Our Goals

This term, Year 9 will study the role of poetry as a vehicle for protest in society. Students will consider how form and language have the power to sway or challenge opinion, influence government and politics and incite action. Students will identify the role of poetry or song lyrics as catalysts for resistance and empowerment, examining a variety of poems and song lyrics from different contexts and our contemporary context. 

They will refamiliarise themselves with poetic techniques and poetic forms and how these shape meaning in a text. Students will study a number of set poems and song lyrics which will be examined in the assessment task as well as a selection of poems/song lyrics chosen by their teachers. Students will also develop skills in writing their own poem of protest. 

Students will consider the textual concept of authority. They will consider the authority over a text and how this  interacts with the role of the responder who brings his or her own interpretations onto the text. Students will understand that the authority of a text is often determined by its appropriate style, its reference to accepted experts and its context of publication.