English

Michelle McDonald

“Literature is where I go to explore the highest and lowest places in human ” society and in the human spirit, where I hope to find not absolute truth but the truth of the tale, of the imagination and of the heart.

Salman Rushdie

The English Department always strive to keep the boys of St Edward’s at the heart of all that we do. We have enjoyed teaching the boys literature, language and literacy in 2021 both on campus and during home-based learning. Students and staff alike displayed brilliant agility in being able to adapt to all of the challenges that 2021 sent our way. Books and movies became more important than ever as we needed our creative outlets to relax and unwind.

A special mention and thank you must go to the College Executive for their support of the English department. Furthermore, my personal thanks must go to the innovative and valued team of English professionals, who motivate and inspire our students each and every day. This year we welcomed Mr Daniel Kent, Mrs Kaitlyn Abbott-Atchinson and Mr Alex Rozario to the English team and they have quickly become highly valued members of staff who bring with them a wealth of knowledge, skills and ideas. My gratitude must extend to our Assistant Leader of Learning, Ms Nowalinksi for her dedication to this department and her support of myself, staff and students throughout one of the trickiest years for teaching we have experienced thus far.

In 2021, Year 7 began their high school journey with a study of Belonging, through the lens of Australian Poetry and wrote fabulous poems about what it means to be an ‘Eddies Boy’. They then studied ‘Epic Quests’ with many ICT skills, followed by ‘Diversity’ and ended the year with literacy skills and cinematic techniques.

Year 8 studied, ‘The Fall’, as part of the Crime Fiction Genre Study, then enjoyed Aboriginal literature in a unit titled ‘First People’, followed by a Media study and have enjoyed finishing the year with an immersion into ‘Identity’ with a film study of ‘Hunt for the Wilderpeople’. We are very pleased with their dedication and creativity.

Year 9 completed Units on ‘Documentaries, Speculative fiction, Shakespeare’s ‘Macbeth’ and ‘The Voice of Resistance’. They created some amazing compositions during home-based learning on ‘Macbeth’.

Year 10 embarked on People and Power with a drama text, followed by delving into the dangers of ‘Fake News’, then a study on the ‘Voices of the Shoah’, finishing the year with a study of prose and film in a ‘Page to Screen’ unit.

Our Year 11 students embarked on their Senior studies with maturity and responsibility. They have engaged with the new style multimodal tasks with positivity and are well equipped to develop these skills further in the HSC year. The English Studies students have completed travel guides and a series of mock interviews, as well as letter and resume writing skills and how to use English in a digital world. Standard students have completed studies in Reading to Write, Contemporary Possibilities and The Poetry of Peter Skrzynecki. Advanced English students read ‘Othello’ and ‘Disgraced’ in Narratives that Shape our World and studied the poetry of W B Yeats.

St Edward’s is pleased to offer the entire range of HSC courses from English Studies through to Extension Two English and the boys in each class have worked tirelessly to prepare for their HSC and most of all, supported one another and celebrated alongside their peers in their successes. The Year 12 group attended ETA study days online this year which were invaluable for their knowledge and understanding of the concepts and texts.

At every English staff meeting we take time to pray for the boys, staff and families of St Edward’s College and ask that our Lord help us keep the boys at the centre of all we strive to do each and every day. We are thankful to work in an Edmund Rice School with Gospel values at the heart of our community.

Student Work Samples: Inspiration: The Rabbits - Shaun Tan and John Marsden

The hills rolled into the background, rid of life after a year of ferocious cultivation and land management. They seem plastic. They seem fake. The sky has turned into a fire, red with hints of yellow. My dark skin became amber even sitting in the shade of the nearby trees. Dry patches of land are seen where the seeds could not grow into full crops. Smoke rises from the giant, hulking machines that shine with a metallic red glow against the sun. Blades with serrated, rotating teeth stick out from the hood of the giants, creating a cry of death and destruction that echoed.

An old shack is placed not far from the crop land. White-painted walls of rotting timber and a roof of metal sheets seem lazily placed. On the veranda of that decomposing shack sits a man on a plastic chair. The supervisor of the machines.

His teeth, through the haze of the burning sky, are a dark, yellowish-brown, mistreated and cracked. Brown wisps of hair link together on his head, forming a thin curtain over his face. A crooked nose and squinted eyes adorn his pale, wheat like face. Wrinkles contour like rivers and streams on mountainous land. I hate that man ... By Charlie Dawson, Year 8

English

The Cull

I can feel the sting of the sun burning the back of my neck. The heat is pushing me down and the sweat tickles my back. You would think we would have acclimatized by now; the planet has been warming for centuries and this is the only solution they have managed to come up with. Happy Birthday to me. I shuffle my feet trying to get comfortable but there are too many bodies pressed up against me. We have been out here for hours you would think they could get on with it, it is not like they do it every year.

I cannot get the image of my mum’s tears out of my head when she hugged me goodbye. But let’s face it, she doesn’t have a choice, none of us do. Someone falls into my back, and I stumble forward.

“Hey, waster, watch yourself!” Its clear from his clean sleek pearly jacket and multiple earrings and rings he is a noble-born. That’s the thing about The Cull, it does not discriminate. There’s just too many of us.

“Can’t believe we have to do this with wasters, they should at least give us our own entrance.” His smug face makes me want to puke all over his pretty white jacket. His friend turns to sneer at me and replies.

“What are you worried about? It’s not like our families are going to let us fail the test.”

The truth of his words drops like a stone in my stomach. We all may have to sit the cull but some of us will be able to walk back outside and some of us will never see the light again. I look down at my own clothes to see my worn-out black jacket with my raggedy pants and its pretty obvious which one I’ll be. I’m just going to have to rely on my wits and my strengths ... By Sam Nowalinski

English Outdoors Year 12 - Henry IV Sydney