Stage 6 Plus Minus Interesting

Plus

• continuation of Personal Growth model with emphasis on importance of personal experience, talking & writing, workshop based organisation, active use of language 
• & continutation of Critical Literacy. I still believe it has an important role to play in developing critical and reflective thinkers -  
• influence of Multiliteracies which has seen widening of various textual forms and formats that are now available for examinable study; has also had implications in classroom with greater emphasis on student negotiation & student choice for composing e.g. student's creating digital stories, digital formats
• focus on composing and responding - value given to student's own writing, speaking, creations.

Minus

• is the syllabus, and are teachers in the classroom, giving credit for engaging with texts and wide reading? for pleasure and enjoyment? or is the focus on the end product of the examination and the HS Certificate?
•  Apparently "students can go through their entire HSC without ever studying a visual text, or without ever studying a work of non-fiction" (McGraw 2005 - see link below). Although widening the range of texts available for study, there is still weighting on traditional conventions.

Interesting/ or find out more

• Kelli McGraw (2005) comments on concerns by teachers and professional organisations: application of standards-based framework, nature & content of external examination, lack of resources to assist with integration of film & multimedia texts, provision of professional development. Are these still current concerns 6 years later?
• McGraw in same article also comments on weighting of assessment in English - with Writing and Reading still the more heavily weighted modes which begs to suggest "that somewhere along the line, judgements have been made about the greater value and intrinsitc importance of written literacy - specifically writing tasks - over other forms of literacy" .  
• Is there a balance between the internal assessment and the examination, or does the exam give more weight to student results?  Could not a major work of student compostion be submitted just like in Art or Music?