Advanced English Skills – the quickest way to the top of the class.
Your class texts represent the minimum required to expand your literacy (thinking and written) skills. It is therefore advisable to complement your school-based texts so as to broaden your literary horizons.
Apart from reading as much as you can, I have designed three “blocks” of lessons covering a range of literary disciplines and skills that will shape your literacy-based journey. Times are flexible. (Classes are ideal for students up to and including Year 11. Your year level is immaterial – what matters is your attitude and aptitude.)
Additionally, or instead of, I would encourage current students to extend themselves and do some lessons with my Year 12 students.
Throughout the year I will be conducting blocks of 4 lessons with breaks in-between to allow for some reading. The lessons will be conducted on Zoom. The cost is $35 per session(1.25 hours); $140 per block of lessons. The knowledge and skills are cumulative.
Each block will have a grammatical and a vocabulary-building component.The emphasis is on sophisticated expression. (For example, see: A “word a day” page: words, sentences, expressions
The relevant resources will be circulated 2 weeks prior to the sessions.
Block 1: 4 sessions
Argument Analysis: 4-5 opinion pieces, letters to the editor and cartoons
Emphasis on metalanguage; (arguments, narrative techniques, key ideas) and similarities/differences; emphasis on visual imagery and analytical terms.
Block 2: 4 sessions
Passage Analysis: 4-5 Excerpts from each of the masters – all-time favourite classics (You do not need to have read these books, but your English will improve if you do. Some may have done these texts in class; we will be working at a more advanced level; plus you can never do enough essays on a text!)
- To Kill a Mockingbird
- Lord of the Flies
- Animal Farm/ 1984
- Christmas Carol
- My Brilliant Career
- Station Eleven/ House on Fire/Dressmaker
- Close reading: Analysis of narrative techniques; characterisation; (deeper meanings); comparison within and between texts; themes and issues.
- Emphasis on text response skills and creative writing.
Block 3: 4 sessions
4-5 poems by Gwen Harwood (eg. Bonescan, Heatwave North Hobart, The Wound, Home of Mercy, Hospital Evening, Iris.)
An analysis of poetry sharpens your critical thinking skills and leads to an: .
- Ability to analyse texts in a more insightful way
- Ability to think in broader ways
- Ability to use appropriate metalanguage (normalisation of key terms)
- Awareness of imagery which is critical to sophisticated creative writing
- Awareness of comparative terms (to draw out similarities and differences in key ideas).
- Text response skills- discussion around a prompt. Reference to a range of evidence/quotes.