Hey guys!!! I will be starting year 11 in 2020, and I was wondering if anyone could provide me some resources and answer some questions for the advanced course as I am thinking about having a headstart. Having heard of past students finding it hard to balance studies and extracurricular activities , I am keen to do some work in advance so that I won't freak out. .
I would appreciate it if you guys could kindly answer the following questions.
1. What are the three new modules about and what do they demand from students in terms of analysis and essay writing?
2. Are there any prescribed texts for the 3 modules? (If not, which texts should I focus on, in the meantime, to familiarise myself with text analysis?)\
3. What could I do to develop my ability to analyse poems ? (and what poems should I focus on for the modules?)
4. What do the modules want students to do for creative writing? (and what I could do to prepare?)
Thanks for taking the time answering my questions !!!!
Hey, BlackFrost!
Welcome to the forums! Great to see you're getting geared up for the new year already
Just wanted to first put out that while balancing extra-curricular commitments and study time can definitely be a challenge, it's not impossible! I had heaps myself during my HSC and found a system that worked best for me so if you wanted to post a question more specifically on that, I could direct you to this
link here and have a few more people jump on to offer advice
As for your English-specific questions, here are my answers and thoughts
1. What are the three new modules about and what do they demand from students in terms of analysis and essay writing? The three modules you'll be studying in Year 11 are
Reading to Write,
Narratives that Shape our World and
Critical Study of Literature. These modules are intended to mirror and prepare you for the content you'll be doing in Year 12 (Craft of Writing, Texts and Human Experiences and Critical Study of Literature respectively).
Reading to Write will be a general "how-to-write-well" module where you cover writing skills, using an exemplar or exemplary text/s to guide your development of style and technique.
Narratives that Shape our World will allow you to explore a significant text (or significant texts) that left a major impact in the world of literature and is a heavily context-driven study.
Critical Study of Literature will focus in on one significant text in depth and breadth to consider whether it has "textual integrity", or in less strange terms, academic value that will transcend time. Your school will determine the assessment type for these modules but general patterns will be a creative writing piece for
RTW, discursive/presentation for
NTSOW and essay for
CSOL.
2. Are there any prescribed texts for the 3 modules? (If not, which texts should I focus on, in the meantime, to familiarise myself with text analysis?)This was answered briefly above but you'll always be studying at least one prescribed text for each module. There is no set list but schools will generally choose texts that reflect the intended prescribed texts in the respective modules for Year 12. For example, my high school did George Orwell's
Animal Farm for
NTSOW and this prepared the students for understanding Orwell's context, purpose, style and ideas when they did
1984 in
TAHE.
If you aren't sure what texts you'll be studying next year, I'd recommend reading or watching
some of these amazing related texts which can help out for Year 12 when you've got to choose one for
TAHE. They're all great texts and are fantastic for analysis practice. If you'd like to approach it smarter than harder, I would pick out one text from each text type (poetry, film, novel etc.) so you can expose yourself to different mediums and form-based techniques. You can ask any questions
here if you need help!
3. What could I do to develop my ability to analyse poems ? (and what poems should I focus on for the modules?) Definitely read lots of them! I absolutely love poetry so if you would like me to suggest some poets that could possibly be studied next year at your school or if you ever want to shout for some help on here, I'd be happy to offer assistance! Excellent poetry analysis contains poetry-specific techniques and really engages with the form. You can check out this
list of techniques for poetry if you would like a good reference point. I used Alfred Corn's
The Poem's Heartbeat- A Manual on Prosody to compile it so you could give it a read if you wanted to focus specifically on it (though will warn you it's definitely intense and I'm really glad I didn't attempt it until Year 12).
4. What do the modules want students to do for creative writing? (and what I could do to prepare?)Your creative writing piece will be based on what prescribed text/s you study in
Reading to Write so I'd wait out on actively writing a creative during the break. What you could do is explore those texts above that I recommended and write a practice creative based on them.
This was written for the old syllabus but the advice
in this ultimate creative writing guide is still equally as valuable
For other resources that might be helpful, you can check out our
Advanced Resources Mega Thread which has some amazing stuff to get you thinking about senior English
Hope these answers help and keen to see you more around on the forums!
Angelina