English Foundations

Ideas and Issues 

Focus:
Learners explore the same idea or issue across a range of imaginative, interpretive and persuasive texts.

•  examining how meaning is shaped by purpose, audience, contexts, language and text

•  investigating how text structures and language features are used to convey ideas and issues.

•  Change
• Discovery
•  Belonging.

 Learners create at least:    

• one Multimodal presentation
• one analytical/interpretive essay
• one imaginative response.

 Focus:
Learners explore how meaning is communicated in a particular *text and how the language and elements of the text are shaped its purpose, the audience for whom they are intended, and the context in which it is created and received.

By the end of this negotiated study each learner will:

1. Create an imaginative response equivalent to 750 – 1000 words that communicates a similar idea as the original text.

 2. Create an oral presentation supported by a learner-crafted multimodal text that is engaging for their classmates.
 The oral presentation supported by a learner-crafted multimodal text will:

•  explore and analyse the text in terms of its:
  •  purpose, context, audience,
  • use of language, mode and medium

• examine how the main issues appraised in the text  may have contributed to its success.

 3. Self-selected short text studied

• Suggested text types: song, poem, music video, short fiction, short film, political cartoons, TED Talks, essay, editorial.

In both Modules learners:
Investigate the relationships between language, context and meaning of an idea or issue or text by:

• explaining how texts are created in and for different contexts (ACEEN001)
• describing how language choices are made for different purposes and in different contexts using appropriate metalanguage; (ACEEN002)
• assessing the choice of mode and medium in shaping the response of audiences, including digital texts. (ACEEN003)

In Module 1 learners:
Examine similarities and differences between imaginative, persuasive and interpretive texts including:

• explaining the ways language features, text structures and conventions communicate ideas and points of view (ACEEN004)
• explaining the ways text structures, language features and stylistic choices are used to represent ideas or issues in different types of texts (ACEEN005)
• describing how vocabulary, idiom and rhetoric are used for different purposes and contexts to represent ideas or issues (ACEEN006)
• assessing the impact of description and imagery, including figurative language, and still and moving images in digital and multimodal texts to represent ideas or issues. (ACEEN007)

In both Modules learners:
Describe and assess how responses to ideas or issues in texts, including learners’ own responses, are influenced by:

• purpose, taking into account that a text’s purpose is often open to debate (ACEEN008)
• personal, social and cultural context (ACEEN009)
• the use of imaginative, persuasive and interpretive techniques. (ACEEN010)

In both Modules learners:
Create a range of texts:

• using appropriate form, content, style and tone for different purposes and audiences in real and imagined contexts (ACEEN011)
• drawing on a range of technologies in, e.g. research, communication and representation of ideas or issues (ACEEN012)
• combining visual, spoken and written elements where appropriate (ACEEN013)
• using evidence-based argument (ACEEN014)
• using appropriate quotation and referencing protocols (ACEEN015)
• using strategies for planning, drafting, editing and proofreading (ACEEN016)
• using accurate spelling, punctuation, syntax and metalanguage. (ACEEN017)

In both Modules learners:
Reflect on ideas and issues in their own and others’ texts by:

• using textual evidence to assess the purpose and context of texts (ACEEN018)
• questioning responses to texts(ACEEN019)
• investigating the impact and uses of imaginative, interpretive and persuasive texts. (ACEEN020)

Select one of the following electives:

• Get Animated: The power of moving images
• Australian Stories: Difference and diversity
• Current Affairs Reporting.

Learners create at least:

• one comparative essay
• one shorter interpretive response
• one imaginative response.

Focus: Learners examine the effect of language and stylistic choices and the ways in which these choices invite audiences to take positions for particular purposes, revealing attitudes, values and perspectives*.

Select one of the following electives:

• Get Real: Truth and documentary
• Speeches: How language changes the world
• Media: The power of advertising
• Among the Rubble: The language of war/terror.

Learners create at least:

• one major persuasive response e.g. a photo story for a speech or podcast, a trailer/storyboard for a mockumentary or documentary, an advertorial
• one analytical response.

In Module 3 learners:
Compare texts in a variety of contexts, mediums and modes by:

• explaining the relationship between purpose and context (ACEEN021)
• describing the style and structure of texts including digital texts (ACEEN022)
• assessing similarities and differences between hybrid texts. (ACEEN023)

In Module 3 learners:
Investigate the representation of ideas, attitudes and voices in texts including:

• describing the ways language features, text structures and stylistic choices shape points of view (ACEEN024)
• describing the effects of using multimodal and digital conventions such as navigation, sound and image. (ACEEN026)

In Module 4 learners:
Investigate the representation of ideas, attitudes and voices in texts including:

• describing the ways language features, text structures and stylistic choices shape points of view and influence audiences (ACEEN024)
• assessing the effects of rhetorical devices, for example, emphasis, emotive language and imagery in the construction of argument (ACEEN025)
• explaining how attitude and mood are created. (ACEEN027)

In Module 3 learners:
Describe and assess how and why responses to texts vary through:

• the impact of language and structural choices on shaping own and others’ perspectives (ACEEN028)
• the ways ideas, attitudes and voices are represented, (ACEEN029)

In Module 4 learners:
Describe and assess how and why responses to texts vary through:

• the impact of language and structural choices on shaping own and others’ perspectives (ACEEN028)
• the ways ideas, attitudes and voices are represented, for example, how events are reported differently in the media (ACEEN029)
• the interplay between imaginative, persuasive and interpretive techniques, for example, how anecdotes are used in speeches to amuse, inform or influence(ACEEN030)
• identifying changing responses to texts over time and in different cultural contexts. (ACEEN031)

In both Modules learners:
Create a range of texts:

• using imaginative, interpretive and persuasive elements for different purposes, contexts and audiences (ACEEN032)
• experimenting with text structures, language features and multimodal devices (ACEEN033)
• developing and sustaining voice, tone and style (ACEEN034)
• selecting and applying appropriate textual evidence to support arguments (ACEEN035)
• using strategies for planning, drafting, editing and proofreading (ACEEN036)
• using accurate spelling, punctuation, syntax and metalanguage. (ACEEN037)

In Module 3 learners:
Reflect on their own and others’ texts by:

• describing the values and attitudes expressed in texts (ACEEN038)
• assessing the effectiveness of texts in representing ideas, attitudes and voices. (ACEEN039)

In Module 4 learners:
Reflect on their own and others’ texts by:

• assessing the effectiveness of texts in representing ideas, attitudes and voices (ACEEN039)
• explaining how and why texts position readers and viewers. (ACEEN040)

Module One

Ideas and Issues

Study 55 hours

•  From one of Three electives

• One multimodal presentation
• One analytical essay
• One imaginative response 

Module Two

Negotiated Study

20 hours

•  Learner selects one text

• One imaginative response
• One oral presentation supported by a learner-crafted multimodal text

Module Three

Cultural Representation

37.5 hours

•  From one of Three electives

• One comparative essay
• One shorter interpretive response
• One imaginative response

Module Four

Language Study: Persuasion

37.5 hours

•  From one of Four electives

• One major persuasive response
• One analytical response

An outlook or a specific feeling about something. Our values underlie our attitudes.

Attitudes can be expressed by what we say, do and wear.

Learners analyse and evaluate issues and ideas presented in texts. In both thinking about and creating their own texts, they recognise and develop arguments, use evidence and draw reasoned conclusions. Learners experiment with text structures and language features as they transform and adapt texts for different purposes, contexts and audiences.

Learners use critical thinking when they use their knowledge of language to analyse a range of texts in relation to their purpose, context, audience, structural and language features, and underlying and unstated assumptions. They investigate the ways language is used to position individuals and social and cultural groups.

Creative thinking enables learners to apply imaginative and inventive capacities in the creation of their own original works.

Cultural representation refers to the way in which texts and language characterise particular individuals, groups and cultures.

Cultural representations may challenge or reflect the way people currently perceive individuals, groups or cultures. For example, conservationists may be depicted as ‘young, scruffy, shiftless people’ in a particular text while being depicted as ‘middle-aged, socially-aware people in another’.

These different cultural representations may be created through the written or visual language used in each text. It is important for learners to realise that omission helps to shape cultural representations too.

For example, when a group of Australian workers is depicted on a website, the fact that certain groups may be unrepresented – the poor, women, young people, disabled people – helps to shape that representation.

Learners need to understand that cultural representations have a powerful influence on people’s ideas, values, attitudes and power relationships.

Current media issues provide rich, authentic opportunities for the study of this concept. An understanding of cultural representation is important whether learners are responding to or composing texts.

Word groups/phrases used in a way that differ from the expected or everyday usage.

They are used in a non-literal way for particular effect (for example: simile – ‘white as a sheet’; metaphor – ‘all the world’s a stage’; personification – ‘the wind grabbed at my clothes’).

Readers might see connections in terms of:

• the representations of ideas or groups of people;
• the generic conventions used; of the language, form or style; in terms of the ideologies promoted;
• the plots or characters or themes.

Some texts allude to others, sometimes directly, sometimes subtly. While reading one text, readers might notice resonances with another text. By reading intertextually, we can examine how a text might position readers by inviting them to draw on ways of thinking they have encountered in other texts.

Many issues are raised in texts and it is for the reader/audience to identify these.

Choices in language features and text structures together define a type of text and shape its meaning. These choices vary according to the purpose of a text, its subject matter, audience and mode or medium of production.

The arrangement of identifiable repeated or corresponding elements in a text. These include patterns of repetition or similarity (for example, the repeated use of verbs at the beginning of each step in a recipe, or the repetition of a chorus after each verse in a song).

The patterns may alternate (for example, the call and response pattern of some games, or the to and fro of a dialogue). Other patterns may contrast (for example, opposing viewpoints in a discussion, or contrasting patterns of imagery in a poem).

The language patterns of a text contribute to the distinctive nature of its overall organisation and shape its meaning.

Literary texts refers to past and present texts across a range of cultural contexts that are valued for their form and style and are recognised as having enduring or artistic value.

While the nature of what constitutes ‘literary texts’ is dynamic and evolving, they are seen as having personal, social, cultural and aesthetic appeal and potential for enriching learners’ scope of experience.

Literary texts include a broad range of forms, such as novels, poetry, short stories, plays, fiction, non-fiction and multimodal texts.

Spoken, print, graphic or electronic communications with a public audience. They often involve numerous people in their construction and are usually shaped by the technology used in their production.

The media texts studied in English courses can be found in newspapers and magazines and on television, film, radio, computer software and the internet.

The various processes of communication – listening, speaking, reading/viewing and writing/creating and representing chosen as the way to transmit a message.

Modes are also used to refer to the semiotic (meaning making) resources associated with these communicative processes, such as sound, print, image and gesture.

A literary text is open to interpretation, can be read in a number of ways, depending on the reading strategies that readers are employing. In that sense, because different reading strategies are being used by different readers, then multiple readings of the text are possible.

For example, if the reader focuses on the representation of gender in a text then that might lead the reader to certain conclusions, for example, the text is ‘politically incorrect (or correct)’, ‘feminist’ or ‘chauvinist’.

Another reader might focus on class, for example, the class to which the writer belonged and the effects that had on the construction of the text; such a reading might focus on the representation of class in the text that privileges one class over another or that objects to the treatment of a class by the wider society.

A third reader might focus on the writer’s adherence to or adaptation of conventions of a genre; and on the writer’s choice of language and the implied ideologies of that language.

Three very different ‘readings’ of the same text might be created and each would be assessed on its merits. A single reader might also be able to create more than one reading of a text, for example, by explaining, “One reading of the text is that…..” and “Another reading of this text might be that….”

The ways in which a narrator may be related to the story.

For example, the narrator might take the role of first or third person, omniscient or restricted in knowledge of events, reliable or unreliable in interpretation of what happens.

Negotiation involves learners making decisions about their own learning in collaboration with a teacher or other learners.

To negotiate effectively, learners need information from the teacher about aims, resources, assessment procedures, constraints and non-negotiable outcomes.

Negotiation is a collaborative process in which participants work to achieve outcomes that are acceptable to all.

Are commonly referred to as gaps or silences in texts.

Gaps and silences occur frequently in texts. They are created when the author, intentionally or unintentionally, chooses to include some pieces of information and omit others.

Gaps are spaces in a text where something is left out, that the author expects readers or viewers to be able to fill in because of their prior knowledge and cultural understandings.

Silences are authorial omissions or absences in a text, which may be either deliberate or unconscious. They operate to create a particular invited reading.

Ordinary language used in speaking or writing, distinguished from poetry by its lack of a marked metrical structure.

Many modern genres, such as short stories, novels in fiction, for example, and letters, essays, and other types of non-fiction writing are typically written in prose.

The process of making meaning of text. This process draws on a repertoire of social, cultural and cognitive resources.

Reading occurs in different ways, for different purposes, in a variety of public and domestic settings.

Reading is therefore a cultural, economic, ideological, political and psychological act. The term applies to the act of reading print texts or the act of viewing a film or static image.

Readings are particular interpretations of a text. The classification of readings into alternative, resistant or dominant is quite arbitrary, depending on the ideology held by the reader.

Alternative readings: readings that focus on the gaps and silences in texts to create meanings that vary from those meanings that seem to be foregrounded by the text.

Dominant reading: is the reading that seems to be, for the majority of people in society, the natural or normal way to interpret a text. In a society where there are strongly competing discourses (i.e. most societies), the definition of what is a dominant reading depends on the ideology of the person making the decision.

Resistant reading: a way of reading or making meaning from a text which challenges or questions the assumptions underlying the text. Resistant readings employ a discourse different from the discourse that produces the dominant reading.

The style of language, grammar, and words used for particular situations.

The appropriate language register depends upon the audience (who), the topic (what), purpose (why) and location (where).

Representation refers to the way ideas, values, attitudes, people, events, issues or subjects are presented in a text.

The term implies that texts are not mirrors of the real world; they are constructions of ‘reality’. These constructions are partially shaped through the writer’s use of conventions and techniques.

The language mode that involves composing images by means of visual or other texts.

These images and their meaning are composed using codes and conventions.

This term can include activities such as graphically presenting the structure of a novel, making a film, composing a web page, or enacting a dramatic text.

The activity that occurs when learners read, listen to or view texts. It encompasses the personal and intellectual connections a learner makes with texts.

It also recognises that learners and the texts to which they respond exist in social and cultural contexts.

Responding typically involves: reading, listening and viewing that depend on, but go beyond, the decoding of texts identifying, comprehending, selecting, articulating, imagining, critically analysing and evaluating.

The variety of spoken and written English language in Australia used in more formal settings such as for official or public purposes, and recorded in dictionaries, style guides and grammars.

While it is always dynamic and evolving, it is recognised as the ‘common language’ of Australians.

The ways in which aspects of texts (such as words, sentences, and images) are arranged and how they affect meaning.

Style can distinguish:

• the work of individual authors (for example, Jennings’s stories, Lawson’s poems),
• the work of a particular period (for example, Elizabethan drama, nineteenth-century novels),
• a particular genre or type of text (for example, recipes, scientific articles, play-by-play commentary).

Examples of stylistic features are narrative viewpoint, structure of stanzas, juxtaposition, nominalisation, alliteration, metaphor, lexical choice.

The means for communication. Their forms and conventions have developed to help us communicate effectively with a variety of audiences for a range of purposes. Texts can be written, visual, spoken or multimodal and in print or digital/online forms.

Multimodal texts combine language with other systems for communication, such as print text, visual images, soundtrack and spoken word as in film or computer presentation media.

The ways in which information is organised in different types of texts.

For example, chapter headings, subheadings, tables of contents, indexes and glossaries, overviews, introductory and concluding paragraphs, sequencing, topic sentences, taxonomies, cause and effect.

Choices in text structures and language features together define a text type and shape its meaning. Examples of text structures in literary texts include sonnets, monologues, hypertext.

An idea, concern or argument developed in a text.

A recurring element (for example, the subject of a text may be love, and its theme could be how love involves sacrifice).

A work may have more than one theme.

Tone describes the way the ‘voice’ is delivered.

For example, the tone of a voice or the tone in a passage of writing could be friendly or angry or persuasive.

Classifications of texts according to the particular purposes they are designed to achieve. In general, in the senior subjects in Australian Curriculum: English, texts are classified as imaginative, interpretive, analytical or persuasive types of texts although these distinctions are neither static nor discrete and particular texts can belong to more than one category.

Analytical texts
Texts whose primary purpose is to identify, examine and draw conclusions about the elements or components that make up other texts. Analytical texts develop an argument or consider or advance an interpretation. Examples of these texts include commentaries, essays in criticism, reflective or discursive responses and reviews.

Imaginative texts
Texts whose primary purpose is to entertain or provoke thought through their imaginative use of literary elements. They are recognised for their form, style and artistic or aesthetic value. These texts include novels, traditional tales, poetry, stories, plays, fiction for young adults and children, including picture books, and multimodal texts such as film.

Interpretive texts
Texts whose primary purpose is to explain and interpret personalities, events, ideas, representations or concepts. They include autobiography, biography, media feature articles, documentary film and other non-fiction texts. There is a focus on interpretive rather than informative texts in the senior years of schooling.

Persuasive texts
Texts whose primary purpose is to put forward a point of view and persuade a reader, viewer or listener. They form a significant part of modern communication in both print and digital environments. They include advertising, debates, arguments, discussions, polemics and essays and articles.

Reflective texts
Texts whose primary purpose is to reflect on texts and ideas but in a less formal way than an analytical essay. Such texts could include a series of journal entries about a literary text or a single piece reflecting on what one hoped to achieve in a creative production.

Authorial voice
In the literary sense, voice can be used to refer to the nature of the voice projected in a text by an author; the persona, role or character adopted by an author.

Narrative voice
The ways in which a narrator may be related to the story. For example, the narrator might take the role of first or third person, omniscient or restricted in knowledge of events, reliable or unreliable in interpreting what happens.

Investigate how text structures and language features are used to convey ideas and represent people and events in a range of texts

Module 1

Module 2

Describe the ways in which ideas and attitudes are represented in texts

Examine the ways texts are constructed to influence responses

Module 3

Module 4

C3 Compose and craft texts

C4 Compose and craft oral and multimodal texts

C5 Compose and craft imaginative texts

Module 1

Module 2

Module 3

Module 4

Module 1

Module 2

Module 3

Module 4

Module 1

Module 2

Module 3

Module 4