2006 School Magazine

English

English

Ms R Christopherson and her Year 10 English Elective class

QUT ‘Apprentice to Performer’ Project

Literature comes to life As an extension of their study of Alyssa Brugman’s novel, Finding Grace, Year 9 students met three people with real life experiences of neurological trauma: an occupational therapist from the Acquired Brain Injury Outreach Service; Natalia, a young woman who is on the long road to recovery from an acquired brain injury sustained in 2002; and her carer. The students were especially captivated by Natalia’s cheerfulness and determination. Elizabeth Placanica (9M) wrote: “Natalia’s visit was truly inspirational. For someone who has suffered and lost so much, she still remains positive. To her, life is still worth living and the obstacles she faces are not reasons to be negative, but goals to overcome.”The Year 9 students have undertaken fundraising to provide resources for a rehabilitation programme for adolescents with acquired brain injuries.

Ms Rachael Christopherson and her Year 10 English Elective class participated in the QUT ‘Apprentice to Performer’ project in Term III. Entitled, ‘From apprentice to performer in secondary English classrooms’, the project is being undertaken under the auspices of a QUT Teaching and Learning Grant. In the elective unit, Secrets, Survivors and Shadows, the students studied Gary Crew’s Strange Objects and Fireshadow written by Anthony Eaton. Throughout the Term, academics Dr Anita Jetnikoff and Dr Wendy Morgan videotaped classroomexamples of best practice not only for pre-service secondary English education students but also to provide opportunities for our students to reflect on their own learning.

English in 2006: ReVisioning theCriticalandtheAesthetic

2006Writer in Residence: Dr Eva Sallis

Extension Activities

Curriculum Enrichment

The English Faculty ran a series of Shakespeare Competitions for students fromYear 8 to Year 12 as an extension of the World Shakespeare Congress held in Brisbane in July, of which Brisbane GirlsGrammar Schoolwas a sponsor. Prizes were awarded to the successful studentsandincludedTheComplete Works for the winner at Years 11 and 12, Claire Vieritz (11O); a Collection of Shakespearean Soliloquies for the winner at Year 10, Jacinta Livingstone (10R); and a Collection of Shakespearean Sonnets for the winner at Years 8 and 9, Ellen Harrison (9R).

In August the School had the privilege of hosting our 2006 Doris WarakerTownsendMemorialWriterin Residence, Dr Eva Sallis. Dr Sallis completed an MA on the poetry of T S Eliot , has a PhD in Literature and is a Visiting Research Fellow at the University of Adelaide. She is a writer of literary fiction and criticism and has won numerous literary awards. Over the period of her Residency, Dr Sallis conducted a series of intensive workshops onwriting and editing for twenty Senior students who had been successful in obtaining places in the Programme. Parents and

participating students met with Dr Sallis at a Cocktail Party held in her honour. Dr Sallis also worked with all Year 11s in two sessions on short story writing designed to assist them in the creation of their own short stories. She presented an eloquent and thought-provoking address to the School Assembly on the intersection of human rights, social justice and the arts, to all of which she has a passionate commitment.

Whilst the contemporary literary theorist, novelist, and philosopher, Umberto Eco, reminds us that “literature keeps language alive as our collective heritage”, teachers in the Faculty also are keenly aware of the associated pleasures that derive from their students’ imaginative and empathic engagement with multilayered and evocative fictive worlds. Certainly one of the fundamental premises that frame our teaching of literature is our desire that students may come both to read and to love these texts, so that their effects outlast a single semester and instead stay with them throughout their lives. English Extension (Literature) has proved again to be a popular and stimulating enrichment subject for Year 12 students, enabling students to apply sophisticated theoretical understandings about reading and writing practices to a diverse range of canonical and contemporary texts that they have selected for their independent guided studies.

Hayley Wall (12W), Dr Eva Sallis, Hannah Wilson (12M)

Dr Robyn Colwill Director

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Br isbane Gir ls Grammar School

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