Year 12 ENG

Year 12 ENG

Welcome to Level 2 English! This course builds on and extends the knowledge you gained in NCEA Level 1 English. It is based on the National English Curriculum Level 7 and the prescription for NCEA Level 2 English. This course aims to develop your ability to appreciate and respond to a range of written texts, and to express your ideas with fluency and persuasiveness. There will be a range of internal assessments offered, and preparation for the Response to Written Text (2.1), Response to Visual Text (2.2) and Response to Unfamiliar Written Texts (2.3) externals. The English Department strives to challenge, motivate and inspire students by exposing you to texts that are original, relevant and of a high standard.

My name is Mrs Finnimore/Whaea Jane (you choose). I am a lawyer, a teacher, a mother, a wife.

As we learn we will be considering the ways that written literature and texts act as both windows and mirrors in our lives. This idea is explored by Rudine Sims Bishop (Professor in English Literature) when he says:

“Books are sometimes windows, offering views of worlds that may be real or imagined, familiar or strange. These windows are also sliding glass doors, and readers have only to walk through in imagination to become part of whatever world has been created or recreated by the author. When lighting conditions are just right, however, a window can also be a mirror. Literature transforms human experience and reflects it back to us, and in that reflection we can see our own lives and experiences as part of a larger human experience. Reading, then, becomes a means of self-affirmation, and readers often seek their mirrors in books.”

Questions for discussion:

• In your own words, explain how books act as "windows" when we read them.

• In your own words, explain how books act as "mirrors" when we read them.

• Do you agree that literature is capable of transforming human experience?