Our Goals

This unit is designed to build on students’ knowledge and skills in understanding poetry. Our focus will be on how poetry has developed in Australia, specifically, how traditions of Aboriginal storytelling as well as bush poets, sacramental poets and slam poets have reshaped and defined our cultural experience and in particular our changing relationship with the Australian landscape.

Students will develop their understanding of how Australian cultural values are represented in a range of poetic texts. They will also consider how context has shaped the perspective of these poets. Implicit in this exploration is an appreciation of poetic works and how they are vehicles of cultural knowledge that carry authority and often argue complex perspectives on our shifting views of the Australian landscape.