LITERATURE GENERAL COURSE Year 11 syllabus IMPORTANT INFORMATION This syllabus is effective from 1 January 2017. Users of this syllabus are responsible for checking its currency. Syllabuses are formally reviewed by the School Curriculum and Standards Authority on a cyclical basis, typically every five years. Copyright © School Curriculum and Standards Authority, 2017 This document – apart from any third party copyright material contained in it – may be freely copied, or communicated on an intranet, for non‐commercial purposes in educational institutions, provided that the School Curriculum and Standards Authority is acknowledged as the copyright owner, and that the Authority’s moral rights are not infringed. Copying or communication for any other purpose can be done only within the terms of the Copyright Act 1968 or with prior written permission of the School Curriculum and Standards Authority. Copying or communication of any third party copyright material can be done only within the terms of the Copyright Act 1968 or with permission of the copyright owners. Any content in this document that has been derived from the Australian Curriculum may be used under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY) licence. 2013/43677v4 Content Rationale ................................................................................................................................................................... 1 Course outcomes ....................................................................................................................................................... 2 Organisation .............................................................................................................................................................. 3 Structure of the syllabus .................................................................................................................................................. 3 Organisation of content ................................................................................................................................................... 4 Progression from the Year 7–10 curriculum .................................................................................................................... 4 Representation of the general capabilities ...................................................................................................................... 4 Representation of the cross‐curriculum priorities ........................................................................................................... 6 Unit 1 ........................................................................................................................................................................ 7 Unit description ................................................................................................................................................................ 7 Unit content ..................................................................................................................................................................... 7 Unit 2 ........................................................................................................................................................................ 9 Unit description ................................................................................................................................................................ 9 Unit content ..................................................................................................................................................................... 9 School‐based assessment ........................................................................................................................................ 11 Grading ........................................................................................................................................................................... 12 Appendix 1 – Grade descriptions Year 11 ................................................................................................................. 13 Appendix 2 – Suggested text lists ............................................................................................................................. 15 Appendix 3 – Glossary ............................................................................................................................................. 23 1 Rationale The Literature General course presents many perspectives on life, powerfully imagined and memorably expressed. One of the main benefits of literary study, particularly in a multicultural and diverse society such as Australia, is exposure to a variety of ways of thinking about the world*. This Literature General course encourages students to relate their experience of literature to their experience of life generally and to learn that ways of reading texts and their readings of texts can enrich their understanding of identity, culture and society. Students are given the opportunity to read, enjoy and respond to literary texts, including poetry, prose fiction, drama and multimodal texts. Response and interpretation are central to this course. Students make meanings by taking into account some of the relationships between reader, writer, text and context. Students are introduced to several different reading strategies, such as reading with an emphasis on various representations or reading with a focus on different contexts; or reading intertextually, that is, reading that focuses on the connections among texts. Other reading strategies may be explored. Students reflect on their own reading preferences and learn to reflect on their readings of texts. Designed to stimulate intellectual curiosity and to promote creative, logical and analytical thinking, the course encourages students to be literate and articulate; to be competent in the expression of ideas and feelings; and to engage critically with texts. Students have the opportunity to discuss the moral, ethical and philosophical issues that are debated in the culture; to consider how different contexts affect our interpretation and evaluation of literary texts; and to develop an understanding of our culture and its past. The study of literature, including Australian literature, leads students to an appreciation of the values and traditions which inform literary texts. Students will understand that engagement with literary texts can be a pleasurable and creative activity and that they can communicate their responses in a variety of ways, using a variety of text forms. Responses to texts during the course could be reflective, discursive, creative and analytical. Students will consider what makes a text, ‘literary’. The course explores the power of language to provoke and shape response, with particular reference to both literary texts and the student’s own creative productions. Students explore the techniques and effects of the language of literary texts in a variety of modes. They explore the evocative power of literary language and come to understand that language itself can be imaginative, sensuous, persuasive, stimulating and pleasurable. Students learn that literature takes many forms as can their own creative productions; and that language and form are two of many aspects that might allow readers to consider a text, ‘literary’. The reading, critical thinking and creative production skills encouraged by this course will be useful in students’ other studies, in their further studies, in their chosen careers and in their lives generally. * Australia Council for the Arts (2007). Communiqué – Australian Literature in Education Roundtable. Retrieved October, 2011, from: www.australiacouncil.gov.au/news/items/pre‐2010/ communiqué_‐ australian_literature_in_education_ roundtable Literature | General | Year 11 syllabus 2 Course outcomes The Literature General course is designed to facilitate achievement of the following outcomes. Outcome 1 – Reading Students demonstrate creative, logical and analytical thinking when making meaning from a range of literary texts. Employing different reading strategies, they demonstrate understanding of the structures of such texts and of the relationships between writer, reader, text and context. Outcome 2 – Producing Students communicate and account for their responses to literary texts using a variety of text forms and produce texts appropriate to purpose, context and audience. Literature | General | Year 11 syllabus 3 Organisation This course is organised into a Year 11 syllabus and a Year 12 syllabus. The cognitive complexity of the syllabus content increases from Year 11 to Year 12. Structure of the syllabus The Year 11 syllabus is divided into two units, each of one semester duration, which are typically delivered as a pair. The notional time for each unit is 55 class contact hours. Unit 1 and Unit 2 These units introduce students to relevant and engaging literary texts. Teachers will choose texts that they think are most appropriate to their students. Students are asked to read poetry, prose fiction, drama and multimodal literary texts and to consider what makes a text, ‘literary’. They will consider how all texts use language and conventions in particular ways and how an understanding of a specific literary text is shaped by the way it is presented. Students learn that certain conventions that texts use allow us to group texts into genres. Students are asked to make connections