Connections and Cultural
experiences (What is quality
literature?)
{
Kath Lathouras,
TARA Anglican School for Girls Parramatta
k.lathouras@staff.tara.nsw.edu.au
This presentation will focus on how to develop the complexity of
ideas and arguments when thinking imaginatively, creatively,
interpretively and critically about literature. This presentation is
based on a reading enrichment (wide reading) unit focusing on selfselected reading across a wide range of texts. As a part of the unit,
students spend time choosing books and read, so to determine if the
book has enduring qualities. Students are asked to reflect if the book
read could be considered for the new canon literature. In order to
do this evaluation, they will have to make connection to prior
knowledge of literature to identify the necessary characteristics of
quality literature.
Synopsis
In this unit of work, students are to spend
time choosing books and read, so to determine
if the book has enduring qualities. Students
are asked to reflect if the book read could be
considered for the new canon literature.
In order to do this evaluation, they will have
to make connection to prior knowledge of
literature to identify the necessary
characteristics and match books to these
characteristics.
Current unit rubric
Students will be required to reflect on
the following quote (as their point of
synthesis):

Quote from Alberto Manguel: A History
of Reading
Ancient Egypt 1300BC
Be a scribe! Engrave this in your heart
So that your name might live on like
theirs!
The scroll is better than the carved stone.
A man has died: his corpse is dust,
And his people have passed from the
land.
It is a book that makes him be
remembered
In the mouth of the speaker who reads
him.
Stimulus
In this unit of work, students can use
their recreational reading time to
develop their skills and
understandings in preparation for the
demands of the reading level required
in Stage 6. The ‘metareading’ focus,
‘The Immortal Witness’, has been
chosen to provide a broad framework
by which to develop an understanding
of the enduring qualities of literature,
it purpose and function, and to link
this with the oral tradition – the
origins of storytelling and reading.
Students will compare and contrast
texts and/or different perspective of a
similar subject matter or event or
themes. Students will explore how
texts reflect different cultural
experiences, beliefs and values.
Significance

How do texts still share
the traditions of
narratives; from verbal
to written?

What texts are valued for
their importance to the
world of literature?

What is the ‘new’ canon?
Key Learning Question/s:
1. responds to and composes texts for understanding,
interpretation, critical analysis and pleasure
2. uses a range of processes for responding to and composing
texts
4. selects and uses language forms and features, and structures
of texts according to different purposes, audiences and contexts,
and describes and explains their effects on meaning
8. investigates the relationships between and among texts
9. demonstrates understanding of the ways texts reflect personal
and public worlds
10. questions, challenges and evaluates cultural assumptions in
texts and their effects on meaning
11. uses, reflects on, assesses and adapts their individual and
collaborative skills for learning with increasing independence
and effectiveness.
Outcomes
Skills (core)
 Ask perceptive and relevant
questions, make logical
predictions, draw analogies and
challenge ideas and information
in and across texts.
 Respond to a range of
imaginative, factual and critical
texts which are increasingly
demanding in terms of their
linguistic, structural, cognitive,
emotional and moral/ethical
complexity.
Skills
ICT skills



Effectively crafts a sustained
text in a form appropriate to
audience, purpose and
context; to inform, to
persuade or entertain.
Engage with ICT as a way of
representing their ideas.
Utilise the ways that modern
technologies of
communication are used to
shape, adapt and re-present
past and present cultures,
including pop culture and
youth cultures, for particular
audiences.
OUTCOME 1 (OBJECTIVE A)
A student:
› responds to and composes increasingly sophisticated and sustained texts for
understanding, interpretation, critical analysis, imaginative expression and pleasure EN5-1A
CONTENT
Students:
Engage personally with texts
• appreciate, explain and respond to the aesthetic qualities and the power of language in an
increasingly sophisticated range of texts
Develop and apply contextual knowledge
• analyse and explain the ways language forms and features, ideas, perspectives and
originality are used to shape meaning
• analyse ideas, information, perspectives, contexts and ideologies and the ways they are
presented in increasingly demanding, sustained imaginative, informative and persuasive
texts
• explore real and imagined (including virtual) worlds through close and wide reading and
viewing of increasingly demanding texts
Links to new curriculum
OUTCOME 5 OBJECTIVE A
A student:
› thinks imaginatively, creatively, interpretively and critically about information and increasingly
complex ideas and arguments to respond to and compose texts in a range of contexts EN5-5C
CONTENT
Students:
Engage personally with texts
• investigate the ways different modes, subject areas, media and cultural representation affect their
personal and critical responses to texts
• engage in wide reading of self-selected imaginative, factual and critical texts for enjoyment and
analysis and share responses in a variety of relevant contexts, including digital and face-to-face
contexts
• create literary texts that reflect an emerging sense of personal style and evaluate the effectiveness
of these texts (ACELT1814)
• reflect on, extend, endorse or refute others' interpretations of and responses to literature
(ACELT1634, ACELT1640)
Develop and apply contextual knowledge
• compare ways in which spoken, written, visual, multimodal and digital texts are shaped
according to personal, historical, cultural, social, technological and workplace contexts
• critically respond to texts by drawing on knowledge of the historical context in which texts were
composed through a program of wide reading and viewing
• understand how language use can have inclusive and exclusive social effects, and can empower or
disempower people (ACELA1551, ACELA1564)
k.lathouras@staff.tara.nsw.edu.au