The English Study Design 2023: crafting texts
To achieve high marks, you will need to articulate concepts and key ideas in a way that demonstrates a thoughtful, reflective and insightful response. (These key ideas will furnish the basis for “reflection” (either directly or indirectly) as well as the ability to “express” and explore personal and dramatic recounts and experiences.) Using appropriate language features also enables you to expand layers of meaning and interpretative possibilities.
Key Ideas and concepts
Adrienne Rich: Aunt Jennifer’s Tigers
Drawing upon the two central images – the tigers versus Uncle’s wedding ring, what message does Rich convey?
Personal stories and protest
Based on Maxine’s conversation with Mr Brady, the principal (The Hate Race, p. 192) what views and values does she convey?
Note the tension between Maxine, the victim recast as the problem, and the principal; authority figure who is inept. Consider how Clarke defies the stereotypes: those who do and who don’t fit the mould for good and for worse reasons.
For example: Note the ironical description of the principal who defies the stereotypical image of a professional and caring persona; he is disinterested in the student’s welfare; Maxine is aware that owing to his inappropriate emotional strategies, he is increasing, not reducing, her vulnerability to victimisation. Note the description of Maxine throughout the excerpt; note her coping mechanisms; her fear of ridicule; her lack of confidence in authority figures; her phobic reaction to the letters; her awareness of the inappropriateness of the suggested “solution; her awareness of a culture that facilitates, rather than eradicates, racial persecution.
- Return to 2023 Summer Break Program
- · Link to Year 11 Study Design 2023:
- · Link to Literature
- · Sample excerpts
- · Crafting and Writing Styles