Is English Extension 2 for you?

English Extension 2 is one of the most rewarding subjects of the HSC. Others may say it is one of the most stressful. Some will say it’s both rewarding and stressful!

The decision to pick up an Extension subject for your final year at school is not as simple as your decision to sabotage an hour of sleep for an extra Netflix episode. Deliberations about units and workload are floating around and everyone has an opinion that comes down to, “in the end, it’s your decision.” So, is English Extension 2, for you?

What are the skills you need to have for this course?

A subject with a major work is always going to require exceptional organisational skills. Major works won’t work unless you have a work ethic that drives itself. You need to be able to work completely independent of someone checking up on you along the way. The entire year might be in close contact with your teacher – which is fortunate! But the point is that you are given complete creative and organisational control over your work. Relying on being tapped on the shoulder all the time won’t work in your favour.

Ideally, you’d already possess advanced skills in the medium of your choice. This is not to say this exact set of skills will carry you through, of course! You’ll build on your writing, researching, editing, critical thinking, and organisational skills for the entire duration of the course.

Having a passion helps!

If telling stories doesn’t excite you then this mightn’t be the course for you. Or, if analysing literature doesn’t interest you, despite your proficient analytical skills, then think again. The reason being, you don’t attend classes for this subject where you move through the syllabus like you would for other subjects. This is self-directed writing, researching, learning, growing, and editing. When you’ve got homework for your other subjects, you need to set aside time for E2, which becomes a whole lot easier when you’re doing this because you enjoy it. It’s no secret that you will perform better in the things you enjoy because you will actively make time for it!

Be aware of the challenges of English Extension 2…

There will probably be times when you want to abandon all E2 commitments and that’s normal. It might be writers block, or it might be poor time management. . The E2 schedule stands strong and stubborn even when your internal assessments are flying around in a different time zone. It’s hard to place an ongoing major work on a timeline when your other subjects demand your time on a very rigid schedule. Without a few stumbles here and there, you’d hardly be an Extension 2 English student!

This is my experience of the course:

Extension Two English was the perfect refuge from my other subjects without technically being procrastination. A day filled with moving through a syllabus to improving my study notes and then possibly finishing it all off with a modern history source analysis, it was really refreshing to sit down and keep working on my little “side project” or, my major work. I was never pressed into resenting my creative work because of the consistent homework and commitment to past papers. Instead, I loved taking time out to study a subject on my own time. Instead, it was all at my own creative pace, and completely untapped in terms of what I learned or wrote each day.

Of course, there were times where I thought “maybe I’m not going to get this done in time” but they were valuable panics because they incited a growth in my own discipline and organisation. I honestly enjoyed looking through books, watching movies, and reading articles as consistent research for my major. I loved being given complete freedom to study something I wanted, and then to be able to present it in a challenging yet meaningful way.

It was bitter sweet when I submitted my major work to BOSTES. I was relieved, but a project I loved had ended. My protagonist was my friend, and I didn’t want to let her go. So, my AOS creative turned out to be a sequel to my major work. That’s a credit to how desperate I was for my major work to never end! I never wanted it to end! The best decision I made in my HSC was undertaking English Extension 2.

Click here to see the mistakes students make in this course that you can avoid!