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Listed under:  Language  >  Language modes  >  Creating texts  >  Literary styles
Video

Thinking about story themes

Noa and Francis are two young writers who've had their stories published. Listen as they talk about the main ideas they chose to explore in their stories. Find and watch the clips of Noa and Francis reading their pieces at the Melbourne Writers Festival (also found on Splash). How did they build their stories around the ...

Video

First Tuesday Book Club: Confabulating on 'Cold Comfort Farm'

Join in the debate about whether the 1932 novel 'Cold Comfort Farm' by Stella Gibbons should be considered a classic. The novel follows Flora Poste, a young woman who moves in with her country relatives in a village called Howling. It parodies other novels that represented rural life as woeful, and is filled with delightfully ...

Video

Digging into the Stanza Stones

Imagine having your poetry carved in stone. What would you write? British artist Pip Hall carved six poems by Simon Armitage in rocks found in 'quiet, poetic corners of the landscape' between the towns of Marsden and Ilkley in northern England. Listen as Mr Armitage describes this unique project, known as Stanza Stones.

Video

Heywire: Leaving home, leaving yourself

Leaving the only home you've ever known can be tough. For Janet Brown, it led to a serious case of depression. Although she was able to work through this, for a time Janet felt that she had lost everything, including herself. In her Heywire story Janet constructs a powerful image of her condition.<br /><br />To talk with ...

Video

Books shaping identity

Do you identify with a book's protagonists when you read? Shamini Flint says she started writing her Sasha series of books about a girl growing up in Asia because she couldn't find books like these for her daughter. She thought it was important for her to be exposed to characters who were like her - someone who looked like ...

Video

First Tuesday Book Club: Memory in 'My Place'

Sally Morgan's autobiography, 'My Place', recounts the experiences of the author, her mother and her grandmother. Why do the panellists in this video think it is such an important book? What issues does it address?

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This Day Tonight: Understanding satire: the 'ocker' Australian

What do 'Borat', 'The Simpsons', 'Gulliver's Travels' and political cartoons have in common? They are all forms of satire: a particularly tricky genre of text. In this clip, explore the concept of satire and how it is constructed.

Audio

Radio National: The original pronunciation of Shakespeare

Have you ever been in a situation where someone is speaking to you in English but you cannot understand them? William Shakespeare wrote in English but sometimes it is difficult to understand his English. In 'Lingua Franca' the linguist David Crystal talks about mounting a production of 'Romeo and Juliet' using Shakespeare's ...

Audio

Radio National: What makes Shakespeare so special anyway?

Few literary figures are as widely revered as William Shakespeare. But just how did this glove-maker's son grow to become the greatest writer of the English language? Explore the extraordinary appeal of Shakespeare with John Bell, Australia's pre-eminent Shakespearean actor and director. If you like this clip, listen to ...

Online

What is Shakespeare Unbound?

Shakespeare doesn’t get any better than this. Actors from Australia’s famous Bell Shakespeare Company, including Artistic Director John Bell, present key scenes from six of Shakespeare’s best-known works before joining conversations to dissect the playwright’s use of character, plot and language. Custom-made for Australian ...

Text

Ramayana: an introduction to the great Indian epic

This is a resource that provides detailed information about the epic story Ramayana, with an enlargeable image and hyperlinks to further resources. Below the information there is space for readers to comment and contribute to a discussion about the story. Ramayana is a most important Hindu story from southern and south-eastern ...

Video

Modernism and Woolf's 'Mrs Dalloway'

Mrs Dalloway' by Virginia Woolf is a modernist novel. What makes it so? Think of how it contrasts with Edwardian and even 19th century novels. How does consciousness, or internal reality, as well as multiple perspectives play a part in modernist literature like 'Mrs Dalloway'?

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The Conversation - poetry collection

This collection of short articles is about poetry, and its role, relevance and meaning in contemporary Australia and the modern world. It includes commentary about the point of learning poetry, the role of poetry in understanding history (e.g. WW1, Arab Spring, the moon landing), and the role of a Poet Laureate. The articles ...

Online

TrackSAFE Education Primary School Resources: Year 5 and Year 6 English

This unit of work focuses on the influences that impact on safe behaviours in and around tracks, platforms and trains. Guided activities build students' rail safety vocabulary including grammar and word building. Modelled writing activities support students to shape a research-based inquiry investigating factors that impact ...

Online

Imagining ancient Rome

This is a unit of inquiry made up of 12 learning sequences for year 7 in the English for the Australian Curriculum resource. Each learning sequence contains a series of resources, suggested activities to carry out with students and a post-activity reflection. This unit of inquiry allows students to explore how life in ...

Interactive

Engaging with poetry - odes

This resource focuses on a selection of odes. Students have the opportunity to learn about how language forms and features of odes, how composers use language, rhythm and imagery to engage their audience and the ways in which imaginative texts can explore and express emotion and feeling. Students have the opportunity to ...

Interactive

Engaging with poetry - modern poems

This resource focuses on modern poetry from a range of contemporary source. Students have the opportunity to learn about how language forms and features of a selection of modern poems. They explore how composers use language, rhythm and imagery to engage their audience and the ways in which imaginative texts can explore ...

Interactive

Exploring short stories - The Necklace

This short story resource features a short story by Guy de Maupassant. Students look at the structure and narrative features as they listen to the story. Language focus includes direct and indirect speech and character development through dialogue. Students compose alternative endings and write a script using the free software, ...

Interactive

Syllabus bites: Visual literacy

A resource with information, study guides and resources on visual literacy to support the English K-10 Australian Curriculum in English. It provides a series of activities, guidelines and tasks about visual texts from a variety of sources. Contains writing scaffolds, templates and proformas for responding and composing ...

Online

Protest: The world as it is, the world as it could be

This is a unit of inquiry made up of 12 learning sequences for year 10 in the English for the Australian Curriculum resource. Each learning sequence contains a series of resources, suggested activities to carry out with students and a post-activity reflection. While each learning sequence can be used independently, sequences ...