new proposed english study design for 2016

[Paulrus]

has anyone seen the new proposed study design for english in 2016? it's kinda bizarre:
http://www.vcaa.vic.edu.au/Documents/vce/english/EnglishEAL_SD_consultation-draft.pdf

to sum up:
- the 'using language to persuade' area of study is now 'analysing and presenting argument', and the oral is in unit 4 now
- reading and responding is now 'reading and creating texts', and has two different sacs. one is just a text response, but the other is new - a creative response to a text. it sounds pretty much like it's similar to context, but specific to a text and HAS to be creative
- on that note, context is gone now
- there's another new area of study called 'reading and comparing texts' where you basically compare/contrast two different texts in an essay.
- esl students have to do a listening and responding type thing called 'listening to texts', i'm guessing similar to lote subjects.

for mainstream english kids the exam is still three essays, but now it's:
Reading and creating texts (apparently you have to do the text response, not the creative one)
Reading and comparing texts
Analysing and presenting argument

whereas for esl kids the exam is now:
Reading and creating texts
Analysing and presenting argument
Listening to texts

what are everyone's thoughts? it seems to me like they're making it more similar to a lit-style subject, which is a bit odd. it's a bit early to make judgments (and obviously it's not finished) but i'm kind of in two minds about it. the creative task sounds pretty shitty, but on the other hand it's only a sac, and all the exam tasks sound pretty good. and the comparative essay sounds pretty cool, so i dunno

[tange]

As an English tutor and student teacher, I feel terrified as I've got to relearn the new components. I'm kind of sad that they are getting rid of context as I enjoy teaching it. It allows me to bring in other external resources such as sociology theories or studies.

[walkec]

Reading through the new proposed study design, I'm glad I finish this year because the new study design sounds pretty bad if you ask me, hahaha.

[nerdmmb]

I knew VCAA had something against students.

Most students try to avoid imaginative writing in context and now that they're making it compulsory, VCE is going to be a bigger pain for the class of 2016 and beyond.

[literally lauren]

urgh, I swear to god VCAA...
They spend 7 years finetuning a study design to get it just right (relatively) then ditch it all and turn it into a different subject. Sucks to be you, class of 2016. I'm hoping since this is a draft they'll revise a lot of this nonsense.

That said, AOS 2 sounds like a run of the mill Language Analysis so I'm glad they've retained that. AOS 3 for EAL is a listening tasks (like the foreign language studies I assume?) but I guess it's good they're finally splitting EAL from the mainstream with different assessment rather than just the current LA criteria. The marking scheme (for Unit 3 at least) is pretty different too.
The creative thing for Text Response is a terrible idea. For all the shit they copped with the wishy-washy format of Section B criteria, at least there was a choice involved with how to write. I agree Paulrus, they're making it lit-y in all the wrong ways. And the lit study design hasn't been altered in almost 8 years.
AOS 1 in Unit 4 could be interesting; it sounds like a reworking of Context to me, but with two specific texts and more focus. I guess it's strength will depend on the texts though.

But by far the worst decision was making the oral worth so much. For most students public speaking is hard enough at the beginning of the year, then they go and move it to Term 3/4 when the SACs will be piling up, you'll be stressed to hell, and you've got to speak for 6-8 minutes to earn 10% of your overall mark!?

Nope. Not a fan. I was not consulted on this 
They better make up for this with some damn good texts.

[Professor Polonsky]

Nope. Not a fan. I was not consulted on this 

This is a draft for consultation. There is an online questionnaire. (Closes 18 July 2014 - go fill it out, folks! Especially if you're unhappy.)

Also noteworthy is the summary of proposed changes.

I'm not a fan of the new creative piece thing - fortunately it's just one SAC, and not on the exam. I'm really happy about the comparative task, though.

[pi]

I'm a fan of the oral component. All LOTEs (that aren't like Latin etc) have orals, I don't see why people should be getting away with not doing a large weighted oral task in English, which for the large majority is their native language? Writing English essays is all good and well, but in the real word it's your communication that plays a huge role too (if not a larger role?). If that makes you overly nervous, school is a great time to get over those nerve before uni starts!

If I were VCAA I'd introduce another oral SAC, one for each semester!

[Thorium]

- esl students have to do a listening and responding type thing called 'listening to texts', i'm guessing similar to lote subjects.

Are you kiddin' me? I'm not that bad at english. I could say the pledge in the citizenship ceremony and I could even sing the national anthem. ALL in English.

[literally lauren]

I can see the benefits of the oral component, and I wouldn't advocate doing away with it completely, but I think they've gone in the wrong direction with this. Doing more oral assessment might actually help break down the nerves (as in LOTEs where you have two oral SACs, the oral exam, and weekly conversation sessions for most schools.) But hitting students with one major piece of assessment worth so much will only make the nerves worse. Granted for some confident public speakers this will be a walk in the park, but at my school we had otherwise confident kids shaking and crying under pressure already. I guess you could argue they're attempting to make the subject more practical, but then why the hell is there a creative piece?

In Literature there's a creative SAC worth 50% of Unit 4, and it's widely touted as the stupidest piece of assessment they could have chosen. Supposedly it combines with a bunch of other "useful" SACS only tangentially related to proper Passage Analysis, and forms this grand overall understanding. It can be enjoyable for certain texts and formats, but for the most part it's a massive distraction from actual essay writing, which is what the exam is all about. At least the current English Study Design is geared towards the exam; that's always been its strength.

To clarify, I don't think the oral or a creative piece is a bad idea, I just think the execution is terrible here.
Also, judging by the "consultation draft" they put out for VCE Art in ~2010 I think, once they've got it written up, very little will change regardless of the amount of complaints they get. Apparently (citation: my yr 11 art teacher) the whole state rebelled against the way they screwed up the Art curriculum, but the changes stayed.
After all they get complaints every year about how long the L.A. texts are, and they've only gotten longer 

[Professor Polonsky]

Also, judging by the "consultation draft" they put out for VCE Art in ~2010 I think, once they've got it written up, very little will change regardless of the amount of complaints they get. Apparently (citation: my yr 11 art teacher) the whole state rebelled against the way they screwed up the Art curriculum, but the changes stayed.

These things vary a lot by panel. Some are notorious for being uncooperative, others have a better reputation. Not the same people write-up the study designs for Art and English.

[keltingmeith]

As one of the weirdoes that chose imaginative for context, I think it'd be cool to do. Although I can see why a lot of people would be annoyed at it. However, I think that the comparative is brilliant. So many texts have so many similarities, I kind of wish I could go back in time to do it myself, hahah. D'you reckon it'd be a case of "pick from this list and compare two" (kind of like context) or "pick from this list of two books" (kind of like text)?

[EvangelionZeta]

A few thoughts:

1. I really dug teaching Context, so like tange I'm a bit sad to see it leave.  That said, I can sort of understand why it's been cut - the freedom the task provided also meant that there was almost no easy way to judge pieces relative to one another, making it theoretically "unfair" in a system entirely based on ranking people.

2. This is actually not that much of a drastic change minus the cutting of Context - I think the doomsday sayings are a bit overdramatic here :p

3. LOVE the fact that there is comparative text analysis now.  Comparing ideas across different contexts/forms is an INCREDIBLY good thing to teach, as it encourages us to think about comparing and contrasting different perspectives, which one might say is the beauty and instrumental value of literary studies to begin with.

4. To those saying that this is making English more Lit-ish - bear in mind Victoria is the only state that arbitrarily has decided to consider the two curriculums different things.  I don't even understand why they were labelled as such - in my mind, Lit was just "Advanced English" (or as they'd call it in NSW, Extension 1 or something)

5. I think including the oral component in semester 2 is fine - it's just one assessment task, but also, it actually gives students more time to prepare (whereas I know a lot of schools rushed through it in term 1 under the current system).  If there are students crying because they are too scared to do public speaking, then that's a failure of the system (and it's weird pressures), but also, if anything, is a better reason to place more emphasis on the assessment, so that people have more time and more necessity to focus on it and learn it well.  Public speaking is an INCREDIBLY valuable skill, and something our curriculum should absolutely support. 

6. Likewise, I think the creative assessment being more emphasised is great. English is about developing a range of skills, including the ability to express yourself in an emotively compelling way.  This is an excellent way to diversify the outcomes of the course, and also to get students who might be bored by the analytic component to engage more with it.  To people who think this is somehow unfair: why is it fair that the course focuses on analytic skills instead?  To the extent that creative writing is more subjective, by making it a SAC, it also mitigates that to a large extent, since you know EXACTLY who your audience is going to be (ie. your teacher) and can work towards their tastes (which is also a useful skill to learn).

All in all, approve.

[lokzo]

VCE system getting even worse…
It's going to become far too subjective by including "Imaginary Pieces"

[brenden]

I do agree entirely with Vincent. Looks excellent, although the "new LA" could be really good or really bad. I like our Section C and think it's insanely valuable to those who learn it well (or are taught it well)... Making people write their own persuasive pieces could really reinforce their skills or just destroy the value of LA. The changes to SecCdon't seem too extreme (although it's obviously pretty early to even start gauging properly what the changes are) so yeah, I like it.