It is not in the stars to hold our destiny but in ourselves.'
William Shakespeare – Julius Caesar
Have you ever left a movie theatre feeling sad, euphoric, angry or emotionally drained? If so, that is what was meant to happen. Film directors, and advertisers for that matter, are manipulating you to think and feel a certain way. However, I'm sure most people are completely unaware that it is happening and how. In English at Francis Greenway High School, we teach our students to understand why they feel a particular way when faced with any text and why the composer wants them to feel like this.
We explore a diverse range of text types, both fiction and non-fiction where we apply elements to real life, such as writing letters to our local member or to enjoy a novel and ask ourselves why we connected to the text. In all junior years we begin the year with a novel study. This helps set the tone of our school’s expectations, as well as lets students develop their literacy skills through enjoyable storylines and themes. We investigate contemporary texts and classics such as Shakespeare to ensure that our students are challenged and receive a holistic experience in English.
As the only compulsory subject in Stage 6 it is imperative that all students are catered for and our experienced staff know how to get the best out of all our students. We have a diverse range of English staff, including HSC markers and we are a hardworking and innovative team.
Assessment is an important aspect of school and in English we use assessment tasks as learning to ascertain where our students are at and assessment tasks of learning for our students to show us how they have developed over a unit. However, we diversify the types of tasks we do for example, students create multimodal texts to fully engage in the tech driven world that they will be faced with upon leaving school, as well as complete extended writing tasks exploring both formal and informal text types. Our assessment task schedule for Stages 4 and 5 is backward mapped from the HSC to give students the opportunity to develop sophisticated writing and analytical skills in order to perform to the best of their ability. By being thoroughly prepared, students are learning lifelong skills and how to demonstrate these skills.
English is about giving our students the power to communicate effectively throughout their lives so that they can be valuable members of society and our English teachers at Francis Greenway High School have the knowledge and passion to ensure that every one of our students has the opportunity to be the best that they can be.