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Heywire: Cows, crops and bulbous lumps

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Teenage girl smiles
Heywire: Cows, crops and bulbous lumps

SUBJECTS:  English

YEARS:  9–10


How do you convince people that studying agriculture was the highlight of your school career?

Good writers will consciously shape their text to suit their audience and purpose. Listen to Alexandra Neill's Heywire audio story to explore her successful range of strategies.

Could you write or record a similar story about yourself and/or your community?

The ABC's Heywire competition calls for stories from 16-22 year olds in regional Australia. Enter to get your story featured on the ABC and score an all-expenses-paid trip to the Heywire Regional Youth Summit in Canberra. More: https://www.abc.net.au/heywire/


Things to think about

  1. 1.If one of your close friends suggested that you study agriculture as a subject, what would your response be? What if your careers advisor was the one advising you, or your grandparents, or a family friend who was a farmer? How would your response change with each audience?
  2. 2.What is the purpose of the dialogue that begins this text? List examples of humour, such the 'particularly hideous' shorts Alexandra made. Describe the sound effects used at these points in the text. How do Alexandra's language and voice change as she discusses significant lessons learnt? How does she reveal pride in her achievements? Describe Alexandra's tone.
  3. 3.Alexandra says she wishes 'everyone had the chance to get dirt under their fingernails in the middle of an eight- period day'. How is her text designed to encourage others to do just that? What is the audience for Alexandra's text? How has she crafted her text to appeal to this audience?
  4. 4.Choose an audience, then plan and draft an audio text for it that will express an undertaking that you've found particularly valuable and worthwhile. Like Alexandra, focus on making your undertaking seem appealing for your audience through the use of such language conventions as tone, pitch, pace and description. Use other audio elements to reinforce your story.



Date of broadcast: 2012


Copyright

Metadata © Australian Broadcasting Corporation and Education Services Australia Ltd 2012 (except where otherwise indicated). Digital content © Australian Broadcasting Corporation (except where otherwise indicated). Video © Australian Broadcasting Corporation (except where otherwise indicated). All images copyright their respective owners. Text © Australian Broadcasting Corporation and Education Services Australia is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License (CC BY-SA 4.0).

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