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2.9 Form developed personal responses to independently read texts (4 CREDITS)

Choose 6 texts to read. Two must be extended written texts (novels, biographies, autobiographies, plays, etc). Up to two can be films (or other visual texts like graphic novels or gaming narratives). The rest can be poems, lyrics, speech transcripts or short stories. You could choose 6 novels or 2 novels and 4 poems/short stories, etc.

Ask yourself these questions and answer them in your response:

What reaction did the text provoke in me? How did I identify with this text? What extra meaning did it have for me due to my personal experiences in life so far? What did this text help me understand about the world, society or human nature? How did the ideas in this text challenge my thinking when compared to other texts on the same topic or other experiences linked to this topic? As a reader, what did I think the writer/director did well? What did I think they could have improved? Why?

What is Critical reading?

The University of Toronto's guide to critical reading can be found here, with tips as to how to develop your critical reading skills.

A selection of short texts that are suitable for Level Two:

• Rain by Hone Tuwhare (poem)
• Still I Rise by Maya Angelou (poem)
• Caged Bird by Maya Angelou (poem)
• Poems by Glenn Colquhoun, Ben Brown, Selina Tusitala Marsh, Apirana Taylor (look online)

Clarifications of the standard

The standard requires students to read texts that are at curriculum level 7 in terms of complexity of language and ideas. This means that children’s texts, novels and short stories commonly taught in junior programmes are not suitable selections. Searches of major public library catalogues will frequently provide a reading age for texts. Those texts categorised as ‘children’s’ are not suitable.

Feature articles such as those from The Listener, North and South, Metro, National Geographic, meet the text level required for 91106. This should be used as guidance when students are selecting short written texts.

Students must select and read texts independently. Novels, short stories, poems, etc. that have been studied in class, cannot be included. This includes texts studied in previous years and in other subjects. Students may respond to a film shown, but not studied, in class.