The New Lit Course

Literature 2001

A Course Planning Guide [a guide for teachers]

The Literature course for VCE in Victoria was revised recently. Details of the new VCE course are available in the new study design; produced by the Board of Studies A brief overview of Units 3&4 is below:

The study of literature is a means of exploring and making sense of human experience through the close study of novels, plays and poetry. The process of making meaning involves asking questions such as: whose experiences and what experiences are given voice in the text? How are they created through the text's use of language and literary devices? What seems to be the main ideas and preconceptions of the text? What does the text's representations of characters and events suggest about the views and values of the text? In what ways, if any, does the text appear to be shaped by the cultural context in which it was produced.

Areas of Study

Literature in the Making

Views, Values and Contexts in Literature

Unit 3

1. Discuss how meaning is enacted or re-created when a text is performed or adapted for performance (40 marks)

2. Analyse and interpret the views and values of a text in terms of the ideas, conventions and beliefs that the text appears to explore, endorse, challenge or leave unquestioned (40 marks)

3. Review and evaluate a text for an audience unfamiliar with it. (20 marks)

Unit 4

1. Respond imaginatively to a text, and comment on the connections between the text and the response. (40 marks)

2. Evaluate critically the assumptions and assertions made about a literary text and draw comparisons with their own response and interpretation (40 marks)

3. Analyse aspects of a text, relating those aspects to an interpretation of the text as a whole (20 marks)

Assessment

Outcomes in Unit 3 (100 marks) and Unit 4 (100 marks) make up 50% of the total assessment. The other 50% is contained in the end of year exam which is made up of sustained interpretations of two different kinds of texts.

Detailed Assessment advice from the Board of Studies is available HERE or direct from the Board of Studies at: http://www.bos.vic.edu.au/vce/AssGiPDF/asesguid.htm

The LIT PAGE - http://geocities.datacellar.net/warrickw/lit

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Raymond Carver

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Sylvia Plath

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Seamus Heaney

Anton Chekhov

D.H. Lawrence

Katharine Prichard