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English Studies at your Fingertips

The English website, through its frameset structure, enables you to peruse the website for all matters relating to your English studies at Melbourne High School. The best place to start is with your year level page (e.g. YEAR 9) — check course details, assessment tasks, assessment dates, and assessment policies. You also have direct links to our many on-line study units as well as access to sample exam papers. In addition you are provided with a wealth of study strategies and guidelines on the STUDENTS page.

Check the ABOUT page for a FULL list of the contents in each page.
 
     
 


Preparing for 2013

Make a smooth start to the new academic year. Find out what next year’s course involves and what you are required to do to ensure a successful year.

Begin by familiarising yourself with next year’s course by perusing your relevant year level page on this website. You should also peruse the section “On-Line Units” where you can find reading guide questions on the set texts as well as see the variety of work you will be engaged with next year.

You should make it your priority to obtain your texts early (or borrow copies from your library) and read them over the summer vacation. If you have misplaced your booklist, you can always find out what books you’ll need by checking the “Text List” page on this website.

Year 9 going into Year 10
Relax with good books - so borrow books from your library. We have recommended titles on our wide reading pages.
Macbeth is the set text for Term 1. Read it. Borrow an audio tape of the play from your library and/or the Polanski film version (or any of the BBC versions) from your video library and watch it while you read.

Year 10 going into Year 11
The Complete Maus is the set text for Term 1. Use the Maus website to help you prepare. It is advisable to find about about World War II and the Holocaust.

You should take time to peruse the “Creating and Presenting" area of study and consider preparing Brave New World by working through the set questions. You will find these on the “Texts” page of the Visions of the Future website.

Year 11 going into Year 12
Detailed information is provided below.

Literature Year 10
Read The Importance of Being Earnest and Catch-22.

English Langauge Year 11
Download the document here.

Literature Year 11
• You should aim to read through all the texts for Unit 1 (check the Year 11 Literature page on this website) and make notes (think about their themes and issues and characters. Write your notations in your texts.

• Read and be prepared for a close study of The Oresteia and Heart of Darkness. When you have read the play and the novel, devise five questions that each textl has rasied. Your questions will form the basis of your initial lessons.

• Decide on the print and non-print texts you will read for the SAC Interpreting Print and Non-Print Texts. Go to the Wide Reading page on this website and choose your authors from the Literature page. You can not use texts you have studied in the past or that are set for the current curriculum.

This is an extended comparative interpretation essay that must reflect extensive reading, research, world view knowledge and deep thinking. The task topic is as follows:

“Using a minimum of two of the written texts and a minimum of one film text from the prescribed lists, compare the ways in which each text presents the protagonist's relationship with the self, with other characters and with the environment (time, place, social, economic, cultural, political situation), as well as what the authors and film director(s) are communicating about the nature of humanity (length: 1500 words).”

You will also be required to present a oral presentation related to this task.

Detailed instructions will be provided at your first lesson next year.

Literature Year 12
• You are expected to prepare the questions on Atonement that you received at Transition.

• You are also required to view the film version of Atonement and think about the ways the novel has been adapted into film.

• You are also expected to read all the texts, particluarly those set for the Unit 3 SACs (check the Year 12 Literature page on this website).
 
     
 
Year 12 English — Vacation Preparation for 2013
There is no questioning it, Year 12 will be demanding, of both your time and energy. It is in your best interest, therefore, to be thoroughly prepared for what will be a rigorous and challenging year ahead. So, spend some time over the summer vacation preparing for Year 12 English in the following ways:
1. Year 12 Page on the English website
 

Familiarise yourself with the course details on the Year 12 page of the English website (course outline, exam, assessment dates, and assessment policy). Don’t ignore the links that provide additional information. If you require clarification, ask your teacher.
2. Make time to read all the texts
 

• Death of a Salesman
• Henry IV, Part I
• Ransom
• Spies

You need to have read the texts more than once, so it’s advisable to read them over the holidays and then again when you come to study them in class (and again later!)

As you read the texts, think about their themes and issues and characters. You should also make notations in your texts.

To help you with the background and historical context to Ransom, you are encouragexd to read Homer's The Illiad or an abridged or children's version of this classic.
3. Compulsory preparation
 

• You are expected to have read Ransom (Text Study) and Death of a Salesman (Context, “Whose Reality?” ).

• Devise three questions on Ransom that the novel raised for you. These questions will form the basis of your initial lessons.

• As a way into Ransom, you may find the website helpful.

• Find topical and current issues that have been debated in the Australian media from December 1st, 2011 and decide on the issue you will use for your persuasive argument oral SAC (more details below).
4.
Additional preparation
 
(a) Creating and Presenting

• You should find time to peruse the Context for this study area. Familiarise yourself with this area of study by perusing the “Whose Reality?” website.

• You need to prepare Death of a Salesmanfor SAC 3, Creating and Presenting: “Whose Reality?”. You may wish to prepare this text by using the questions on the page “Death of a Salesman” under the section “Set Texts”.

• As part of your coursework, you will be required to develop a ‘scrapbook’ of different styles (persuasive, expository and imaginative) and different forms of writing (e.g. feature articles, narratives, investigative reports, diary entries, etc.). You can start collecting different examples now. Instructions for this task are on the page, “Writing Styles and Forms” under the section headed “The Task”.
 
(b) Using Language to Persuade

• Make a point of reading The Age, The Australian or the Herald-Sun daily and keeping informed about current issues.

• In particular, read the opinionative sections of these newspapers (e.g. editorials, letters to the editor, opinion articles) and study how opinions are voiced or presented, and issues argued. Always ask yourself: how is the writer using language to persuade? What persuasive devices are used and how?

• Apart from the written language analysis task (based on an unseen current issue), you will also be required to present an oral persuasive argument on a current issue of your choice. Conditions: it must be topical, current, and must have been debated in the Australian media from 1st September 2012.

• Revise your Persuasive Language coursework from Year 11, especially persuasive devices and language.
5.
Keep up with your wide-reading
 
• The more you read, the more you will develop expressive language, an extensive vocabulary as well as broadening your horizons

• From your reading, you may come across interesting ways writers express ideas — it may be a sentence or paragraph, a description of a place or person, etc. Write these down.

• Keep a list of new vocabulary.
6.
Brush up your language, writing and oral skills!
 
Now is the opportunity to consider which areas in punctuation, grammar, expression, and the like you need to work on. Your text book The Active Look It Up! is there to assist you. Make active use of it!
 
     
   
     
 
 
Last up-dated 12 November, 2012
Website originally designed and constructed by V. Karvelas, 2004
Up-dated and constructed and maintained by G. Marotous, 2007
© George Marotous. Melbourne High School English Faculty
  
     
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