COMMON MODULE - LITERARY WORLDS
In this module students explore, investigate, experiment with and evaluate the ways texts represent and illuminate the complexity of individual and collective lives in literary worlds. Students evaluate how ideas and ways of thinking are shaped by personal, social, historical and cultural contexts. They extend their understanding of the ways that texts contribute to their awareness of the diversity of ideas, attitudes and perspectives evident in texts.
Students explore, analyse and critically evaluate textual representations of the experiences of others, including notions of identity, voice and points of view; and how values are presented and reflected in texts. They deepen their understanding of how texts construct private, public and imaginary worlds that can explore new horizons and offer new insights.
Students consider how personal, social, historical and cultural context influence how texts are valued and how context influences their responses to these diverse literary worlds. They appraise their own values, assumptions and dispositions as they develop further understanding of how texts make meaning.
In their study of literary worlds students experiment with critical and creative compositions that explore how language features and forms are crafted to express complex ideas and emotions, motivations, attitudes, experiences and values. These compositions may be realised in various forms, modes and media.
Each elective in this module involves the study of three texts from the prescribed list, with at least two being print texts. Students explore, analyse and critically evaluate a range of other texts that construct private, public and imaginary worlds.
Source:
NSW Educational Standards
http://educationstandards.nsw.edu.au/wps/portal/nesa/11-12/stage-6-learning-areas/stage-6-english/english-extension-2017/modules
Students explore, analyse and critically evaluate textual representations of the experiences of others, including notions of identity, voice and points of view; and how values are presented and reflected in texts. They deepen their understanding of how texts construct private, public and imaginary worlds that can explore new horizons and offer new insights.
Students consider how personal, social, historical and cultural context influence how texts are valued and how context influences their responses to these diverse literary worlds. They appraise their own values, assumptions and dispositions as they develop further understanding of how texts make meaning.
In their study of literary worlds students experiment with critical and creative compositions that explore how language features and forms are crafted to express complex ideas and emotions, motivations, attitudes, experiences and values. These compositions may be realised in various forms, modes and media.
Each elective in this module involves the study of three texts from the prescribed list, with at least two being print texts. Students explore, analyse and critically evaluate a range of other texts that construct private, public and imaginary worlds.
Source:
NSW Educational Standards
http://educationstandards.nsw.edu.au/wps/portal/nesa/11-12/stage-6-learning-areas/stage-6-english/english-extension-2017/modules
Focus Questions
- How do the literary worlds of texts represent the complexity of individual and collective lives?
- How are ideas and ways of thinking that are represented in texts shaped by personal, social, historical and cultural contexts?
- How do texts broaden our understanding of the diversity of human ideas and perspectives and provide new understandings and insights?
- Why are texts valued in different times and places by different audiences?
Personal Reflection
What is the most striking, different or powerful place you have been to? Find a picture or representation of it and write a SHORT REFLECTION on why it had a powerful effect on you and what physical characteristics of that place created such an impact on you.
What is it about travel to another place that engages us so much?
What does it give us?
Why are humans often so keen to travel to exotic, different or unusual places?
Consider how many people find the experience of reading, or viewing a film, to have similarities with travel. Instead of literally travelling to a distant land we do it by reading, or viewing or even playing an electronic game. Fiction can even make a familiar place seem different or strange.
Personal Reflection on Literature
Reflect on the following questions, and write some notes for discussion:
In a Google Doc, create a list of the texts that have most powerfully affected you. If a text is listed by another student, put a tick next to it so that we can determine which texts have had the most powerful impact on the class.
What is it about travel to another place that engages us so much?
What does it give us?
Why are humans often so keen to travel to exotic, different or unusual places?
Consider how many people find the experience of reading, or viewing a film, to have similarities with travel. Instead of literally travelling to a distant land we do it by reading, or viewing or even playing an electronic game. Fiction can even make a familiar place seem different or strange.
Personal Reflection on Literature
Reflect on the following questions, and write some notes for discussion:
- In which books or films have you immersed and felt as though you had entered a different world?
- What elements of the text created that experience?
- Do you think the composer deliberately tried to create an alternative world? why?
- Was the experience enjoyable? Why?
- How did you position this text, and experience of it, into your broader lifelong experience of exploring imaginative texts?
In a Google Doc, create a list of the texts that have most powerfully affected you. If a text is listed by another student, put a tick next to it so that we can determine which texts have had the most powerful impact on the class.
Death of the Author
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Death of the Author
TV Topes
"The Death of the Author" (French: La mort de l'auteur) is a 1967 essay by the French literary critic and theorist Roland Barthes (1915–80). Barthes' essay argues against traditional literary criticism's practice of incorporating the intentions and biographical context of an author in an interpretation of a text, and instead argues that writing and creator are unrelated. The title is a reference to Le Morte d'Arthur, a 15th-century compilation of smaller Arthurian legend stories, written by Sir Thomas Malory.[citation needed][1]
The essay's first English-language publication was in the American journal Aspen, no. 5–6 in 1967; the French debut was in the magazine Manteia, no. 5 (1968). The essay later appeared in an anthology of Barthes's essays, Image-Music-Text (1977), a book that also included his "From Work To Text".
Wikipedia 2018
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Death_of_the_Author
TV Topes
"The Death of the Author" (French: La mort de l'auteur) is a 1967 essay by the French literary critic and theorist Roland Barthes (1915–80). Barthes' essay argues against traditional literary criticism's practice of incorporating the intentions and biographical context of an author in an interpretation of a text, and instead argues that writing and creator are unrelated. The title is a reference to Le Morte d'Arthur, a 15th-century compilation of smaller Arthurian legend stories, written by Sir Thomas Malory.[citation needed][1]
The essay's first English-language publication was in the American journal Aspen, no. 5–6 in 1967; the French debut was in the magazine Manteia, no. 5 (1968). The essay later appeared in an anthology of Barthes's essays, Image-Music-Text (1977), a book that also included his "From Work To Text".
Wikipedia 2018
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Death_of_the_Author
The many Incarnations of a Story: how context reshapes perception
Imaginative Task
Create a proposal and map for a literary world that you would like to create. You will need to explain to the class its composition and draw part or all of its geographical area, and explain how the map helps you to envisage the world.
Exploring the Role of Literature in our World
A Year of Reading the World
Anne Morgan. August 29, 2018
Ann Morgan considered herself well read -- until she discovered the "massive blindspot" on her bookshelf. Amid a multitude of English and American authors, there were very few books from beyond the English-speaking world. So she set an ambitious goal: to read one book from every country in the world over the course of a year. Now she's urging other Anglophiles to read translated works so that publishers will work harder to bring foreign literary gems back to their shores. Explore interactive maps of her reading journey here: go.ted.com/readtheworld
This talk was presented at an official TED conference, and was featured by our editors on the home page.
A Year of Reading the World
This talk was presented at an official TED conference, and was featured by our editors on the home page.
A Year of Reading the World
This is an interesting talk that raises questions about the literary worlds we have access to and how that access shapes our world view. It raises questions about publishing, translation and English language literature. There are interesting ideas expressed about how global communication has exploded or can explode the literary landscape that has been dominated by those with social and cultural agency.
The Value of Literature - Writing Activities.
Select one of the following quotes on the value of literature and WRITE a brief paragraph linking it to an element of your experience of reading or viewing a powerful literary text.
Write Now Task
Use this quote from Julian Barnes, as a stimulus to compose a piece of writing in a form of your own choosing. Your piece should explore the power of the imagination. You are then to write a short reflection that explores how you anted to represent the power of the imagination and what you see as its limitations.
Compose an imaginative piece that explores a literary world they have deeply enjoyed and develop your own narrative using the characters and settings of that world for your own purpose. Consider offering a critical revision of what that world in a dialogue with the composer your admire.
Use this quote from Julian Barnes, as a stimulus to compose a piece of writing in a form of your own choosing. Your piece should explore the power of the imagination. You are then to write a short reflection that explores how you anted to represent the power of the imagination and what you see as its limitations.
Compose an imaginative piece that explores a literary world they have deeply enjoyed and develop your own narrative using the characters and settings of that world for your own purpose. Consider offering a critical revision of what that world in a dialogue with the composer your admire.
How do we respond to litearay worlds?
Explore the metaphor of travelling to a new world when travelling into a literary world. The world is set up through the paratext (book cover, film titles, reviews read) and then draws the audience into an imaginative world through its setting, graphics, images and maps, and fictionally, by the initial premise of the narrative.
Follow the hyperlink to the website 11 Fantasy Short Stories You Can Read Online for Free. Choose one short story to read, making a note about the the lives of the people within it. Write a series of statements about how the text communicates ideas about the complexity of human lives and the diversity of human experiences.
Follow the hyperlink to the website 11 Fantasy Short Stories You Can Read Online for Free. Choose one short story to read, making a note about the the lives of the people within it. Write a series of statements about how the text communicates ideas about the complexity of human lives and the diversity of human experiences.
Exploring the Creation of the Fantasy World
Activity
View this scene from The Hobbit (above) and answer the following questions:
Activity
View this scene from The Hobbit (above) and answer the following questions:
- How does it use film techniques to establish a world of fantasy?
- What does it remind you of?
- How does its visual style suggest the type of world you are about to enter and the kinds of people you are about to meet?
- How does it offer historical, mythical clues to help you connect your world with this ‘other world’?
- How are post-modern conventions such as pastiche, intertextuality or hybridity used?
Activity:
Follow the hyperlink to view the map of the literary worlds of, Lord of the Rings.
How and why are these maps an essential part of the overall effect of the literary world created?
Using Canva, create a mind map which explores the importance of maps on the creation and presentation of literary worlds. Think of such elements as:
Follow the hyperlink to view the map of the literary worlds of, Lord of the Rings.
How and why are these maps an essential part of the overall effect of the literary world created?
Using Canva, create a mind map which explores the importance of maps on the creation and presentation of literary worlds. Think of such elements as:
- The personal, social, historical and cultural context of the text
- Its genre, form and structure
- Distinctive features of the text
- Our own contexts
- ideas about the complex relationship between individuals and society
- perspectives on the diversity of human experience
- alternative readings of the text
- the value of the text.
Reading of the opening chapter of Moby Dick available through the hyperlink.
Write some notes in your workbooks to the following discussion questions:
Read another short text, such as Coleridge’s ‘Kubla Khan’ available via the hyperlink. Explain how the reader is positioned in response to this text. Write an analytical paragraph which explores the values and textual features of this poem. |
Why we need Libraries
Why we need libraries, an essay in pictures, by Neil Gaiman and Chris Riddell.
The Guardian, 6 September 2018
Two great champions of reading for pleasure return to remind us that it really is an important thing to do – and that libraries create literate citizens
The Guardian, 6 September 2018
Two great champions of reading for pleasure return to remind us that it really is an important thing to do – and that libraries create literate citizens
Different Kinds of Literary Worlds
Myths and Lore
Consider the many different kinds of fictional worlds and how their personal, social, historical and cultural contexts shape how the audience experiences the text. Each literary world is a representation of the real world in some sense (even if some are fantastical and mythic, while others may have a very deep correspondence and verisimilitude to our own social worlds) and leads us to build ideas about the individuals and society within it.
Consider the many different kinds of fictional worlds and how their personal, social, historical and cultural contexts shape how the audience experiences the text. Each literary world is a representation of the real world in some sense (even if some are fantastical and mythic, while others may have a very deep correspondence and verisimilitude to our own social worlds) and leads us to build ideas about the individuals and society within it.
Each of these stories clearly present the context of its own literary world. How are these world presented in each text? and how are they and their creation discussed in these excerpts?
Pre-Modern Worlds
The oldest literary worlds that humans have developed are myths, legends and lore: stories that are created to explore how the world came to exist and why it is the way it is. These are often strange and wonderful worlds with gods and lords, miraculous events and symbolic meanings. A lot of these myths touch deep places in our cultural and psychological make-up so that, while not ‘realistic’ in any modern sense, they are still profoundly affective and leave mythic structures that endure and organise modern literature – structures of success and failure, comedy and tragedy, good and evil.
Read the legend of Pandora’s box – a kind of creation myth about the origins of evil. Think of a different creation story from a different culture and compare and contrast the representations of both stories. Write an analytical paragraph using the ALARM scaffold about the different ideas and representations of Creation myths in different cultures. |
Exploring Aboriginal Stories
Explore the original Cleverman myth, what can you find on the internet? Then examine the official trailer for the TV series Cleverman, a postmodern text that creates a world that brings the ancient past and the future together to represent and challenge values and cultural assumptions.
View the online ABC news article, ‘Cleverman showcases revival of Australia's Indigenous languages’. Refer to the Australia Arts Council 2007 Protocols for producing Indigenous Australian media arts as a reference to help you to discuss Indigenous cultural and intellectual property and protocols for the inclusion of Gumbaynggirr and Bundjalung languages of the north coast of NSW in Cleverman.
How do we read these stories today and what we can still gain from them?
Use the interpretive model below to explore the texts. Make notes on the following areas and share their ideas.
in order to understand:
In discussion, students discuss how myths and lore are now read as:
They also consider:
View the online ABC news article, ‘Cleverman showcases revival of Australia's Indigenous languages’. Refer to the Australia Arts Council 2007 Protocols for producing Indigenous Australian media arts as a reference to help you to discuss Indigenous cultural and intellectual property and protocols for the inclusion of Gumbaynggirr and Bundjalung languages of the north coast of NSW in Cleverman.
How do we read these stories today and what we can still gain from them?
Use the interpretive model below to explore the texts. Make notes on the following areas and share their ideas.
- personal, social, historical and cultural context of the text
- genre, form and structure of the text
- distinctive features of the text
- their own context(s)
in order to understand:
- ideas about the complex relationship between individuals and society
- diverse perspectives on human experience
- alternative readings of the text
- the value of the text.
In discussion, students discuss how myths and lore are now read as:
- symbolic explanations of the social and physical world (external explanations)
- explanations for cultural ritual (internal explanations)
- explanations for psychological traits.
They also consider:
- how the texts’ social, historical and cultural context may determine these meanings
Responses to Modernity
This stage focuses on texts which respond to elements of individual and collective experience in the modern world (last five centuries) – where most of our texts originate.
As the module and electives are trans-historical, they focus on literary responses to the emerging modern world and the various challenges it has thrown up to individuals and societies within it. These include the varied, diverse perspectives individuals have towards those experiences and the various identities it shapes as well as how voices that have been silenced or marginalised are expressed through new worlds that represent a new world order.
How has the modern world drawn out broad historical responses such as:
These factors led, in a complex way, to successive artistic responses: in a simplified map of the development of literary worlds. The waves of modernity led to the rise of Romanticism, then Realism, Modernism and Postmodernism, each with characteristic preoccupations, perspectives and values.
As the module and electives are trans-historical, they focus on literary responses to the emerging modern world and the various challenges it has thrown up to individuals and societies within it. These include the varied, diverse perspectives individuals have towards those experiences and the various identities it shapes as well as how voices that have been silenced or marginalised are expressed through new worlds that represent a new world order.
How has the modern world drawn out broad historical responses such as:
- The rise of reason over religion and its effect on humanity
- The growth of the urban world and its impact on culture and individuals
- The growth of complexity and size of human institutions and structures – the rise of the state – and its impact on individuals
- The growth of technology and its impact on society
- The rise of voices and experiences that challenge the dominant or grand narratives of the Western world
These factors led, in a complex way, to successive artistic responses: in a simplified map of the development of literary worlds. The waves of modernity led to the rise of Romanticism, then Realism, Modernism and Postmodernism, each with characteristic preoccupations, perspectives and values.
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Early Modern Worlds
Key text – John Donne’s ‘Good Morrow’ or similar early modern poem about exploration
How are the following elements representative of an early modern worldview and the experiences it portrays:
· Personal, social, historical and cultural context of the text: early-modern world pitched between the medieval world and its moral values and the rise of the individual, the world of exploration and travel
· Genre, form and structure of the text: aubade (morning poem), love poem moving rapidly through a series of ideas about love as a kind of exploration, wittily using love imagery as the personal exploration of the other
· Distinctive features of the text: its wit, use of paradox, formal rhyme structure
· Your own context(s): our own era still values individualism and romantic love and appreciates the wit, but may question Donne’s self-assurance and male confidence
WRITTEN REFLECTION
How have you gained understanding about:
· ideas about the complex relationship between individuals and society: the growth of individualism and romantic love, the witty indirect exploration of human intimacy (reacting against medieval formality and moral disapproval)
· diverse perspectives on human experience: contrast the attitude of the male lover and his implicit female listener
· alternative readings of the text: explore at least one academic reading of the text and contrast it with the group’s personal reading
the value of the text: an early love poem that shows the rise of human individualism and the exploration of romantic love
How are the following elements representative of an early modern worldview and the experiences it portrays:
· Personal, social, historical and cultural context of the text: early-modern world pitched between the medieval world and its moral values and the rise of the individual, the world of exploration and travel
· Genre, form and structure of the text: aubade (morning poem), love poem moving rapidly through a series of ideas about love as a kind of exploration, wittily using love imagery as the personal exploration of the other
· Distinctive features of the text: its wit, use of paradox, formal rhyme structure
· Your own context(s): our own era still values individualism and romantic love and appreciates the wit, but may question Donne’s self-assurance and male confidence
WRITTEN REFLECTION
How have you gained understanding about:
· ideas about the complex relationship between individuals and society: the growth of individualism and romantic love, the witty indirect exploration of human intimacy (reacting against medieval formality and moral disapproval)
· diverse perspectives on human experience: contrast the attitude of the male lover and his implicit female listener
· alternative readings of the text: explore at least one academic reading of the text and contrast it with the group’s personal reading
the value of the text: an early love poem that shows the rise of human individualism and the exploration of romantic love
Romantic Worlds
Explore the following elements as representative of a Romantic worldview and the experiences it portrays. Reinforce your learning through the creation of a slideshow or prezi.
in order to gain understanding about:
- personal, social, historical and cultural context of the text: the Romantic celebration of the artist and of travel to exotic places as enlightening of the soul
- genre, form and structure of the text – a sonnet where the octet sets out the experience of reading Chapman’s translation and the sestet captures the wonder of exploration
- distinctive features of the text – exploring literature as entering new worlds – capturing its joy and passion
- their own context(s) – a more jaded sense of exploration – it’s all been discovered and mapped by Google Earth – we need to go to interplanetary discovery to get the same sense of wonder
in order to gain understanding about:
- ideas about the complex relationship between individuals and society: the celebration of the heroic artistic individual
- diverse perspectives on human experience: our current era is more cynical about the power of art
- alternative reading of the text: students explore an academic or alternative reading of the text and compare and contrast it with the group’s own reading
- the value of the text: its heroic celebration of art and of human ingenuity through a beautifully constructed sonnet
Realist Worlds
Key text – realist fiction or poetry: ‘Eveline’ by James Joyce (1904)
Joyce is on the border between realism and modernism but his early short stories can be considered realist. This may be an interesting discussion to consider by researching the critical opinion on Joyce’s style.
Joyce is on the border between realism and modernism but his early short stories can be considered realist. This may be an interesting discussion to consider by researching the critical opinion on Joyce’s style.
Explore a number of the following elements as representative of a realist worldview and the experiences it portrays.
in order to gain understanding about:
- personal, social, historical and cultural context of the text – look at Joyce’s experience of Ireland, the Irish experience of immigration, the gendered roles of immigrants and the experiences open to them
- genre, form and structure of the text – a realist short story exploring the disappointments of modern life and the psychological forces holding us back
- distinctive features of the text – expert use of the short story genre, subtext and implied psychological states examined, modulated use of narrative perspective and its effect, the realist recreation of social structures based on class and gender
- their own context(s) – current experiences of immigration, contesting the gendered expectations of the era
in order to gain understanding about:
- ideas about the complex relationship between individuals and society: the social forces driving emigration and its social costs
- perspectives on the diversity of human experience: the privations and difficulties of turn of the century Ireland/female perspectives on life and love
- alternative reading of the text: students explore an academic or alternative reading of the text and compare and contrast it with the group’s own reading
- the value of the text: its poignant sadness exploring the social tensions of early twentieth century Europe
Modernist Worlds
Key texts – Willia Buttler Yeats’ ‘Second Coming’
Explore a number of the following elements as representative of a modernist worldview and the experiences it portrays.
in order to gain understanding about:
- personal, social, historical and cultural context of the text – a sense of cultural crisis in the early twentieth century, an uncertainty and despair about progress
- genre, form and structure of the text – sonnet form that shows the disintegration of Christian civilisation and its replacement by a new and frightening era of violence
- distinctive features of the text – symbolism, imagery, sonnet form, allusion to gyres and historical eras
- your own context(s) – early twenty first century readers see the cataclysms of World War I followed by World War II then the Cold War and post-September 11 eras as a series of world-shattering events that can breed despair or fundamentalism
in order to gain understanding about:
- ideas about the complex relationship between individuals and society: the voice of the speaker is a dreamlike incarnation of the sense of modernist crisis
- perspectives on the diversity of human experience: explores history in terms of the subversion of biblical ideas and the integration of mythic structures to undermine notions of Western civilisation
- alternative reading of the text: students explore an academic or alternative reading of the text and compare and contrast it with the group’s own reading
- the value of the text: a powerful poem that encapsulates the fear that the progress expected by the Enlightenment has not occurred; eminently quotable lines about the disintegration of civilisation and the questioning of what the idea of civilisation has come to mean
Post Modern Worlds
Read the short story Do You Love Me, by Peter Carey
Explore a number of the following elements as representative of a post modern worldview and the experiences it portrays.
in order to gain understanding about:
Explore a number of the following elements as representative of a post modern worldview and the experiences it portrays.
- Personal, social, historical and cultural context of the text - post modern cultural frame of jaded and fractured identity
- Genre, form and structure of the text - disjointed short story, with numbered sequences, to undermine the linearity of modern existence
- Distinctive features of the text - cartography metaphor used to show the transience of love based onthe need for certain knowledge
- Your own context(s) - post modern world of mediated relationships.
in order to gain understanding about:
- ideas about the complex relationship between individuals and society: a self conscious sense of personal identity and the tenuousness of individual relationships
- perspectives on the diversity of human experience: a sense of loneliness and isolation within a complex cultural milieu
- alternative reading of the text: students explore an academic or alternative reading of the text and compare and contrast it with the group's own reading
- the value of the text: responding to its contemporary context of the isolation of the of the individual in an atomised society.
Do You Love Me
by Peter Carey (1979)
Future and Speculative Worlds or Anthropocene Fiction
Key texts – the opening of Blade Runner [or Children of Men or James Bradley’s essay, ‘Writing on the Precipice’ (2017 on Sydney Review of Books website)]
Explore a number of the following elements as representative of a speculative, futuristic or Anthropocene world view and the experiences it portrays.
in order to gain understanding about:
- personal, social, historical and cultural context of the text: late modern world with pollution, hybrid cultures and hyperreality or a world marked by irreversible climate change
- genre, form and structure of the text: groundbreaking futuristic sci-noir film
- distinctive features of the text – stylised future world that is grimmer than the present, establishing a Japanese Los Angeles and dominant urban landscape
- your own context(s) – early 21st nostalgia for the past
in order to gain understanding about:
- ideas about the complex relationship between individuals and society: a sense of depletion and exhaustion/the decadence and jadedness of modern life
- perspectives on the diversity of human experience: again, alienation within a complex and changing cultural milieu, on the brink of irreversible ecological damage
- alternative reading of the text: students explore an academic or alternative reading of the text and compare and contrast it with the group’s own reading
- the value of the text: responding to its contemporary context of the alienation of the individual in an atomised society
Culminating Activity
SEMINAR/SLIDE SHOW CREATION
The trope of exploration and travel is a recurring motif in fiction used to represent experiences of difference and diversity. Using two of the texts explored in this module, compare and contrast how this trope represents diverse and challenging perspectives about human experience.
REFLECTION
Compose a reflective piece that brings the common module to a close, answering the question: What has this module taught you about the way literary worlds create and question ideas about the real world?
The trope of exploration and travel is a recurring motif in fiction used to represent experiences of difference and diversity. Using two of the texts explored in this module, compare and contrast how this trope represents diverse and challenging perspectives about human experience.
REFLECTION
Compose a reflective piece that brings the common module to a close, answering the question: What has this module taught you about the way literary worlds create and question ideas about the real world?