogue bulls, local farms that have been built out onto the road, and more oncoming traffic that didn't have the sense to stay at home rather than risk the road-hog that is our bus driver. I'm not really overjoyed at all, I actually find it a particularly hairy ride. After about an hour of this I'm practically wedged under my own seat and, thankfully, we finally reach Hierve al Agua - the petrified waterfalls.

These are clifftop springs that contain so much calcium that the water and resulting pools are a milky white, and there are also rock formations that bubbles over the cliff edge like cascades frozen in time. It's a similar phenomenon to the limestone formations found in caves. It's a strange sight but I find it a bit nerve-wracking watching all kinds of people teetering on the edge while ankle-deep in water. Call it culture shock but there seems to be no commonsense in this country. I'm all for freedom and if you're only going to jeopardise your own personal safety then I guess that's your choice - but c'mon, there has to be a happy medium. I laugh at the sign in the carpark, "20 pesos to maintain your protection". What protection? I see a whole family literally climbing a cliff wall so they can take some photos and no one gives a shit. While trying not to freak out too much at the Duck's own willingness to get pretty close to the edge, I see two Black Vultures gracefully swinging across the valley in lazy arcs. That's gotta be a sign, right? I think the vultures know something the Mexican tourists don't.

Hierve al Agua is an interesting ecological feature but the day really takes it out of me, and the hair-raising drive back down the mountain has me ready to crawl back into my hotel room.

See that edge where the pool is? That's a cliff.