Prescribed texts: Craft of Writing ‘Eulogy for Gough Whitlam’, Noel Pearson ‘13 Ways of Looking at a Blackbird’, Wallace Stevens from other modules Common Module: The Crucible, Arthur Miller Module A: The Outsider, Albert Camus and The Meursault Investigation, Kamel Daoud Module B: Henry IV Part 1, William Shakespeare Other texts Poem: ‘Photograph from September 11’, Wisława Szymborska Poem: ‘Colonial Poet’, Michael Dransfield Poem: ‘The Ash Range’, Laurie Duggan Portrait: ‘Unknown formerly known as Charlotte Brontë’, unknown Photographs: ‘Raising the Flag on Iwo Jima’, Joe Rosenthal and ‘Phan Thi Kim Phuc’, Nick Ut Radio broadcast: Interview with Don Watson Formal assessment task Students compose a reflection and a story that demonstrate knowledge of how composers use character and point of view to represent their views of the world. Content Teaching, learning and assessment Resources EA12-1 independently responds to, composes and evaluates a range of complex texts for understanding, interpretation, critical analysis, imaginative expression and pleasure Students: evaluate the relationship between Common Module: Texts and Human Experiences Prescribed text: The Crucible Focus question: How do readers make connections between their worlds and the worlds represented in texts? In the unit Texts and Human Experiences students have been studying Arthur Miller’s play, The Crucible. In this learning sequence students explore how composers use historical events and contexts to foreground perspectives and values and provoke response. The Crucible offers a variety of opportunities for students to reflect on how Miller enlarges the frame of attention of a text through historical allegory. Miller simultaneously subverts the context of its time through this The Crucible by Arthur Miller
critically analyse how intertextuality and textual appropriation influence interpretation and meaning evaluate and discuss whether textual appropriations lead to a deeper understanding of the original text and their own cultural context adapt literary conventions for specific audiences, challenging conventions and reinterpreting ideas and perspectives EA12-9 reflects on, evaluates and monitors own learning and refines individual and collaborative processes as an independent learner Students: reflect on their development as skilful and confident composers, in particular how they have experimented with and refined the composers allowed the readers to create their own perspectives. Focus question: Why does literature make literature? In this learning sequence students explore Wallace Stevens’s poem, ‘Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird’ and its intertextual resonances, both in and of its own creation and subsequent adaptations. They explore the ways composers innovate with texts thereby inviting reflection on the literary value of the texts and their adaptations. Students critically reflect on the multiplicity of meanings a single object can generate. This sequence begins with a text alteration activity where students adapt the text itself, and then proceed to an examination of the poem as an intertextual artefact in other texts. This sequence is designed to introduce the requirements of Module A. The teacher begins this learning sequence by displaying the first stanza of Stevens’s poem and directs the students to read it closely to consider how meaning is created through: the image of the blackbird’s eye the contrast between the eye of the blackbird and the landscape the structure of the verse, its lineation the possible symbolism of a blackbird the point of view suggested in the stanza. Students the text by substituting a present participle for the word ‘moving’ and reflect on how they have changed the meaning of the poem through changing the present participle. The teacher displays Japanese artist Utagawa Hiroshige’s and students preview them. Students comment on: how the images relate to one another how their similarities and differences suggest particular points of view how they suggest a worldview based on assumptions about the world in what sense they could be said to be ‘literary’ – here students could discuss how the images, singly and in combination, create multiple meanings. Students cut the poem into stanzas, removing the numbers. Working in pairs, students read one verse each and determine what they find notable about it. Students could comment on: the sensation the stanza explores. Stevens emphasised that in this poem he was exploring sensations rather than presenting epigrams or ideas
apply knowledge and understanding from their own context, and appreciation of other contexts, in responding to challenging texts explain the ways specific language concepts, for example imagery, symbolism or sound, shape meaning for different audiences and purposes analyse how significant language concepts, for example motif, can guide audiences to make meaning of unfamiliar texts EA12-5 thinks imaginatively, creatively, interpretively, critically and discerningly to respond to, evaluate and compose texts that synthesise complex information, ideas and arguments Students: critically investigate a wide range of complex texts, The explosive entrance Students list the characteristics of Hotspur in his entrance in the popinjay speech in Act 1 Sc 3 by: analysing his sudden, explosive nature evaluating the stylistic elements Shakespeare uses to foreground his rapture at the thought of honour commenting on how this foreshadows the later development of his character. Students experiment with introducing a character in a different situation through hyperbolising particular character traits as Shakespeare does. Students: select a scenario drawn from relationships, families, business or social institutions draft the scene where the character is introduced their writing and discuss whether the audience is required to make judgements about the character’s personality traits. Introducing a character in absentia Hal is introduced to the audience in absentia, through the eyes of a disappointed father. The teacher invites students to read Act I Sc 1 lines 76 –95. Students read this scene in pairs, reading it two or three times. Students remain in the role and answer these questions: Who am I? What am I saying Hal? Why am I saying this? Students could answer questions with beginnings such as: Because I want … Because I think … Because I feel … Because this is what I am like How do I speak? As a class, students discuss the effects of introducing characters this way. In the discussion, students consider how: Shakespearean plays are not narrated through a single point of view but through a series of voices where there is no omniscient narrator characters present their own points of view and these are partial dramatic techniques such as this manipulate audience perceptions of Hal.
context on shaping the social, moral and ethical perspectives in texts EA12-8 explains and evaluates nuanced cultural assumptions and values in and their effects on meaning Students: evaluate and reflect on the relationship between representations of significant historical and cultural events and figures, and their representations in texts EA12-9 reflects on, evaluates and monitors own learning and refines individual and collaborative processes as an independent learner Students: reflect on and discuss personal preferences and insights gained from familiarity with a wide repertoire of complex texts the psychology of the character/narrator (any quirks, eccentricities, their slant on the events) the ideology or worldview of the character, for example how the character judges other characters. Students consider how this works in Henry IV Part 1 by considering the characterisation of Hotspur and Hal at different points of the play. The teacher reminds students of the points of view displayed both by and about Hal and Hotspur. Students discuss how they, as the audience, reconsider the political and moral judgements they make at different points throughout the play. Key points for consideration include: the King’s representation of Hal in Act 1 Hotspur’s popinjay speech in Act 1 Sc 3 Hal’s soliloquy in Act 1 Sc 2 Hal’s portrayal of Hotspur and his wife in Act II Sc 4 Hotspur’s putting down of Glendower in Act 3 Sc 1 Hotspur’s courage in Act IV Sc 1 the death of Hotspur Act V Sc 4 Hal’s characteristically abrasive tone with Falstaff throughout the play – in the tavern, the practical jokes, the play-act. Working in students discuss what the character sees and knows, and how the character’s particular psychology and ideology focalises point of view. Using a character and situation from Henry IV Part 1, the teacher invites students to further develop this character. Students might: a monologue presenting a philosophical position that the character supports, but present it through a character and context that undermines this position, for example by: introducing a new character to the situation whose point of view alternates between exterior action and internal thought experimenting with point of view by combining a first person point of view, one in the third person and one in the second person. The teacher may like to make links to Activity 3 in the teaching and learning sequence for Module A: Textual Conversations. Prescribed text: Noel Pearson’s ‘Eulogy for Gough Whitlam’, 2014