Reading Roll: Late 2017/Early 2018

My last Reading Roll was back in March last year but, the thing is... I never stopped reading! I just stopped posting reviews because I switched to reading the texts on the new HSC NSW English Prescriptions List, and have been talking about them in the context of their appropriateness to the new English syllabuses here, here, here, here and here. Every now and again I make a little time to read some non-Prescribed texts and below are some of these non-Prescriptions, most of which were graphic novels. Some of these I read just for fun but would still be good for classroom use.

Hot Dog Taste Test by Lisa Hanawalt

Hanawalt is probably best known for her work on the TV series Bojack Horseman. This graphic novel is less a novel and more a collection of comic vignettes exploring absurdist tangents and autobiographical snippets of Hanawalt's life (mostly in regards to food). The author's hilariously askew sense-of-humour had me laughing out-loud a lot, and it took me absolutely no time at all to read from cover to cover.

The Imposter's Daughter by Laurie Sandell

Joining the hallowed annals of graphic novel memoirs is no mean feat but I would easily put Sandell's story alongside other personal accounts such as Craig Thompson's Blankets and Alison Bechdel's Fun Home. Sandell is probably best known for her work as a journalist and editor for magazines such as Glamour, Marie Claire, Esquire, GQ, etc., however, in this frank and sometimes unbelievable memoir she weaves together an arresting narrative of finding her feet in writing and gradually discovering her father's uncanny (and highly damaging) gift for con-artistry.

Big History by DK

Have you ever looked at the subject of history and wondered, "Where's all the stuff that happened before humans came along?" Well, if so, then Big History is the coffee table book for you. This vibrant, illustrated DK guide to David Christian's groundbreaking combination of history and science helps to make clear the recurring patterns that unify all of history as we know it. A hugely informative book.

Wilson by Daniel Clowes

This graphic novel is a disarmingly brisk jaunt through the life of the titular misanthrope, a curmudgeonly loner who insists on voicing his criticisms in just about every situation. What's perhaps most interesting about Wilson is its structure, with Clowes depicting his protagonist's life in a serialised form over the course of single-page strips (like the sort of comic strips you'd see in newspapers) despite the whole thing having been constructed as a graphic novel. This means that we get these snapshots of Wilson's life, condensing a much larger narrative into 70 single strips that each end in a twisted take on the stereotypical gags associated with Sunday morning newspaper cartoons.

Night Air and Volcano Trash by Ben Sears

My only criticism of Sears' fantasy/sci-fi series is that each volume flies by so quickly that you're left wishing you didn't have to wait so long until the next installment of Plus Man's exhilarating adventures with his robotic sidekick Hank. Think Adventure Time mixed with the buoyant, minimalist artwork of Tintin. Great for all ages!

Last Look by Charles Burns

Charles Burns is probably best known for his creepy, psychedelic graphic novel Black Hole. The volume Last Look brings together his most recent trilogy of graphic novels, and complexly weaves together two narratives that dance around themes of psychosis, anxiety, and guilt. Burns is a master of symbolism and the bizarrely disturbing, and all I'll say is that if you read this you'll need to commit to the whole thing - everything in this narrative is perfectly intentional, no matter how weird it might seem, and the ending will make you look at the whole thing in a new light.

Some Comics by Stephen Collins

I was drawn to this collection of single strips after reading Collins' brilliantly absurd The Gigantic Beard That Was Evil. Unlike the aforementioned graphic novel, these single-page comics are much more comedy-oriented. I appreciated Collins' twisted sense of humour though and eagerly await whatever he does next!

Transmetropolitan by Warren Ellis

I'm about 6 or so volumes into this '90s cyberpunk series that, sadly, still feels blisteringly relevant in its satirical subversion of politics, society, and all things 'modern'. The protagonist, Spider Jerusalem, is one of the great non-superpowered anti-heroes of comics, and his invective-laden rants against the grimy futuristic dystopia he lives in are sharp enough to cut steel.

Comfort Food by Ellen Van Neervan

I grabbed Van Neervan's poetry volume after all the controversy that came out of her poem Mango being included in last year's HSC. Her work is sparse, thoughtful, intense, sensory, personal... I really enjoyed the wide range of verse and all I'll say in regards to the controversy is that it was unfounded, the Mango poem did its job in provoking such a diversity in responses. I hope Van Neervan has many more volumes of poetry to come.

Tranny by Laura Jane Grace

I'm a huge Against Me! fan, even if I do actually prefer the more polished and anthemic later stuff over their raw, folk-punk beginnings. In this brutally honest memoir, Laura Jane Grace combines her diary entries with a more straightforward narrative to describe her journey of discovery in relation to identity and gender. There aren't many transsexual music icons with as high a profile as Grace, which makes this autobiography a must-read for both punk-rock fans and those interested in gender politics and LGBT issues. It helps that Grace holds nothing back when discussing her family, friends, bandmates, music, etc., and it makes for a very entertaining and visceral read.

Dracula by Bram Stoker

I read this in preparation for teaching Year 11 Extension English 1 this year. I'd never read it before so I wasn't sure how it would go, but I actually liked it a lot. I'm coming around to accepting the disjointed nature of a lot of Victorian-era novels (it was always something I struggled a lot with in my younger days), and the opening five chapters of Dracula are probably my favourite part of Stoker's seminal vampire tale. I have no doubt that this because they're the most representative of how people commonly think of the Count and his predatory behaviour. The rest of the novel has elements worth reading too but, as I mentioned, it can feel disjointed at times. The biggest point of interest for me was how unromanticised Stoker's portrayal of Count Dracula is - not at all like the many iterations of vampires we've seen since.  

The Analects by Confucius

I came across a statistic somewhere that claimed Confucius's Analects is the most read text of all time. I'm not sure if it's true or not but - considering China's long history, population, and influence on the world - it sounds legit, and that's why I thought I should read it. As a work of philosophy, I found it best digested over a few months, a couple of quotes at a time. As a 2500 year old text the context sometimes made it a little difficult to translate some parts (even when written in English), but I still found many quotes to be applicable to the modern day. I guess there's a reason why the wisdom of Confucius endures. 

Dark Emu by Bruce Pascoe

This groundbreaking history book couldn't be more relevant to Australian society at this point in time. Pascoe has done something truly astonishing in bringing together extensive research, documentation, testimony, and first-hand experience to reconstruct Australia's pre-European past and thus deconstruct a lot of the myths surrounding what Aboriginal society looked like before Captain Cook's arrival. Pascoe not only makes an undeniable case for the idea of an Aboriginal 'civilisation', he also outlines the racist ideologies and methods that led to the erasure of this civilisation from white consciousness in the years since settlement. I found it both fascinating and enraging.

Lincoln in the Bardo by George Saunders

When I hear the words 'experimental novel' I tend to think I'll probably need to read it with a highlighter and a notepad, but Saunders' genre-defying historical fantasy bucks the trend and manages to be remarkably entertaining and heartfelt despite its structural idiosyncrasies. Told from the point of view of a collection of spirits 'stuck' between our world and the next, Lincoln in the Bardo mixes primary historical sources with outlandish speculation to capture the voices of America's 19th century. Easily worth the many awards it's won.

Rocannon's World by Ursula Le Guin

Le Guin's early science fiction novel is often overlooked in favour of her Earthsea Quartet or later sci-fi classics such as The Dispossessed and The Left Hand of Darkness. What makes Rocannon's World noteworthy is that it's the first entry in the 'Hainish Cycle' - eight science fiction novels (including the two mentioned above) that take place in the same fictional timeline/universe. Rocannon's World is a fairly brief concept-based novel that takes an anthropological look at human descendants living on an alien world, and uses some conceits related to the time distortions/differences that would arise in our theoretical exploration of space in the future. It's a neat sci-fi narrative but, as always, what makes Le Guin's work stand out is her knack for exploring the genre through a more post-modern perspective without leaving the reader behind.

Ready Player One by Ernest Cline

I wanted to see what all the hype was about and I think I'm lucky that I read this before I even realised it was becoming a film because the aggressively intertextual marketing campaign for Spielberg's movie would have turned me off altogether. Ready Player One isn't going to amaze any fans of award-winning literature nor will it prove intellectually stimulating to those who are normally attracted to sci-fi. What it does have going for it is a fun, geek-culture-heavy adventure that's easy to read and hard to put down. I enjoyed it, for the most part.

A Contract With God by Will Eisner

The name 'Eisner' has become synonymous with the graphic novel canon owing to this ground-breaking collection of longer-form comics. Eisner's use of the comic strip medium to explore dark, adult concepts was instrumental in the form's continuing development from superhero/comedy mainstay to a storytelling method that could be used to serve literature in a deeper fashion. A Contract with God remains highly arresting in its exploration of pain, loss, and displaced Jewish identity, and I found myself unable to tear away from each of the four thematically-linked stories - fascinated as much by the evidently heartfelt personal context and Eisner's seamless combination of word and image.

The Death of Stalin by Fabien Nury

It's easy to see why British satirist Armando Iannucci chose this one-shot graphic novel as the basis for his recent film of the same name. Inventively Machiavellian and as poisonous as any fatal snake bite, The Death of Stalin presents the true story of the Russian despot's demise and the political fallout that followed. In most hands this could have been a dry piece of historical retelling, but Nury zeroes in on the awful, the unbelievable, the rage-inducing, and the downright ridiculous to portray the final days of a bloodthirsty tyrant and the serpentine beginnings of the Cold War.

Sad Topographies by Damien Rudd

I'm a sucker for a quirky coffee table book. I saw this one in a Newtown bookstore and was immediately taken with its subject matter. Originating as an Instagram account, Rudd explores a series of depressingly named locations around the world with thoughtful essays on associated errata, etymological digressions, and miscellany. Places featured include Nothing, World's End, Isle of the Dead, Disappointment Island, and Port Famine.

Moonhead and the Music Machine

This graphic novel about the power of music, teenage misfitism, and what it's like to literally have a moon for a head is just the right mix of angst, comedy, and fantasy. I really enjoyed Joey Moonhead's journey towards acceptance and identity. His absurd friendships with other teenagers on the outskirts of the archetypal American high school are hilarious and visually arresting. A true gem.

The Finder Library Volume 1 by Carla Speed McNeil

Pulling together a diverse array of influences to mix together Indigenous narratives, comic styles related to Manga and online serials, and post-apocalyptic sci-fi, The Finder Library is a unique and genre-defying exercise in exotic world-building. McNeil ties together the narrative of Jaeger, a drifter with troubled origins, and the domestically-strained mixed-race family of Emma Lockhart and Brigham Grosvener. To give you an idea of the scope of this impressive series, McNeil's vision of the distant future explores the interrelation of racial identity and social standing, biological vs. culturally-constructed notions of gender, media consumption, and the impact of violence on the individual.

The Moon is a Harsh Mistress by Robert A. Heinlein

I've half-read a Heinlein before and couldn't finish it, so it was with some trepidation that I gave this one a shot. The Moon is a Harsh Mistress was enjoyable but also not without its issues. Told through the cynical eyes of one-armed computer technician Mannie, a 'loonie' (citizen of the Moon), The Moon is a Harsh Mistress relates the imagined revolution of Earth's lunar colony - paralleling the Bolshevism of 1920s Russia, nightmare scenarios of over-population and diminishing resources, and the 'free love' movement of the 1960s. The protagonist Mannie is thankfully the least annoying character in the novel, however, there is also a lot of political subplotting that doesn't really go anywhere quick enough, and the supporting characters veer between completely forgettable and incredibly irritating. That said, Heinlein's depiction of a lunar colony has some fairly interesting dimensions, and I enjoyed the way it plays into the counter-culture of Heinlein's era. Notable for its invention of the phrase 'There's no such thing as a free lunch!"

Film Studies: Making a Zoetrope

Okay. A little context before I start: I'm currently about a quarter of the way through teaching a two-year Film Studies course. This is a board-endorsed course that I'm currently running at my school as a Stage 5 English elective, and this term the class is looking at Special Effects. More specifically, students look at how key innovations have enabled new representations and shifts in meaning within the context of film narratives. 

The activity below could quite easily be adapted as a fun, practical exploration of film for any junior English class.

The Zoetrope

The zoetrope is an early innovation in film technology that helped to establish the fundamental premise for turning photography into a moving image. Variations of this invention had been around for quite some time by the 19th century and were used to show simple looped animations. It wasn't until 1878, however, that the pioneering photographer Eadweard Muybridge invented a way to take a rapid sequence of photographs to depict a horse running. He combined this system (which utilised 24 separate cameras and a series of tripwires) with the existing technologies of the zoetrope and the praxinoscope (which was like a zoetrope with mirrors) to create what is arguably the first film, The Horse in Motion. I've recreated this above in the zoetrope example.

Muybridge suffered a irreparable brain injury in a horse-carriage crash, which led to erratic and eccentric behaviour, and it was after this point that he came up with his impressive innovations in photography. It's believed that his accident damaged his orbitofrontal cortex, leading to an erasure of social inhibitions that allowed for increased creativity in his mind.

Some students will be interested in hearing this stuff, but all of my class were able to remember the content much more comprehensively after they themselves have had a go at making their own zoetropes.

My first prototype was more complicated then it needed to be - there are a couple of things in the picture above that I ended up not needing.

Preparation

There are lots of instructions online that give an idea of how the zoetrope and similar devices can be made in the classroom but I wanted to ensure that I was able to create one myself before I put it into the hands of the kids. This was invaluable because I quickly learned that some aspects of the process could be streamlined or were best avoided altogether. Click here for teacher creation-instructions, which were written after I'd fine-tuned the process.

Initially I set out to use a wire and wire cutters to set up a frame from which the device could spin but my wife Nicole pointed out that it was much easier to simply hold the string by hand and spin it that way. 

 

Additionally, the cutting of the cardboard strip also requires a fine blade and the idea of handing Stanley knives out to my Year 9 class made me break out into a cold sweat. So I pre-prepared the cardboard strips they would use in order to take this element out.

Here's what you'll need before handing over to the students:

• Black cardboard (enough for the whole class)
• Paper (to measure the cardboard strips)
• A scalpel or Stanley knife 
• A cutting board
• Plastic picnic plates (make sure they have a raised rim - this will allow for the cardboard strip to be held in place)
• A single-hole punch
• String, or thick thread
• Scissors
• Ruler
• Sticky tape

Use the paper to create a 'master' strip - this is what you'll use to measure and cut each of the black cardboard strips you'll be giving your students. The best measurements (that work with a standard-sized plastic plate) are as follow:

• 10 frames in length - 60mm per frame.
• Entire strip to be 100mm in height.
• The frames will sit in the bottom 40mm.
• Above the frames are 10 slits approx. 2mm wide and 40mm long. These sit above and between each frame. 

As you can imagine, 2mm is quite finnicky so you'll need that fine blade. Measure it all out on white paper and overlay the paper on the black cardboard to cut the black strips out. Use sticky tape to place the white paper in place and do it all on top of a cutting board. I made about 14 black strips and got my students to work in pairs (that way I had some spares in case the kids accidentally wrecked them on their first go).

In Class

I'd already covered the concept of the zoetrope in class a few times before so the students had a rough idea of what they were making. I also brought in my one to show them what a finished product should look like. This helped to really motivate the students because they could see what they were working towards. 

I gave students a series of different animations to pick from (this gives them some ownership over the final product) or the option to create their own animation (this is more time-consuming but there are a few students who appreciate getting to exercise their creativity in this way). 

Students (or student groups) are then provided with:

• 1 pre-made black cardboard strips.
• 1 plastic plate.
• A ruler to measure their own animations and to space the string-holes evenly on the plate. 
• Access to a single-hole punch to create the string-holes.
• String to cut (I let them measure and cut this themselves).
• Choice of animation or option to create their own animation.
• Access to sticky tape to fix their animation into the black cardboard barrel. 
• Instructions on how to make it. 

Some of the student zoetropes - great job guys!

The most time-consuming part of the whole process is creating the black cardboard strip but, as I'd already done this for the students ahead of time, this meant it only took approximately 1 hour for students to put the whole thing together. The instructions above are a simplified version of the teacher instructions and are easily followed by Year 9 students.

English Studies: Your Friend and Mine

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

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

English Studies: Your Friend and Mine - PowerPoint Presentation.

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

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

Happy Term 3 :)

To the North

I can write on this blog in a lot of detail sometimes, especially if I'm writing about resources or syllabus stuff that connects with teaching. Sometimes when I write along these lines I'll avoid using first person language and it can establish a more formal tone, which makes me sound (or feel) more confident about what I'm saying.

Other times I like to incorporate some anecdotes from my teaching and this only really works if I slip away from third person and take a more relaxed approach.

If I decide to write about my travels then first person is the only real way to do this properly, and I can feel less self-conscious about the travel writing because I know that my audience for these particular blog posts is smaller and more intimate (I generally don't post links to my travel posts on teaching networks because there usually isn't any relevance and, therefore, these particular posts have a readership about 10% the size of my teaching posts).

In the last two months my posting on this blog has stalled.

I'd like to write from the heart for this post. I feel self-conscious about this because I like to maintain a certain degree of metaphorical distance between myself and the audience when I write, however, I just can't write this particular entry in any other way because it's much more personal than usual.

My wife, Nicole, has asked me several times in the last few days if I will blog about our current travels and I had to tell her that I just wasn't sure. We didn't have wifi for the last couple of days so that helped me just not think about it but I knew, at heart, that I was avoiding writing because everything in my life is so bound up with recent personal events right now and it was all too hard.

A month ago my wife gave birth to a little girl that we named Elouise 'Split-Pea' Bartolo. It was too early for our daughter to survive and we lost her. It hurt, and it hurts still. I almost lost Nicole too... she had to have surgery after she delivered the baby herself and her recovery was physically difficult and required three blood transfusions. I... still don't really have the words. It was hard. It still is.

In the last two weeks we both re-integrated into our workplaces after a lengthy absence. Getting back into the routine at work wasn't so difficult after a few days, I found I could do a lot of things through compartmentalising. But coming home each day was like coming home to meet my grief again; it waited for me in the car, in the house. It waits for me anytime I let my mind sit still. Sometimes I write poetry, or I journal, and writing can be sort of therapeutic.

I've always written better than I speak. You can't see the awkward pauses this way, nor do I fill the silence with words that don't really matter. But I haven't been writing as much lately because it's like wrestling with the grief directly and that can be exhausting.

Anyway.

Four days ago Nicole and I packed the car and we struck out north, away from our jobs and away from our home. We've always loved travelling together and I was eager to navigate into this space again to see if it still existed after everything that has just happened. We decided that our journey would focus on finding as many 'big things' as we could and I joked, upon arriving in Taree to see the Big Oyster, that it was fitting we would travel so far to see something so mediocre considering that whatever we do right now would feel mediocre no matter what.

Nicole laughed at that. I love her for sharing my ambivalence in regards to personal pain; we can laugh at the little things while experiencing our pain. We do this while fighting sometimes too - we'll be right in the thick of an argument and one of us will make a ridiculous joke about it. We laugh in these situations and then continue our fight. I like the idea of that - the acceptance that you can be more than one thing at any given time. You know that phrase, "If you don't laugh, you'll cry"? I've always preferred to think of it as non-binary. Imagine each person is really Schroedinger's Cat in the box and that, until you open them up, they're simultaneously laughing and crying.

Owing to the emotional mess that I'm still wading through, I don't think I can take a linear approach to this holiday and recount everything in order. It feels like too much, and I think the facile nature of this approach would scoop out what little life is left within me. Joke.

Anyway.

Here is a collection of pictures that Nicole and I took, and the stories that go with them:

View from the bridge in Bellingen. I remember this bridge from my teen years, when we would visit my Aunty Jan's farm on the river. It's a very picturesque spot.

Usually I'll be driving and then I see some street art and I'll double-back to get a photo. This usually leads to some confusion and frustration on Nicole's part because I don't always get around to explaining what I'm doing until we've pulled up and I've jumped out to get a photo. This pic was taken in Bellingen.

Nimbin is something else. The whole town smells of marijuana, and Nicole and I entered it via the carpark into this little area where a tin shed proclaims itself as a place to procure "Medical Cannabis". Not gonna lie, I felt a bit confronted by the casual pot smoking everywhere - and we got offered marijuana at least four times in the short time we were there. We declined and settled for some pizza in a nice Italian place down the road instead. I'd never felt so bourgeois.

I love this sign. Nimbin shop fronts are a whole bunch of hilarious - keeping the town's unique hippy roots alive.

Growing up, Mum would take us to visit her sister, my Aunty Lynette, in Warragamba. Aunty Lynette and Uncle Phil moved to Glenreagh in the '90s and it was nice to finally take Nicole up the coast to see them and their amazing collection of historical curios. Uncle Phil has a fantastic museum in his backyard.Seen above is a collection of antique stove plates.

One of the more unique items in Uncle Phil's museum is this old American school desk with moveable parchment. The desk opens up and you wind a lever to show a variety of different teaching materials.

Preserved microbat. Aunty Lynette and Uncle Phil have preserved and restored a variety of dead animals they've found in their explorations.

Uncle Phil's bottle collection is quite amazing, and showcases Australia's convict history. Aunty Lynette has a great love of owls and Tawny Frogmouths, and I remember this stuffed Frogmouth very well from my childhood visits to her house. Nice to see it's still on the perch, so to speak.

The Scottish town of MacLean is situated near the southernmost part of NSW's sugar cane fields. Along the horizon you can see the fields burning and it's quite pretty if you happen to see it at sunset. Driving alongside the cane fields is always interesting too as you can see kites and kestrels hovering overhead while they hunt.

Glenreagh made a bid for fame with their own 'big thing' - the Big Dingo - but it doesn't show up on many lists of Australia's Big Things. Time to rectify this, Australia. Glenreagh is a quiet country town about 30-40 minutes outside of Coffs Harbour. Russell Crowe lives there and his massive house, property and tennis court all stand out like a sore thumb alongside his more modest neighbours.

In Lake Cathie you can see the Big Lawn Bowl. It doesn't draw the same sort of crowd as the Big Banana but it's moderately large size puts it on the list all the same.

I guess, technically, this is a small whale as real whales are bigger. It was parked in someone's front yard so we had to get our pictures really quickly.

The Big Prawn in Ballina was recently saved by the local Bunnings, who also added a tail. It's never looked better... but at the end of the day it's also just a massive crustacean in a carpark and none of the locals seem to pay it any attention. I think a plaque would at least be nice.

Byron Bay is a nice place but the buskers get a bit annoying when you a crowd gathers on the sidewalk and you just want to get through so you can eat some tacos.

There are 3 Big Pineapples in Australia. This little Big Pineapple is the lesser known of them, and can be found in the carpark of a service station in Ballina.

The Big Rock Service Station is looking worse for wear these days. It started life as a replica of Uluru built for Leyland Bros. World in 1990 and later became known as the 'Ayers Rock Road House'. Disappointingly, there's a still a sign up that calls it 'Ayers Rock'. I'd normally put this down as an oversight but the huge collection of golliwogs inside makes me think there might be a bit of a racist undercurrent at work. If anyone wants to own an obsolete tourist attraction that needs a few thousand dollars worth of restoration then I am pleased to announce that the owners are currently accepting offers for purchase.

Macadamia Castle near Lennox Head has wisely opted not to create a Big Macadamia (one already exists up in Queensland) and have instead decided, bizarrely, to use a medieval theme to draw customers in. I know when I think of the Australian-native delicacy known as the macadamia nut I find it difficult to separate them from the European middle ages, and it's great to see this tourist attraction making a real connection with that heritage via this giant knight.

This car dealership keeps Taree's dream of a Big Oyster tourist attraction alive. It was hoped that the Big Oyster would become an attraction comparable to Goulburn's Big Merino, or the Big Banana in Coffs Harbour, but this business venture was a failure and it became known by locals as the 'Big Mistake'

The Big Axe in Kew was rebuilt only in the last few years. The original one fell foul of white ants.

Wingham Brush Forest is one of the world's few lowland subtropical rainforests. It's hard to capture the scale of the huge Moreton Bay figs that have helped make the forest so famous. Visitors to the forest must stick to a walkway otherwise they  could be injured by the giant stinging trees, which are also found everywhere in this habitat. Strangler figs and recent drought have led to the death of several of the forest's biggest trees, which now lay collapsed and rotting like huge fallen dinosaurs.

The other most famous aspect of Wingham Brush Forest is the huge colony of Grey-Headed Flying Foxes who have lived here since before European settlement (the word 'Wingham' is an anglicised version of the local Biripi word 'Wingan', which means 'where bats come to drink'). There are approximately 40 000 of this vulnerable species of bat living in the forest and all you have to do is look up to see hundreds upon hundreds of them roosting above. Even while 'sleeping' the sound is deafening; they screech and chatter like chimpanzees and can be seen scrapping with one another for the best positions. Every minute or so you'll hear their heavy wings flapping overhead and a shadow will pass over you and it's like being in the pterodactyl aviary from Jurassic Park III.

I wasn't aware that Nicole was taking this photo until the last minute. I don't know how it happened but somehow we managed to walk through the forest for half an hour without any bats pooping on us.

In Wingham forest we also saw Brush Turkeys, King Parrots, and some fruit doves.

On the way up to Byron we stopped at the lighthouse in Woolgoolga. As we watched the water Nicole spotted a Humpback Whale and its calf migrating north. In this picture you can see the whale engaging in a behaviour known as 'pec slapping', where it repeatedly splashes the water with its pectoral (side) fin. It's believed that this is part of the courtship signals that Humpback Whales use, which makes sense as this is the time of year that these whales travel north for breeding.

 

We had to stop for a while when travelling back out of Bellingen because this young cow had somehow gotten out of its paddock and was frolicking about on the side of the road. Some rangers were attempting to round him up but he wasn't having a bar of it.

This active lighthouse in Port Stephens used to be a WWII base and continues to function as a point of action for local rescue operations.

Pelicans. I can stop and watch animals for hours.

Nicole was eyeing off this glass seagull in Port Stephens and decided not to buy it. The whole way home she kept mentioning it, and even suggested we go back to get it after we'd been driving for an hour. When we got home it magically appeared on the coffee table and Nicole told me it had followed us home. I laughed so hard.

Critical Study of a Text: Hamlet (Revision)

These are the end days! As the old syllabus hurtles towards its inevitable demise a new one waits just over the hill for its moment of dawning. English faculties all over NSW are busy securing class sets of new prescribed texts and creatively funneling old prescriptions into the junior years to cut down on expenses. As our bookrooms shift and re-arrange themselves like cities collapsing into new shapes under the exertion of tectonics, the dust begins to clear and a single, lone gem can be seen shining in the rubble.  

Hamlet.

The most discussed text ever written, the ur-character piece, the most coveted stage role of the 19th and 20th centuries, the single greatest play by the single greatest playwright. The very text that gives credence to the idea of a literary canon.

It has floated from syllabus to syllabus, ever-present but sometimes less obviously so than at other times. Most recently it was one of the cornerstones of Advanced English Module B: Critical Study of a Text, but as of next year this will no longer be the case. In 2019, Hamlet will move to one of the Extension English 1 electives.

It's a move that will mean two things:

• Recent PL sessions run by the ETA (and associated discussions online) suggest that the most popular English Extension 1 elective will be 'Worlds of Upheaval'. Very few seem interested in teaching Literary Mindscapes (the Hamlet option) so Shakespeare's relegation to this section of the Extension syllabus means that its probably not a text we'll be seeing in Year 12 much.
• The rules around Prescribed texts prohibit any of the Year 12 texts from being taught at a Year 11 level, so Hamlet's inclusion in this obscure part of the Senior English syllabuses means that it also can't even be used in Preliminary as a preparatory text.

I think this is a little sad. The vast majority of NSW senior students won't get to experience Hamlet over the course of the next five years (at least). Ah, Hamlet, I knew him well...

Anyway! Attached here are the revision notes that I used with my Year 12 Advanced English class last year. This follows the same format as other Year 12 Advanced English revisions notes I've previously uploaded (Discovery, Metropolis and Nineteen Eighty-Four, and W.H. Auden). Notable quotes are accompanied by some general analysis designed to model different ways of interpreting and connecting textual examples to themes and context.

Here it is: Module B: Critical Study of a Text - Hamlet

In addition to the above analysis here is an overview of techniques and aspects of the text related to themes / the rubric / context. These are as follows:

Techniques

• Foreshadowing
• Characterisation - particularly in reference to Shakespeare's use of foils (there are two in Hamlet!)
• Antithesis
• Hendiadys (if there was ever a time to talk about this literary device it's with Hamlet, which probably uses this technique more than any other text).
• Metaphor
• Motif
• Mockery
• Repetition
• Rhythm - Iambic Pentameter, and disruption to.
• Imagery
• Zoomorphia
• Hyperbole
• Bombast and bombastic language
• Puns, alliteration, and other forms of wordplay
• Rhetoric
• Soliloquy
• Verse vs. Prose
• Dramatic Irony 

Aspects of the Text / Context

• Gender - perspectives of the masculine and feminine
• The Great Chain of Being
• Elizabethan anxieties/concerns related to succession, corruption, etc. 
• Appearance vs. reality
• The old world of chivalry vs. the new world of subterfuge
• Protestantism
• Existentialism and Mortality
• Purgatory and its relevance in Shakespeare's society
• The Renaissance
• Tyrannicide - philosophical arguments for and against in regards to Hamlet
• Universalism
• Sovereignty 
• Humanism
• The influence of the new 16th genre 'the essay' on Shakespeare's Hamlet
• Hamlet's adherence to the tragedy genre
• The role of consanguinity in regards to character dynamics in the play

Further reading:

Kenneth Branagh's Hamlet

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.