School based workshops will be offered during term IV. Email me if you are interested in hosting a Staff PD workshop.  
Some schools have contacted me requesting  'Rainbow's End' or 'The Merchant of Venice' and such workshops can be arranged when there is sufficient interest.
The possible Standard Module A texts are likely to be
Lawson and 'One Night the Moon' and Module B will be  'The Truman Show' and  'Frank Hurley'. 
The possible ​Advanced Mod A texts are likely to be Keats and 'Bright Star'. Donne and 'Wit' and Advanced Module B will be 'Emma', 'Goodnight, and Good Luck' and 'Henry IV, Part I.
Detailed Phoenix booklets for many of the new texts will also become available over coming  months. 

 There is an opportunity to run some face to face TTA workshops late next term for the Common Module.
 I did  if there is enough interest shown.
 The first session would be an overarching evaluation of the 'Human Experiences' and then the second and third sessions would focus on a specific prescribed text and  strategies for developing student writing skills.
The texts I would be interested in offering would include:
Billy Elliot, Kenneth Slessor, The Crucible and 1984. 

 It really depends on how much interest there is in putting on  face to face anymore rather than online PD courses which I, by preference,  do not want to run.
 Contact me personally if you are interested in getting more information about how,  where,  and when. 
​

 Email - barbara.stanners@internode.on.net

Mobile: 0432675355

Orwell depicts a totally oppressive society and plays on his readers' fears of powerlessness and personal and collective experiences of oppression. The novel's social environment draws on Orwell's experiences of wartime London which gives veracity for much of the human suffering that is exposed. His journalistic style is coupled with elements and techniques of 'literary naturalism' to represent a society that has been systematically debased and oppressed and largely made 'mute' and powerless to resist. Even Winston holds little faith that the Proles will rise up and topple the regime. 

I have attached a homework preparation task that I would have set for my students if I was fortunate enough to have a class. 
Hope you find it useful as it can be easily redone to suit your own purposes. 

Confronting Reality
​The dystopic warning embedded within Orwell's novel is borne out by what has become truth in the decades since '1984' was written. Powerplay, diminishing resources and perpetual war or the threat of war have become everyday reality. In this sense, it works well as a Common Module text and should be readily adapted for 'Human Experiences'. Dystopic texts have always been powerful stories of 'what' the future might hold if the warning signs are not heeded. Orwell's writing skills and the genre characteristics of Political Science Fiction are also familiar to most teachers who have previously taught the novel.  
What is different is that there is a greater emphasis on the 'how' and the 'why' composers have chosen to represent their ideas in certain ways. The 'what' of a text should not be what teachers are concentrating on and so resources need to give student sufficient knowledge and understanding of the contextual exigency that might have prompted the writing of any of the texts for the Common Module. Time restraints, however demand that teachers recognise what must be covered and that can be achieved through judicious planning.
NESA have no plans to write a Sample Unit Program for '1984' as they have done for 'Billy Elliot', 'The Crucible' or 'GBFWYCF' and now 'Passing the Shallows'. Nor do the related texts cited for those sample units have to be done in extensive detail. They are guidelines only for what teachers might choose to address. Shorter sample texts would work just as well as long as they addressed RUBRIC guidelines for the Common Module. The Sample Programs are guidelines only and give teachers a snapshot of how Human Experiences can be addressed. 
Orwell's narrative purpose and writing style will be a major focus of any study and the novel will probably prove very popular as a text selection for Advanced Classes, who will be examining Orwell's essay 'Politics and the English Language' for Adv Module C:'The Craft of Writing'. 
It highlights many of the journalistic elements evident in his blunt writing style. 
He warns, 'Political language is designed to make lies sound truthful, and murder respectable, and to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind. One cannot change this in a moment but one can at least change one's own habits.'

'I think 'The Crucible' works really well as a Human Experiences text because it remains so accessible and relevant. With a cast of over twenty characters, it certainly covers a broad range of perspectives and addresses virtually everything in the RUBRIC outline. The NESA sample unit gives some ideas about how to approach it for the 'Common Module' but I would probably choose different sample 'related' texts.
Something I found useful when teaching the text, was to use stills from different theatre productions as discussion triggers for 'what', 'how' and 'why' witch-hunts arise with such speed and intensity. There are so many images available it is a shame not to use them. I also used to create flash cards with different 'stop and drop' writing prompts on them. Helped keep them interested in the 'human' story that makes the play so powerful. 
I also used them to compare and contrast how different productions reinvented the play in so many ways. Looking at the many monologues in the play was always an interesting way to explore core motivations and how they shift throughout the play. It also moved the analysis away from key quotes and addressed some of the 'dramatic' literary devices and techniques in more detail. 
I have attached some useful resources and some clip sites for different productions of the play to compare how key scenes have been handled. 
I will be begin work on '1984' tomorrow but if I still had a Year 12 class, I think I would stay with 'The Crucible' if the text selection worked out that way. A tricky process from what many teachers have said. 
Hope you find some of 'The Crucible' resources useful. 

I am currently editing my Textual Study Booklet for this play and thought I could share some resources I have come across during my research.
Simplistic Study Guides are of little use besides giving an overview of the text but 'Theatre Guides' are often far more informative because they tend to more focused on the play's 'dramatic' elements'. This makes them a useful pre-study tool, allowing students to get a sense of the historical context or exigency that links to what is explored within the play itself. What it can save is valuable 'time' which always impacts on how a text is taught and how long can be spent developing student analytical writing skills. 
I have attached one of the best 'Theatre Study Guides' I came across . I think it gives a sound overview of the Salem situation and would give students useful prior knowledge that would inform discussion from the opening lesson. 
My aim is to provide useful resources via this blog to help teachers prepare for Term IV.
Collaboration and resource sharing lightens the load for everyone. I have therefore attached a useful Theatre Study Guide and copy of Arthur Miller's Essay, 'Tragedy and the Common Man' to get things started. 
I welcome any comments about how we could achieve this via a newsletter or something similar. 

A new more 'modern' website is under construction but in the interim, this one will have to suffice.