The English curriculum is organised under 3 interrelated strands: Language, Literature and Literacy. While each strand articulates the essential skills of English, they should be seen as interlinked and interconnected. Together, the 3 strands focus on developing students’ knowledge, understanding and skills in listening, speaking, reading, viewing and writing...
The English curriculum is organised under 3 interrelated strands: Language, Literature and Literacy. While each strand articulates the essential skills of English, they should be seen as interlinked and interconnected. Together, the 3 strands focus on developing students’ knowledge, understanding and skills in listening, speaking, reading, viewing and writing. The English curriculum is underpinned by the selection of texts appropriate for the level.
The achievement standards explicitly link together skills drawn from the 3 strands, and map directly into the sub-strands. Unlike the strands, the achievement standards are organised through the language modes of Speaking and Listening, Reading and Viewing, and Writing. Further information about the connections between the content descriptions and the achievement standards can be found in the ‘Learning in English’ section.
At Level 8, students use language to interact and in support of relationships and roles.
Students engage with a variety of texts for enjoyment and learning. They listen to, read, view, analyse, interpret, evaluate, create and perform a range of spoken, written and multimodal texts. Texts may include various types of media texts such as online and digital texts, novels, non-fiction, poetry and dramatic performances. Students develop their understanding of how texts are influenced by context, purpose and audience. They understand how the features of texts may be used as models for creating their own work.
The range of literary texts comprises the oral narrative traditions and literature of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples, and classic and contemporary literature from a wide range of Australian and world authors, including texts from and about Asia.
Literary texts that support and extend students in Level 8 as independent readers may be drawn from a range of realistic, fantasy, speculative fiction and/or historical genres. They may involve intertextual references, some challenging sequences and/or non-stereotypical characters. These texts may explore themes of interpersonal relationships and ethical dilemmas in real-world and fictional settings, and/or represent a variety of perspectives. Informative texts may present technical information and abstract content from credible sources about specialised topics and concepts. Language features may include successive complex sentences with embedded clauses, unfamiliar technical vocabulary, figurative and rhetorical language, and/or information supported by various types of images and graphics.
Students create a range of texts whose purposes may be aesthetic, narrative, reflective, informative, persuasive and/or analytical, for example stories, performances, reports and discussions, literary analyses and reviews for different audiences.
By the end of Level 8, students demonstrate the following skills in English.
When interacting with others, students explore academic vocabulary and use language to support relationships and roles.
They explore and challenge the various meanings in text through discussions with others. They explore rhetorical and literary devices when evaluating and substantiating.
When speaking to an audience, students deliver structured spoken texts, selecting text types appropriate for purpose and audience, including multimodal or digital elements. They use language to suit formal and informal contexts, and appropriate features of voice.
When reading and viewing, students engage with a range of different types of texts for meaning.
They engage with vocabulary and grammatical knowledge, and the ways that different clause structures add information, the effects of nominalisation and how punctuation supports meaning.
When demonstrating understanding of texts, students identify and explain intertextual references, issues and points of view from diverse historical, cultural and social contexts. They explore opinions about texts through explorations of how literary devices and language features, and still and moving images and sound, influence the reader’s response to represented values. They analyse and evaluate the ways that ideas are organised in texts.
They explain how texts, including print, digital and hybrid, are structured for different purposes. They explore how literary devices, including imagery, create meaning and aesthetic qualities. They explore how still images, moving images and sound use intertextual references to create meaning.
When creating written and spoken texts, students select and expand on ideas and experiment with language features and literary devices for purpose and effect, and include appropriate multimodal or digital elements. They review and edit their own and others’ texts and reflect on these processes.
They use evidence and substantiation to create cohesion; structure to create sequence; grammar to add information and expand ideas; and punctuation to support meaning.
They use vocabulary typical of academic texts, including nominalisation. They experiment with language features and literary devices for effect.
They use spelling rules and word origins to learn and accurately spell new words.
