Planning

Frequently asked questions
A set of frequently asked questions for the VCE Literature Study Design Units 3 and 4: 2023-2027.

The timing of teaching and learning of the VCE Literature Study Design is a matter for schools and teachers. It is important, however, to note that each unit involves at least 50 hours of scheduled classroom instruction over the duration of a semester. Teachers are encouraged to reflect on the competing school commitments such as camps, excursions, sports days and cultural celebrations as they plan each semester’s work and assessments.

Each unit has two areas of study but each may not require an equal allocation of time. Allowing time for students to understand content, develop and refine skills is essential for success. When students are required to sit examinations, it is wise to allow time for revision, as content completed in February is potentially examinable in October / November. Students will have continued developing their thinking, reading, viewing and writing skills but may need revision classes on content to reassure themselves that they can apply their enhanced skills in the examination.

Outcomes and School-assessed Coursework (SACs) should be completed in line with the completion of the area of study. Schools need to provide these dates to students in advance and offer students adequate notice if dates change. Teachers should use these published dates to plan individual marking and cross-marking meetings so that feedback can be provided to students in a timely manner, thereby supporting their ongoing learning in this subject.

VCE Literature is an English subject that focuses on the close study of written texts in many forms. Critical to all the texts explored in VCE Literature, regardless of form, is a capacity to tell stories about ourselves and stories about others, stories from antiquity and stories about the future.

Storytelling is one of our oldest forms of human expression and it is important to our understandings of our humanity in all its guises – from compassion to cruelty, from the alien to the familiar. VCE Literature students engage with a wide breadth of stories and consider and reflect on the views, values and ideas these stories contain, and how these stories are structured and presented. Over the course of this study, students examine and analyse the ways in which views, values and ideas are conveyed in texts through the features, devices and language used by authors. Students produce critical and creative responses to their exploration of texts.

As part of their engagement with the study of text, VCE Literature students are invited to consider the artistic and aesthetic qualities of the many examples of writing they study. This work is not evaluative – that is, it is not an exercise in determining which text is ‘better’ or ‘more successful’ than another – but rather, it is appreciative as students are introduced to new and unfamiliar texts written for different contexts and readers.

Students are given time to reflect on how text and language are crafted, both to convey a story and to create works of art. They can marvel at and delight in the inventiveness of text, in how some language is able to move the reader. They can comprehend ways in which readers continue to be drawn in to texts that are more than 2,000 years old, while also appreciating texts written, for example, only last year.

Central to VCE Literature is the study of texts. Students will continue to engage with exemplary established and contemporary texts, considering the experiences and voices of a diverse range of storytellers, appreciating the many ways stories can be told and can tell us about ourselves, exploring the shape and structure of different textual forms and types, and further refining their reading, writing, comprehension and analytical skills.

Text is not only what students consume; it is also what they produce. While students engage in their reading and consumption of text, they are invited to create their own texts. They become increasingly skilled critics of texts – considering, constructing and interpreting texts both as individuals and through the writings of other critics – and creative writers. Students are provided with multiple opportunities to apply their knowledge and understanding of text to their own creations – writing creative responses to set texts, either extending the set text by exploring voices, events and / or ideas contained therein and / or reimagining the set text by using structures and features from the text but applying them to different events and / or ideas.

The students’ experiences of texts – and their range and breadth – becomes a dialogue between the writer and reader that furthers their understanding of texts and what they express about themselves and their ever-changing world.

VCE Literature enables students to deepen and refine their own interpretation of texts and to engage with the interpretations of others to further extend their understanding. The use and exploration of a supplementary reading offers students new and extended interpretations of the set texts, including by endorsing, resisting or contesting the students’ own interpretations. There are opportunities to consider how some voices and / or ideas are marginalised or silenced, and how other voices and / or ideas are endorsed and amplified. Within historical, cultural and social contexts or in consideration of a reading outside those contexts, enhanced interpretations can be explored and constructed through classroom and individual work.

Students should be supported to engage with supplementary readings that relate to the set text(s) rather than as abstracted theoretical positions. Embedding the supplementary readings within a text study will assist students to find their own ways to understand and to engage with what can be complex writing and thinking. Working with the set text will also assist them in controlling their ideas and provides them with a clear and concrete place from which to expand their interpretations.

VCE Literature offers students opportunities to explore texts as part of the historical, social and cultural contexts in which they were written and initially read, and consider how those same texts have evolved when read and discussed in different and / or contemporary contexts. The text selection requirements indicate that teachers need to set texts from a variety of eras and geographies. In Unit 2, there is an area of study dedicated to contemplating reading and interpreting a text as part of its historical, social and cultural context, and how that affects meaning for the contemporary Australian reader.

Students should explore the idea that texts are not fixed but are continually constructed and reconstructed by every reader. The ways the context of the text intersects with the context of the individual reader is an open exploration right through
Units 1–4

Ethical scholarship means that students are supported in the production of work that is honest, reliable and credible. This means that they are clear with their reader or audience about what work is their own, and that they acknowledge when other sources are used.

Ethical scholarship requires that students understand and honour the following:

• Honesty – students indicate clearly the work that is their own and the work that is someone else’s.
• Transparency – when quoting another author / expert from their research, students must do so accurately and cite each source used.
• Action – producing work for teacher assessment and feedback allows students to communicate their learning in their own words, and is both a right and a responsibility.

Each student deserves to be acknowledged and credited for their work. However, no student should be acknowledged or credited for work that is not their own including the work of peers and teachers. This applies to both individual and group tasks.

Claiming credit for the work of others is known as plagiarism.

Plagiarism is using other person’s work or words without any acknowledgement of that source.

The VCAA publish guidelines to mitigate against plagiarism in the VCAA VCE and VCAL Administrative Handbook.

• Scored assessment: School-based Assessment (1.1, 1.2 and 1.4)

Breaches in rules and regulation and / or identification of plagiarism are considered as serious by the VCAA. Information in the VCAA VCE and VCAL Administrative Handbook can guide schools and teachers on how to address any breaches.

• School-based Assessment: Breaches of rules and investigations (Section 10)

Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Perspectives in the VCE
On-demand video recordings, presented with the Victorian Aboriginal Education Association Inc. (VAEAI) and the Department of Education (DE) Koorie Outcomes Division, for VCE teachers and leaders as part of the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Perspectives in the VCE webinar program held in 2023.

This outcome introduces students to the close analysis of literary works, focusing on how texts are constructed through forms, features and language, to express nuanced ideas and meanings.

This is also about students understanding themselves as readers, metacognitively considering how they construct ideas from texts, and how reading itself is a practice that can be developed through engaging with different interpretations, from peers to literary critics.

Students should begin by learning the skills of close analysis, as outlined in the VCE Literature Study Design, by applying them to a variety of literary texts to create close analysis interpretations. They should also reflect on their close analysis interpretations, considering their own views and values as readers. Students are encouraged to share their interpretations with peers and consult other work relevant to the texts, which will assist in further developing their interpretations.

Examples of texts for study

Depending on the genre or movement and the texts selected, this outcome offers an opportunity for students to bring their own texts into the classroom for discussion or for study. It also provides space for student choice in terms of the texts that students respond to across the outcome. Moreover, while the outcome requires students to engage with a genre or movement, awareness of the ways in which authors and directors manipulate genre conventions or the traditions of a movement can be an important and interesting area for discussion; whether a text or an extract can be understood to be part of a particular genre or movement is an interpretation that can be discussed in class. Further, as the key skills indicate, this outcome encourages students to consider closely details of language and expression in texts, developing close analysis skills that are essential for the study of literature.

Examples of texts for study

This area of study recognises the particular significance of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander authors and creators in the study of Australian Literature and is born out of a postcolonial engagement with the history of storytelling in Australia. It invites teachers and students to read with an awareness of their own socio / political context and the socio / political context of the texts under study. As such, this area of study is useful preparation for the Developing interpretations area of study in Unit 3.

Some teachers may feel apprehensive about teaching texts that might fall outside their experience, or engaging with cultural discourse that they feel ill-equipped to explore authoritatively in their classrooms. However, as with all elements of the course, this area of study is focused on texts and keeping this focus firmly in mind will assist in teaching this outcome. There are many resources available online, in print and in person to help those without an Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander background respectfully negotiate any new texts and new territory. Resources that teachers might find useful include:

Story box library
Creative Spirits
VAEAI Kooire Education Resources
Koorie Teaching Resources

Although this area of study does not specify a particular number of texts, providing students with a range of voices, through both whole text(s) and extracts, will strengthen students’ understanding.

In order to avoid cultural appropriation, please carefully consider assessment tasks, including creative responses to texts, and always consider the community, the cohort and the context.

Examples of texts for study

This area of study focuses on analytically engaging with a literary text through its social, historical and cultural context. Students discover how a specific time period and / or culture implicitly and explicitly affects the form, features and language as well as the characters, setting, events and ideas of a text. They comprehend how literary texts are culturally constructed and reflect and / or challenge particular ideas and concerns.

On the one hand, this area of study is about students making explicit connections between the text and its context and, on the other hand, closely analysing the language of a text in terms of its historical and cultural context, and realising how the nuances of language are influenced by time and culture.

Students should begin by exploring how texts work culturally by continuing their investigation of their own ideas and concerns as critical readers from Unit 1, Area of Study 1. Once these complex concepts (context, ideas and concerns) are explored, research into the relevant social, historical and cultural context of the set text, including the author and the initial reception of the text, is recommended. This exploration will equip students with the relevant knowledge to closely analyse their text through its context and form, creating plausible interpretations that show the link between text and context. Students are also encouraged to consider how their own context forms and challenges these initial interpretations, realising how textual meaning changes with time and place.

Although this area of study does not specify particular texts, using a text that has a different context to the student’s current context will more easily meet the outcome.

Examples of texts for study

For many students, Adaptations and transformations is the entry point to VCE Literature Units 3 and 4. Given the familiarity most students have with screens and screen language, including a film adaptation in this part of the study can make this area of study an early opportunity for success, while also consolidating important close analysis skills.

The way the outcome has been constructed reinforces the importance of close analysis as part of this area of study, and explaining this explicitly to students will help them to understand the relevance of this task to their wider study of literature. The first part of the task involves careful reading of a passage or passages from the focus text, and producing an analysis of that text, based on passages. Only once this passage analysis style task is completed, should students be invited to compare the original text with an adaptation. Significantly, the VCE Literature Study Design does not specify that the tasks in this area of study should necessarily involve analysis of whole texts; therefore, students can focus on key extracts and important scenes.

Form continues to be a critical part of this outcome, and students should be encouraged to recognise the different conventions of the two forms they compare in the second part of the task. Discussing the different ways that authors (poets, playwrights, memoirists, short story writers etc.) and directors communicate and make meaning will help students build their awareness and understanding of the creative decisions that go into constructing texts.

In this outcome, students initially construct interpretations about the text through its social, cultural and historical context, including its author’s views and values. They engage with ideas that are endorsed and challenged by the text as well as consider how particular ideas are marginalised by the text. Using skills developed in Reading Practices (Unit 1, Outcome 1) and The Text in its Context (Unit 2, Outcome 2), they consider their own views and values as readers, developing individual interpretations about a text through an analysis of literary forms, features and language and specific textual evidence.

Students will then analyse a supplementary reading relevant to the text. This could be a critical essay about the text or an explication of a literary theory. Through this, students learn how to identify and analyse the ideas about the text within a reading, explaining in detail the interpretation of the text presented.

Using this knowledge from analysing a supplementary reading, students then construct a second interpretation of the same text, showing an enhanced understanding of the text where new ideas and approaches are considered beyond the students’ initial engagement with the text and its context.

Students apply these interpretations to key moments from the text, closely analysing and reanalysing ideas through literary forms, features and language and supporting their interpretations with specific textual evidence.

It is recommended that teachers use a complete text, such as a novel or play, for this outcome. Teachers can still select poetry, short stories or other text forms from the current text list, but it is preferable to compare key moments from a complete text.

Teachers should avoid using reviews or other evaluative texts as supplementary readings.

As with the Unit 3, Outcome 1 (Adaptations and Transformations), this area of study builds student capacity for close reading and paying careful attention to textual detail, providing students with an opportunity to engage with writing as creators of text as well as being analysers of it. This area of study encourages students to recognise the process of construction behind the texts they study and thus helps them to consolidate their analytical insight.

Making explicit the connection between this outcome and close analysis will assist students in the development of valuable transferable skills. Consistent reference to the original text during the creative writing process will also help with this.

This area of study can also be used to provide students with opportunities to work together as they develop their writing, by sharing ideas or exchanging creative writing drafts.

This outcome focuses on close analysis of the literary form, features and language of a text.

Teachers should provide students with significant passages from the text so that they can construct developed and detailed interpretations of the whole text. Students will closely explore the link between the nuances of literary forms, features and language and the ideas, views and values of a text, zooming into specific parts of the text through the passages, and zooming out to consider the text as a whole.

Detailed references to the text are essential to close analysis where students closely analyse the structure and literary elements of a text, specifically focusing on how authors write, and how they create a plethora of meanings; in particular, the ideas that the author expresses.