Dracula: Texts, Culture and Value

1902 edition of Dracula

Hello and Happy New Year!

This year I find myself teaching Extension English 1 for the first time, and it's quite an exciting prospect. The Preliminary Module 'Texts, Culture and Value' pertains to the study of a core text and its replication across the ages in various manifestations. These manifestations are defined further in the syllabus as texts that have been 'carried forward', 'borrowed from', or 'appropriated into more recent culture'.

After a brief dalliance with Jane Eyre, I've jumped on board wholeheartedly with Dracula (which seems to be the popular option as we move into the new syllabus for the first time).

The way I see it, the reasons for choosing Dracula are:

• It's a good practice run for Frankenstein, which is one of the texts in the Elective I'm looking at doing for the HSC.
• There is a near-infinite variety of texts to look at that reinterpret, reinvent, and 'borrow from' from Dracula.
• The Victorian context of Bram Stoker's seminal horror novel is more than ripe for the sort of analysis needed to look at the 'values' part of the module. 
• Lots of other teachers in NSW are doing this option, which is very helpful for purposes of collegiality - which is not to be underestimated when tackling a brand new syllabus!

Over the last week or so I've been reading the novel to start off my programming. I finished it a couple of days ago, and I've made a chapter-by-chapter table of my annotations, which can be found here:

Dracula Notes - PDF

I've arranged the notes into three columns;

1. Example / Quote
2. A brief summary or identification of the techniques and what is happening in said example
3. Further notes explaining the author's purpose and/or the context and/or anything else that I thought was interesting

Reflection

I think it's important to model this sort of stuff for the students straight off the bat so they can see what they should or could be aiming for, especially when they're entering into a subject like Extension English 1. The table also assists with giving the students reference points for their own reading... I don't want the reading of Dracula to be unnecessarily difficult, I want it to be an illuminating experience that will serve as a jumping off point for wider reading and analysis. At this point, in a public system Western Sydney context, I see the name of the game as primarily being one of engagement and encouragement.

I saw American educator Ron Berger speak at the iOnTheFuture conference in 2016, and something he spoke about that was really inspirational was models of excellence. I mean, he spoke about a lot that I found inspirational (including feedback and the growth mindset - check out 'Austin's Butterfly' on Youtube to see what I mean) but his ideas around modelling helped me to better articulate one of the key parts of my practice as a teacher. 

I'd been submitting student assignments under fake names for a couple of years by that point and then using them as samples with classes, but that's a story for another day. The point is: in order to get students delivering work of high quality we first need to show them we expect.

The idea of making all the answers 'secret' flies in the face of everything we know about creating excellence in students. If we want someone to be good at something, we show them a model. For example, to be a good musician you need to see and listen to musicians performing. To be a good illustrator you need to look at drawings. Athletes study other athletes. So why is it, in English and other school subjects, that we often hold back on showing students what the 'answers' looks like? It's been great to see the idea of exposing students to exemplars become more and more predominant in education throughout the 21st Century, and it's something that's continuing to develop in some interesting ways. 

Anyway. In short, I want students to look at the attached table and the core text of Dracula and use it as an example of the level I want to see them working at. It's not intended as perfection, and I hope to show them other models as I find more of them, but, hopefully it's a good starting point. Students will be able to take this information and then use it to practise skills in constructing extended responses and other higher order forms of expression.

Where To From Here?

A common theme that arose during this year's ETA NSW Conference was the challenge and excitement of navigating the space between creativity and 21st century learning.

I'm only three sessions in (at the time of writing) but already we've had Megan Heyward delve into the world of emerging digital media narratives, a poetry session that repositions well-known poems as part of a lively dramatic performance, and Karen Yager exploring the myriad ways of unlocking student creativity through multimodality and other lateral means.

It's an ongoing dialogue.

Will technology blanch out the creativity of our children? Or will it elevate the creativity of the next generation into an entirely new realm that will eventually be beyond the rest of us? 

What can we, the English teacher, do to maintain relevance in the face of so many reflective surfaces? The black screens of smart phones and associated devices offer a literal reflection as well as a figurative one; a feedback loop of social media-enabled naval-gazing and validation-seeking that cuts our fingertips off. In a way, social media is an externalised extension of an internalised space - a world in which we swim against irresistable currents of conformity that stifle the bravery and experimentalism of a pen and paper in a finite room. 

It's a world that is changing in rapid and unfathomable ways. The word 'navigate' couldn't be more apt - because that's what teachers need to do. We need to observe the 'stars' and plot a course through these emergent technologies that will allow a meeting ground between the content we teach and the app-heavy sedation of our screen-scrolling students.

Image from Wikipedia (also a great example of a prodused text). Thanks Wikipedia.

Students have moved into a space where they are neither (and paradoxically both) producer and/or user - leading to the academic portmanteau 'produser'. This is a great term for describing that state of being both passive/active in relation to digital text-making. Students can create in contexts such as mindcraft, wiki sites, and social media apps; but their production of 'text' in this mode is also a result of their participation as a consumer. Check out this produsage site for a more in-depth explanation, courtesy of the work of Dr Axel Bruns.

If you're a kid of the 1980s or earlier, like me, you won't necessarily be a natural produser. But, rather than tell students how to use technology they've already deemed passe or irrelevant, we can make a venn diagram of sorts with them. They know the tech, we know the English/communication stuff, and in combining these two domains we can form a crossover space (that little oval in the middle of the venn diagram) where students can begin using digital arenas in increasingly sophisticated ways.  

You may not know how to use an iPad to make a movie, but what you do know is how that movie should look when it's shown to an audience. Students, on the other hand, will have less of a problem operating MovieMaker on the iPad, but the products they inevitably create are not likely to reflect the filmmaking acumen of the cinematically-literate.Teacher and student can collaborate together here to forge a way ahead, and this is why technology will never make the knowledge held by the previous generation irrelevant.

Film Craft: Teaching Film as a Skill

Extract: 21st century learning practice in Australia has led to an increasing shift away from summative assessment of learning to the more authentic, project-based approach of assessment as learning. In regards to the study of film, this workshop demonstrates the ways in which frontloading of information and project-based learning can facilitate greater student efficacy in building skills for critical thinking, collaborative learning, and innovative problem-solving. Students move away from the identification and analysis of film techniques towards authentic application of cinematic skills in order to become active meaning-makers in regards to the grammar of film. The benefit of this multimodal approach to literacy demonstrates the continuing development of Project-Based Learning as the greatest tool at the disposal of teachers in striking an effective balance between the demands of the syllabus, enculturated practices dictated by policy, and the need to provide opportunities for students to cultivate competencies required in increasingly complex work spaces.

In other words, students learn to write film rather than write about it. This becomes evident through their application of learned skills in a collaborative project with their peers.

Here's my presentation on this from the ETA NSW 2017 Conference:

Resource: Film Craft PPT

Resource: Close-Up Instructions Activity Sheet  

Cross-Cutting resources:

Print on coloured paper. Students then edit the images together to create a storyboard sequence that incorporates too concurrent narratives. Thus, cross-cutting. See the PPT for more information.

More on specific film skills:

• Close-Ups blog post. 
• The 180 Degree Rule blog post.

For more detail, see the article 'Uncovering the Paradigm' in the academic journal English in Australia, Volume 52, No. 3.

Write Right: Authentic Engagement and Creative Writing

It's November 2017 and the English Teachers Association NSW Conference is underway once again, bringing hundreds of English teachers together to talk crafty writing, Stage 6, new continuums, and all things multimodal.

My colleague, Kira Bryant, and I are presenting today on using mini-lessons to build engagement with students in relation to creative writing.

Here are our resources:

Resource: Write Right PPT (our presentation)

Resource: Activity booklet (this accompanied our presentation)

*Please note that the activity booklet omits the short story 'Grandpa's Place' as this piece appears in Volume 2 of the ETA's Creative Writing textbook

Differentiation: Using Assessment for Learning

Batman: definitely a fan of education

I often find myself coming back to the concept of Day One.

Day One can be the point where you first meet a class, or the point where you decide to start again with a class you already know. Day One is a beautiful thing because it allows you to essentially reboot; you can reboot your expectations, reboot your teaching methods, reboot the resources you use, and even reboot your opinion of the students. Day One can be therapeutic, for both the teacher and the students. Don't we all deserve a new Day One sometimes?

Day One is a time for trying new things. It doesn't matter if it all goes horribly exercise-book-ripped-in-half wrong because when you get to the end of Day One you get to make a decision: is tomorrow Day Two or will you forget and try again with another Day One?

Day Twos are good when they build on something that's worked, and it's important to remember that even the lessons we perceive as 'failures' are still useful lessons in what does and doesn't work, but if a Day One doesn't completely pan out then it's inevitably best to give everyone (yourself included) a second chance. An potentially essential part of an effective Day One is collecting data on your students to assist with their instruction in the days to come and I guess this post, in essence, is about allowing ourselves as teachers to evaluate students from scratch at multiple points throughout the year.

If, like me, you're teaching in a context where the majority of the classes are mixed ability, you'll find yourself tasked with a need to differentiate your curriculum. The idea of targeting your resources to match the strengths and needs of your students isn't a new one. It should be noted, however, that if you're starting out in teaching or just looking to stretch yourself, it won't always be clear how exactly one should identify the differing needs of a class of 20-30 students. You can lean on your Learning and Support Teacher if you have one, and they should be able to give you some helpful pointers, but at the end of the day it's up to each individual teacher to evaluate and judge the abilities of their students accordingly.

This brings us to the three modes of assessment in our current syllabuses: assessment as, of, and for learning. The qualification of assessment into this particular taxonomy is designed to make explicit the need for a teaching-and-learning cycle; that process where we teach, and then we learn, and then we use that learning to teach again (only better). Assessment for Learning is perhaps the most important factor in a healthy and innovative teaching-and-learning cycle. By assessing students at the beginning of a unit of work we can figure out the general level of the class's knowledge about the subject and, more pertinently, ascertain the full spectrum of ability amongst the students. 

In the course of programming a Year 8-aimed Heroes and Villains unit built around visual literacy I wanted to have a diagnostic activity that would allow me to create ability streams in the mixed classroom.

The idea is that students would start out by designing their own superhero. They would be given a period or so to write details about an original character and drawing said character. The 'test' can be found just below.

Activity: Design Your Own Superhero

After this the teacher takes the product the student has created and marks it in four different ways, using the analytical criteria below:

Through the use of this criteria, the student is being evaluated four separate times before starting the unit of work. These criteria are:

• Visual Representation: The teacher assesses the student's ability to use visual literacy to represent ideas. This will be seen in the image created by the student to represent their hero, and the use of symbolism and other visual techniques to show ideas related to their character.
• Textual Representation: How closely do the image and student-written content link together? Has the student taken their written ideas into account when designing the visual part? This is also where skills in creative writing can be assessed.
• Literacy: Starting out with a class always gives the teacher a chance to check on each student's ability to form sentences, write at a whole-sentence and whole-text level, use correct spelling and punctuation, and draw upon a wide vocabulary.
• Topic Knowledge: You're about to teach a unit on heroes and villains so finding the students who already have a strong background knowledge on comic book characters and the generic conventions associated with them will be invaluable in the days ahead. This means that it's incredibly useful to check this work to see which students know their stuff.

After you've used the analytical criteria to mark the students you can then began to see where their strengths are, and what areas need working on most. Students can subsequently be sorted into separate 'streams' of ability so that activities throughout the unit can be targeted towards different ability levels (IE. Differentiation). 

A thing to remember with differentiation is that you won't need to do it all the time - the separation of marks into five separate streams (see below) doesn't mean that you have your class split into five groups with five different kinds of work every lesson. That would be impossible to organise. The idea is that, sometimes, you can do some group work (with three different streams - core, adjusted, and extension) and other times you can individually target students who may be extremely talented in one particular area (visual literacy) with some homework.

The analytical criteria and the stream guide is included in the activity sheet linked further up. Obviously not everyone teaches heroes and villains to their Stage 4 students but feel feel to backward map anything and adapt it accordingly to suit other units of work.

Standard Module C: The Craft of Writing

This blog post offers an overview of the Prescribed Texts for Standard English Module C, 'The Craft of Writing'. In the study of this module, teachers are required to teach TWO of the Prescribed Texts. It should be noted that there are no prescribed editions for these texts, which means that they don't have to be sourced from particular anthologies or websites (NOTE: This is interesting as some of these texts [such as Crouch End] exist as different versions in different places).

I would like to offer my eternal gratitude to my colleague and mentor Kira Bryant, who supplied me with these texts. Check out her great blog: Tales from an Edugeek.

Prose Fiction Options

There are five fiction short story options to pick from, three of which are by Australian authors; Peter Carey, Catherine Cole, and Melissa Lucashenko. The last of these, Lucashenko, is also Murri Aboriginal.

'The Pedestrian' by Ray Bradbury

What is it: Leonard is a writer in the mid-21st century who has taken to walking the streets at night - the only one of the city's 3 million residents to do so. Careful not to disturb all the people safely ensconced in their houses, Leonard finds himself targeted by the city's lone police car as he walks aimlessly through this future world.  

Scope for Study / Verdict: Bradbury explores the theme of conformity in this 1950s satire of increased home comforts, imagining a future where people no longer have any reason for going outside. The protagonist subverts the conventions of his society by daring to walk for no reason other than just walking, something that confuses and alarms the authorities - represented here by the police (who no longer have much to do due to people staying inside with their TVs and air conditioning). Students will be able to draw parallels between this imagined future and their own 21st century world of increased home entertainment, with room for comment on the isolationism prompted by new technologies.

Page Count: 2 pages.

Source: First published in a magazine in 1951, 'The Pedestrian' can currently be found in the Ray Bradbury anthology The Golden Apples of the Sun.

Peter Carey doing his best "Oh hi, I'm an author" face.

'Report on Shadow Industry' by Peter Carey

What is it: An unnamed protagonist reflects on the nature of the 'shadow industry' that has emerged in America - the springing up of 'shadow factories', the way they are changing the environment, the increasing popularity of manufactured shadows, and the connection of this new product to misery, suicide, envy, embarrassment, etc. 

Scope for Study / Verdict: In this fictional 'report' Carey satirises the nature of materialism by taking an abstract and obviously useless product and showing its impact on society. Carey explores the various dimensions that come with a society obsessed with material possessions, drawing upon his own background as an advertiser to make evident the power that consumerism holds over the customer. Students will be able to engage fairly easily with the story due to its brevity, unusual concept, and the fact that it's broken into 5 separate short parts that deal with different aspects of the topic.

Page Count: 3 pages.

Source: Written in 1974, 'Report on the Shadow Industry' can be found in Peter Carey's anthology Collected Stories.

'Home' by Catherine Cole

What is it: Ahmed is a refugee who, after spending 4 years in the Villawood Detention Centre, moves into a small Sydney house next to a cemetery. He finds his new home strange and alienating, and the profound losses he has endured make it difficult for him to even find solace in his religious faith. 

Scope for Study / Verdict: Cole plays with past and present tense to manipulate the reader's distance from the story at various points, and tells Ahmed's tale in a third person limited perspective that allows for the reader to get a deeper understanding of what the character is going through. This narrative also allows for the reader to view the way that Australian culture appears when seen through the prism of a newly-released asylum seeker's eyes. Unlike the more high concept, abstract narratives of the previously examined short stories, 'Home' is very much a character piece that allows for students (and teachers) to look at perspective and characterisation in a fairly traditional sense. 

Page Count: 8 pages.

Source: 'Home' can be found in The Best Australian Stories 2011 anthology (ISBN: 9781863955485).

'Crouch End' by Stephen King

What is it: Two police officers in the London suburb of Crouch End field a case from a hysterical American woman who has lost her husband. Crouch End is known for mysterious disappearances and odd goings-on, and the husband, Lonnie, has become the latest victim of the Lovecraftian monsters that live beneath the Earth in this area.

Scope for Study / Verdict:  Originally written as a contribution to an anthology that sought to 'shake up' H. P. Lovecraft's long-familiar Cthulhu Mythos, 'Crouch End' sees King combine the British 'bobby' police procedural genre with his well-known penchant for horror. Watch out for the challenging structure (it risks getting lost in flashbacks within flashbacks), as well as the UK-specific vernacular that King rather unsuccessfully tries his hand at (EG. "Maybe you ought to give me a kiss... I always fancy a kiss when I'm getting my doodle pulled").

Page Count: 17 pages.

Source: Originally published in 1980 as part of Ramsay Cambpell's anthology New Tales of the Cthulhu Mythos. The source listed in the syllabus document, though, is a slightly different edition of the story published in Stephen King's 1993 short story collection Nightmares and Dreamscapes.

Lucashenko has written six novels, including the award-winning teen mystery, Killing Darcy.

'Dreamers' by Melissa Lucashenko

What is it: Jean, a young Aboriginal woman, comes to a farm in rural 1940s NSW to seek work, and develops a friendship with a farmer's wife, May. Together they raise May's son, Eric, a toddler so prone to wandering off that they decide to attach a bell to him.

Scope for Study / Verdict: Lucashenko's story spreads across a two decade backdrop of post-war Australia and incorporates contextual points related to our mid-20th Century history - including the 1967 Referendum, the Aboriginal missions, and the impact of the war on rural Australia. The writing itself mostly sticks to a third person limited perspective that's both understandable enough for Stage 6 Standard students and inclusive of enough context-specific vernacular to maintain an engaging sense of setting and character. In terms of teaching students, 'Dreamers' is also a good example of a circular narrative structure.

Page Count: 11 pages.

Source: 'Dreamers' can be found in the 2016 anthology The Near and the Far: new stories from the Asia-Pacific Region.

Nonfiction Options

There are four non-fiction options to pick from. Two of these writers are American, one is British, and the other is Australian. All are Anglo-Saxon/Western.

'Dear Mrs Dunkley' by Helen Garner

What is it: Garner reminisces about her formidable childhood teacher, Mrs Dunkley, and describes the dread of her teaching methods. The story pieces together Garner's memory, her impressions now, a dream she once had and wrote about, and a letter from a stranger that illuminated the real Mrs Dunkley and forever changed Garner's remembrance of the woman.

Scope for Study / Verdict: A fantastic piece that expertly dances between childhood memory and adult experience to draw a complex portrait of a terrifying but influential figure in the author's life. Garner brings Mrs Dunkley to life before the reader's eyes through the use of carefully-observed imagery and hindsight, and the final part of the overall piece packs a resounding punch that will shift the audience's entire view of the story. A perfect example of a well-written memoir.

Page Count: 3 pages.

Source: This piece appears in the 2012 collection Sincerely: Further Adventures in the Art of Correspondence from Women of Letters, curated by Marieke Hardy and Michaela Maguire. It can also be found online as a Sydney Morning Herald article, and in Helen Garner's own non-fiction anthology Everywhere I Look, published in 2016.

'The Sporting Spirit' by George Orwell

What is it: Orwell comments on a 1945 visit from the Dynamo Moscow football team to play some historic matches against the British, and in particular on the way that sport can be viewed as an extension of aggressive nationalism. The writer deconstructs the motivations and impacts of international-level sport, drawing on the 20th century re-emergence of sport as a contributing factor to the destructive nature of nationalism.

Scope for Study / Verdict: Once you get past the 1940s context there's a lot in this piece that should prompt Standard English students into discussion. With Australia's sporting culture so prevalent at a school-level in so many different contexts (urban, rural, suburban, private schools, public schools, whatever), it shouldn't be an issue getting students to engage with the contentious idea that sport can be ultimately damaging when examined on a national scale. Orwell's relatively straight-forward and conversational style also makes this piece perfect for a Standard English cohort, and there's ample scope for analysing his use of figurative language, rhetoric, logos, and ethos in an attempt to persuade the audience. It's also worth noting that, if you have a high-performing Standard class, the gender and race-related prejudices of Orwell and his time can be critically evaluated as well.

Page Count: 2 pages.

Source: Originally published in the leftist newspaper The Tribune on the 14th of December, 1945. The essay be easily found online with a quick Google search, and has also been published in Penguin's 'Modern Classics' series as part of the Orwell non-fiction anthology Essays (ISBN: 9780141183060).

'A Comparison' by Sylvia Plath

What is it: This short piece delves into the differences between writing a poem and a novel, with Plath using the full brunt of her descriptive and figurative powers to characterise the two literary forms in a complicated and interconnected manner.

Scope for Study / Verdict: A wonderfully creative piece of artistry. Plath playfully manipulates language and uses imagery, metaphor, personification, and candor to control the relationship between subject and audience. The density of the piece is preserved by it's brevity, which means that Standard students should be able to deconstruct it in close-up without fear of losing their way too much.

Page Count: 2 pages.

Source: This piece can be found in the Plath collection Johnny Panic and the Bible of Dreams, a volume released in 2000 that focused on her non-poetry pieces.

Vowell is a journalist and social commentator best known for her work on radio in examining American culture.

'What He Said There' by Sarah Vowell

What is it: The author describes a visit to the historical town of Gettysburg, where Abraham Lincoln once delivered his famous Gettysburg Address during the American Civil War. As she tours the town, Vowell flits across themes on the commodification of history, the dumbing down of culture, and what it is that ensures certain parts of history live on in the collective memories of the wider public.

Scope for Study / Verdict: In a piece rich in literary invention, Vowell meditates on the nature of history within the context of modern America. In examining the author's writing, students might consider why Abraham Lincoln is seen as an 'American Jesus', or why the Gettysburg Address is like a 'soy-bean', or why the author switches to present tense when describing Lincoln's thought processes 137 years ago. There's also this great quote, "The best the slaughtered can usually hope for is a cameo in some kind of art", which is basically the thesis of the article.

Page Count: 8 pages

Source: Vowell's essay can be found in her book, The Partly Cloudy Patriot, published in 2002.

Speech Options

Of the four speeches, two are Australian, one is American, and one is British (delivered at an American institution). Both of the Australian ones are delivered by politicians, one of whom is Wiradjuri Aboriginal.

Linda Burney delivering her historic speech.

'First Speech to the House of Representatives as Member for Barton' by Linda Burney

What is it: In this speech, Linda Burney, the first Aboriginal woman to be elected to the House of Representatives, gives her inaugural speech to Parliament in 2016. She explains what it is she stands for, who the people of her electorate are, and the background she has come from. Burney uses this opportunity to describe the role of politics as she sees it, with particular attention given to the themes of equality, welfare, and the remedying of past wrongs to pave the way for a more inclusive nation.

Scope for Study / Verdict: Burney is an entertaining speaker, utilising humour and pathos to construct a deeply affecting picture of Australia's marginalised minority groups and what it means for them to have people like herself in parliament. Teachers will need to examine the speech within the context of 2016 and the history that has led to this point, with Burney referencing the Wiradjuri Wars of the 19th century, the 1967 Referendum, the differences between the Liberal and Labor Parties, Edmund Barton, the 2008 Apology, the incumbent government's defense of 'hate speech' in 2016, and a few other relevant events. Students can examine the rhetoric used by Burney to strengthen her position and draw connections between the content of her speech and their own lives and beliefs.

Page Count: 8 pages.

Source: A transcription and video of the 2016 speech can both be found on the Parliament of Australia website.

'How to Live Before You Die' by Steve Jobs

What is it: In a speech delivered at Stanford University, Apple Mac creator Steve Jobs describes the purpose of things, and the art of using your experiences to carve your own unique path. Through the use of hindsight and the telling of three key stories, Jobs explains the cause and effect chain that led to his own innovations, and what motivates him to live his life in the way that he does.

Scope for Study / Verdict: This is a very accessible speech, and one made somewhat poignant by Jobs' death by cancer (he references having been cured of pancreatic cancer). I think it would work quite well with a Standard English class as the language is conversational and straightforward whilst dealing with some hard truths pitched at an audience of young adults.

Page Count: 3 pages.

Source: Delivered as the 2005 Stanford University Commencement speech, 'How to Live Before You Die' can be found on Stanford's website here.

Paul Keating lays a wreath at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier

'Funeral Service of The Unknown Australian Soldier' by Paul Keating

What is it: Prime Minister Paul Keating delivers a eulogy on Remembrance Day for all Australian soldiers who have died in war, examining what it means to die for one's country, and the reasons why we honour the fallen.

Scope for Study / Verdict: Keating's mastery of the speech genre is well-renowned, and his memorial speech for the 'Unknown Soldier' provides ample fodder for the study of rhetoric, and the way politicians like Keating use this art form to control language and persuade audiences. Examples for analysis include anaphora, logos, the use of semi-colons as 'super commas', symbolism, carefully selected paragraph breaks, parataxis, embedded clauses, and polysyndeton - all persuasive and structural devices that demonstrate Keatin's expertise as a renowned orator.

Page Count: 2 pages.

Source: A transcript of the speech can be found on Paul Keating's website.

'The Fringe Benefits of Failure and the Importance of Imagination' by JK Rowling

What is it: Harry Potter author JK Rowling delivers a speech to Harvard University upon receiving an honorary doctorate, choosing to focus on the concept of failure as a force that can galvanize people into assessing their own purpose in life, seeking out the things that truly matter to them, and using this as a foundation to build their own dreams. Rowling recounts her own experiences of failure and how this led to her work at Amnesty International, and the impact this had on her.

Scope for Study / Verdict: An uplifting speech that's perfectly pitched for Year 12 students who will be evaluating their own life journeys in the days to come. There's a great quote from Rowling, "There is an expiry date on blaming your parents on steering you in the wrong direction; the moment you are old enough to take the wheel, responsibility lies with you", which should have some relevance to the young adults we teach. Her speech encompasses themes of achievement, failure, speaking up, and the (implied) meaning of life itself. There's also just enough challenging terms smattered throughout that will allow for expanding student vocabulary, IE. 'quixotic', 'paradoxical', 'parenthesis', 'ennobling', 'vicissitudes', 'temerity', etc. 

Page Count: 5 pages.

Source:  The full text of the speech, which was delivered in 2008, can be found on one of Harvard University's websites here. A 20 minute recording of the speech can also be found on the Ted Talk website and on Youtube.

 
Poetry / Performance Poetry Options

Of the five poets featured here there are three Australians. The international entrants are the American Robert Frost and Singaporean poet Carol Chan.

'Popcorn' by Carol Chan

What is it: Chan ruminates on the international origins of her 7/11-bought popcorn while remembering a conversation with a barista from China, and considers the fine line between authentic culinary experience and phony, consumer-driven materialism. The piece is framed by a comparison between the poet's craving for popcorn and the feeling of disappointment she experiences when she eats it.

Scope for Study / Verdict: Standard English students may at first be confused by the presentation of this blank verse poem in couplets that break up an otherwise straightforward piece of writing. Chan folds an illuminating conversation inside of the story of the persona's popcorn-consumption, adding irony and political commentary to an otherwise innocuous occurrence. I think this would be a fun poem to teach, especially if you have creative students who might appreciate composing their own pieces in a similar manner.

Page Count: 14 pairs of lines (about 1 page).

Source: 'Popcorn' features in Contemporary Asian Australian Poets (ISBN 9781921450655). This 2013 anthology is also a Prescribed Text for Standard English Module A: Language, Identity and Culture.

Frost's demeanour and fashion suggest a certain oneness with nature

'Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening' by Robert Frost

What is it: Frost describes a sense of rapture experienced by the poem's persona. The short and economically-composed portrait of the woods-in-season represents a communion with nature that links to concepts of place and emotion.

Scope for Study / Verdict: I guess this could be seen as the token international 'classic' entry in the poetry section of Module C, with Frost's exploration of nature conveyed through traditional use of imagery, sensory description, and elegant word choices. The poetry is more than accessible enough for a Standard English class, and its mileage will probably depend on the level of enthusiasm held by the teacher for Frost's poetry.

Length: 4 short stanzas.

Source: Originally published in 1923, this poem can be found most recently in The Collected Poems of Robert Frost, released in 2012.

'An Absolutely Ordinary Rainbow' by Les Murray

What is it: A man stops and begins to cry in the middle of Sydney at Martin Place. The poem describes the way surrounding people react to the weeping man, with multiple points of view building a sense of depth and mystery.

Scope for Study / Verdict: Murray arranges free verse into several five-line stanzas, eschewing a more formalised structure in order to force the focus onto the content of the poem. Students can be scaffolded in examining each viewpoint presented, and there is a lot of scope for discussion in terms of creatively exploring the enigmatic weeping man at the centre of the piece and the strange impact he has on those around him. I think this would be a fantastic piece to study with a class both in terms of analysing the text and using it as a basis for creative writing activities.

Length: 9 stanzas presented across two pages.

Source: 'An Absolutely Ordinary Rainbow' can be found in the 2012 book The Best 100 Poems of Les Murray, published by Black Inc.

I'm just gonna say it: Judith Wright looks like such a badass in this photo. I love it.

'The Surfer' by Judith Wright

What is it: This 1945 piece by the Australian poet Judith Wright describes a body surfer's mastery of the waves, the synergy between the human swimmer and the personified ocean, and the dangers that lurk in attempting to subjugate such a powerful force of nature.

Scope for Study / Verdict: Wright's language is powerful and visceral in its description of action, drawing parallels and tensions between the ocean and the swimmer who attempts to ride it, and remains a great piece of verse. The poem is relatively short and features little in the way of obscure or archaic language, allowing instead for the Standard English student to observe the writer's creative use of structure when arranging clauses and word combinations. There is also scope for students to explore connections to the poetry in terms of what it has to say about the underlying conflict or relationship between humanity and the elements.

Length: 3 stanzas (1 page)

Source: The poem can be found in the anthology Judith Wright: Collected Poems 1942-1985 published in 2016.

'May Your Pen Grace the Page', performance by Luka Lesson

What is it: A plea for potential writers to express themselves creatively, Lesson's slam poetry examines the nature of writing itself as an entity to be wooed and flirted with, and gives way to enthusiastic and romantic reflection.

Scope for Study / Verdict: The inclusion of this piece as a performance rather than a text-poem brings into focus the potential for analysing multimodality, with Lesson using pace and volume to build tension and emphasis. In 'May Your Pen Grace the Page', the process of writing is personified as a lover, calling to mind similarities with other Module C texts such as Sylvia Plath's 'A Comparison', and Lesson mixes the genres of poetry and hip-hop, which may assist with engaging some Standard English students with nominally challenging content.

Length: 3 and a half minutes.

Source: An audio recording can be found on Luka Lesson's 2012 CD Please Resist Me, and on Youtube. A transcript can also be found here.

A Brief History of Wake in Fright

It's been interesting watching the promotional material for the new mini-series adaptation of Wake in Fright on Channel 10, which has made some rather bold claims that the TV series is based on a 'classic' Australian novel. What's interesting about this is that whilst the 1961 novel was well-received at the time of its publication (and has remained in print), it's the 1971 film that had the bigger reputation on the international stage.

The film was known as Outback overseas - no doubt a clever marketing ploy to get Americans and Europeans to see the film as an exotic vision of the Australian desert. It was nominated for a major award at the Cannes Film Festival in 1971 and was applauded by critics the world over. But, you may have noticed, it isn't really the sort of film that pops up on Australian TV, nor is it as spoken about as much as other popular Australian films like Crocodile Dundee, The Castle, or at least Picnic at Hanging Rock.

There's a reason for this.

The 1971 film Wake in Fright went missing. For over 30 years the film was out of circulation due to the negative disappearing. An Australian producer searched for it for over a decade before finding a copy in a container in Pittsburgh; a container that was marked 'for destruction'. Close call! The film was subsequently restored and released in the 21st century for many eager cinephiles (such as myself) to finally enjoy.

It's quite possibly the greatest film ever made about Australia, and a film that might not sit well with the average Aussie viewer. In fact, despite it's popularity overseas, Wake in Fright was shunned by sectors of the Australian film-consuming community upon its release - perhaps due to the fact that it cuts a little close to the bone in terms of analyising the stereotypical Australian character. It would be a great text for the English Studies mandatory unit 'We Are Australian', in terms of what it says about the Australian character and what our reaction to it says about the Australian character. In fact, any English unit focusing on Australian iconography or identity would work well with this text.

Wake in Fright was more or less the first film to put modern Australia on the silver screen as it truly was; prior to this the Australian film industry was basically non-existent. Up until the 1940s it had acted as a satellite film industry to England, depicting Australians who were for all intents and purposes displaced British citizens. There were a sprinkling of Hollywood productions made on Australian soil in the late '50s (two notable examples are the apocalyptic On the Beach and the colourful epic The Sundowners) but it wasn't until the British-financed Wake in Fright that it suddenly seemed possible for Australia to have a self-sufficient industry of its own. Wake in Fright's importance and impact was so big that it spawned two parallel lines of cinema in the 1970s and beyond: the artistically-inclined Australian New Wave (spearheaded by the directors Peter Weir, Fred Schepisi, and Bruce Beresford) and the crowd-pleasingly low brow films that have come to be known as the Ozploitation genre (see Mad Max, Razorback, Stone). Wake in Fright has elements of both these waves of filmmaking, and is just a great film to boot.

John (Gary Bond) is an upper-middle class schoolteacher serving his time in the isolated outback town of Tiboonda. He resents being stationed so far from what he deems to be civilisation, and when the school holidays come around he aims to return to Sydney for a reprieve. In the course of this journey he comes to the mining town of Bundanyabba (AKA "the Yabba"), an outback town where he stops to rest and have a quiet drink. Some locals at the Yabba introduce him to an underground two-up ring, where he gets a taste for gambling. John sees a chance to make enough money to free him from his outback teaching post, but he ends up losing everything instead. As a result he's stranded in the Yabba, without a dollar to his name, and unable to even get to the next town. He falls in with some 'friendly' locals, and they initiate him into their way of life - a kind of hell from which there seems to be no escape.

Wake in Fright's biggest weapon is its subtle use of irony to examine the widening gap between intellectualism and the working class in Australia, perhaps most immediately evident in the contrast between the gentle music that plays throughout the opening credits and the first line of dialogue; an abrupt "Shut up!" that foreshadows the barely restrained tension that bubbles under the affable manner of the average Australian country character. As John travels out of Tiboonda he finds himself invited to drink with a group of drunken locals on the train, which he politely declines in favour of sitting by himself. It's this aloofness that is only real defence, and dropping it will be his undoing - a reflection of the anxieties of the suburban psyche. An interesting side note of this early train-set scene full of of 'friendly' Aussies is that there's also an Aboriginal man sitting by himself - a keen visual reminded of the separatist reality of Australian culture. This simple truth gets blown up to magnificent proportions throughout the course of the film, almost to a point where it's literally too hard to look at.

In a film full of contrasts - such as the juxtaposition of the jovial nature of the Australian character with the desolate, sand-blasted environment - it's perhaps the contrast between the intellectual teacher and the working class rural Australians that is most affecting. The Yabba townsfolk don't take too kindly to John's resentment of their habitat and culture. His arrogance leads him to unashamedly label two-up as a "simple-minded game". Nearly everything he says and does makes it obvious that he looks down on the Yabba, he even casts the 'fair go' temperament of the locals as the "arrogance of stupid people". The flipside of this is what comes to be termed as the "aggressive hospitality" of the rural Australian, a subtle and cunning strategy the Yabba folk employ to entrap their prey. It's never made explicit or said outright, all this stuff happens just under the surface through the narrowing of eyes and some ironically 'friendly' phrases. John may be an unsympathetic protagonist when the film begins, but by the end the balance of power is tipped well out of his favour and the audience can't help but feel sorry for him despite his flaws. The Yabba men toy with him and, for all his big city cleverness, they're always in control of his life. They take his money, destroy his concept of time, and degrade him completely. To them he's uneducated because he has no understanding of their lifestyle. When they take him shooting he wants to claim his kill, but they tell him there's no point because all the foxes are mangy in the outback, and it's at this point that he realises the pointlessness of his assimilation. However, it's also too late for any epiphany, a kind of Stockholm Syndrome has taken hold of him - leading to a disturbingly barbaric roo-shooting sequence. At the end of his transformation John even throws his beloved books away, all the civilisation is washed out of him and escape becomes nothing more than a dim fantasy.

Of all the actors it's probably Australian film legend Chips Rafferty and British actor Donald Pleasance who stand out the most. Rafferty, in his last film, has an important supporting role as the local representative of the law, and Pleasance (with a perfect Australian accent) plays an alcoholic doctor. The 'good' doctor admits that his disease (alcoholism) prevents him from practising in Sydney but that in the Yabba this affliction is barely noticeable. It's a sadly acute observation that all but labels Australia's propensity for drinking as an outright blight on our national character. Along with a talent for beerswilling, the Australian character is further represented in Wake in Fright through several other tropes - a reverence for the ANZACs, two-up, mateship, and poker-machines as a 'healthy' tradition. Add to this the friendliness that only really exists as long as you fit the unspoken rules of the friendly atmosphere, and the aforementioned 'aggressive hospitality', and you have an image of the Australian that fits a little too uncomfortably. There's also the suggestion that an Australian man must be masculine in order to be a 'true Australian'; an idea that feeds into the theme of a divide between intellectualism and the working class. John finds that he actually has more in common with the reserved daughter of one of his 'friends' than he does with any of the males he meets, further highlighting the way his intellect makes him un-Australian in comparison to the Yabba blokes.

In short, the film Wake in Fright could be viewed as a serious piece of anthropology hidden underneath a whole lot of mindless drinking, punching, and humiliation. It's like the dark flipside to films like Dimboola and The Adventures of Barry McKenzie - 1970s comedies that lampooned Australian's yobbo drinking culture with a much lighter touch. I'll admit that I haven't seen the TV remake of the novel/film at this point in time, however, you would do very well to check out this early '70s classic. It's a great piece of cinema.