te horopaki me te kaupapa
“I’m a greater believer in luck, and I find the harder I work the more I have of it.”
— Thomas Jefferson
te ao Māori principles
There are five key principals that we, as an English Department, consider important as part of a holistic study at school.
- Mana – The prestige and authority of the writer. Writers can build mana through impactful stories that uplift readers.
- Whanaungatanga – The connections and relationships between characters, writers, and readers. Literature brings people together.
- Kaitiakitanga – Guardianship and protection of stories, language, and knowledge. Writers have a duty to share stories responsibly.
- Wairuatanga – The spirituality and deeper meanings conveyed through literature. Stories can be profound and moving.
- Mauri – The essential life force or vitality of the writer coming through in their work. Writing with purpose and energy.
- Aroha – The empathy, compassion, and love writers show through their words. Literature builds understanding between people.
- Tikanga – The customs, protocols and values upheld through storytelling. Writers adhere to cultural principles.
Key Terms
| Context | the circumstances that form the setting for an event, statement, or idea, and in terms of which it can be fully understood. |
| Contextual | depending on or relating to the circumstances that form the setting for an event, statement, or idea. |
| Authorial | belonging or relating to the writer of a book, article, or document. |
| Socio-historical | of, relating to, or involving social history or a combination of social and historical factors. |
| Geographical | relating to geography. |
| Literary | concerning the writing, study, or content of literature, especially of the kind valued for quality of form. |
| Setting | the place or type of surroundings where something is positioned or where an event takes place. |
| Audience | the people giving attention to something. |
| Purpose | the reason for which something is done or created or for which something exists. |
| Register | a variety of a language or a level of usage, as determined by degree of formality and choice of vocabulary, pronunciation, and syntax, according to the communicative purpose, social context, and standing of the user. |
| Imagery | visually descriptive or figurative language, especially in a literary work. |
| Representation | the description or portrayal of someone or something in a particular way. |
| Content | the things that are held or included in something. |
| Organisation | the way in which the elements of a whole are arranged. |
| Tone | the general character or attitude of a place, piece of writing, situation, etc. |
| Theme | a lesson or a message that can be extracted from a story, and applied to the reader’s life. |
Learning Objectives
- To recognise the context in which the text is both written and received.
- To identify markers within the text that add to the understanding based upon cultural and societal expectations.
- To recognise symbols and patterns within the text that align with expectations e.g. reference to ‘All Blacks’.
Exercises
Spelling
| candle | contact | control | correct | craft |
| crunch | grand | gratitude | greet | group |
| guest | guide | guitar | glimpse | globe |
| graze | grassy | gradual | groceries | grace |
Summary Builder
Below is a piece of writing that you should attempt to summarise into around 100 words.
Reducing Your Environmental Footprint
Many everyday actions contribute to a person’s environmental footprint – the amount of resources they consume and waste they generate over a lifetime. However, teenagers can take simple steps to greatly reduce their ecological impact.
At home, conserve energy and water by turning off lights when not in use, taking shorter showers, lowering thermostat temperatures, air drying laundry, and unplugging devices not in use. Reduce waste by reusing items like grocery bags, buying used goods, and recycling everything possible. Avoid single-use plastics by carrying reusable water bottles, utensils, and straws.
Choosing to walk, bike, or take public transportation over driving reduces emissions from fossil fuels. When traveling longer distances, opt for buses or trains rather than flying. Teens can also consider options like eco-friendly ride sharing.
Mindful consumption habits make a difference. Support brands with sustainable business practices and buy less fast fashion. Limit purchases to items you really need. Grow your own food or buy locally-sourced organic produce.
At school and in your community, get involved with environmental initiatives like neighborhood clean-ups or recycling drives. Educate peers on ecological issues and solutions. Small daily changes multiply to significantly lower your lifelong environmental impact.
Context and theme
te horopaki me te kaupapa
Let’s go back to the context exploration in ‘Non-fiction as Genre’ page.
- Geographical
- Social
- Political
- Historical
- Authorial
You have made notes about these areas and should continually revisit these as part of your preparation for the assessment.
However, the macro analysis of the APRICOT structure should be considered.
Let’s take the example of Anne Frank to help illustrate this concept:
Examples
APRICOT for The Diary of a Young Girl
- Audience: This is a personal collection of diary entries by the 16 year old girl, Anne Frank. The audience is herself. The events within the diary are of a particularly poignant nature due to being in war time, and the fact that Frank was of Jewish heritage. Most notably, the diary was never meant to be read by anyone other than herself, or – perhaps – a highly trusted connection to her.
- Purpose: As this is for herself, the purpose of the diary is meant to chronical or document the experiences of her and her family in the annex in Amsterdam. It is unlikely that Frank knew the vital information that would be shared, or ever imagined it to be released or become so incredibly successful as a heritage document. The purpose, therefore, is to be a record of her time in the annex and assist her in the mental processing of some of the most anxiety-creating moments in history.
- Register: While it is written using a conversational style, that is to be expected both from the age of the writer, and the genre in which she is writing. The formality of the writing is interesting to note due to the historical context when formality in writing was more of an expectation. She also uses pet names ‘kitty’ for her diary, thus personalising her connection to the process.
- Imagery + Representation: The descriptions provided give a over arching positive representation of her life, despite the facts of the situation. The importance of family is a main driver or pattern in the text.
- Content + Context: The content is a regular diary entry from Anne Frank discussing elements of the conditions of their existence but also the love of her family and introductions to womanhood, and establishing feelings for others despite the inevitability of the outcome.
- Organisation: As is to be expected, a diary runs in a chronological order. Often there is a cause + effect style to the writing, as well as a chronology.
- Tone: Despite the immense challenges and difficulties that the Frank family faced, the upbeat and positive tone from Anne comes through.
Here’s an example of the way you can use the supplementary texts
and here is an interview with Otto – Anne’s father
Theme
How to Determine Theme in Literature
Before determining the theme, we must understand what theme is exactly. In fable, it is moral and the theme of a parable is its teaching. Besides, the theme of a fiction is its view or perception presented in front of the readers. However, the theme of a fiction is not clearly stated, rather the readers need to extract the theme by following its characters, setting, action and other aspects. In other words, readers need to find out the theme by following some proven steps. In brief, understanding the theme is nothing but finding out the underlying truth behind each story.
There are several ways to find out the theme of a story. The first and foremost is that students must check the title properly as the title says a lot about the theme. The second most useful way to determine the theme is that scrutinize the patterns that are repeatedly done in the story. Sometimes, the readers get the theme by following this way. Additionally, the details and descriptions need to be checked thoroughly while identifying the theme.
The important part is that a theme never describes the whole story, rather it gives the outline and theme is quite related to structure and plot. Readers must understand that the theme is an important element of a literary work and it makes up a whole structure. Some common themes are repression, loneliness, good versus evil, rebirth, struggle and then accomplishment, redemption, etc.
However, the readers’ job is to understand what the author tries to convey in his writing. The big idea is the theme of a story and it is also referred as a message from the author. However, the theme is available everywhere starting from movies, art to short stories. It is a well-accepted statement that epitomizes about what the story is. Moreover, readers must understand that theme is not the topic and it can be a point made based on the topic.
Theme -at a glance
• It is a generalised idea
• It is all about the author’s opinion as well as perception
• It implies something about life
• It is a common ground that connects both the authors and readers.
• Sometimes, it enlarges one’s conception
• It acts as a foundation for the writing
Now here are some things that themes are not:
- The theme is NOT the plot summary. The plot is what happens, the theme is the deeper meaning behind what happens.
- The theme is NEVER a single word. It’s an abstract concept that requires a complete sentence to convey.
- All the characters or readers DO NOT have to learn the theme. The theme reflects a central message from the writer.
- There DOES NOT need to be only one theme. Many layered works have multiple themes that interact.
Patterns
As with our close analysis from the Unfamiliar section, it is vital that there is some recognition of patterns that emerge over the course of the text. It’s from this position (recognising patterns) that you can truly articulate what the theme is.
Putting it into an essay form
There are two places that context may be helpful in an essay. Firstly, you may like to include it in the ‘Background’ aspect of the introduction, give a brief comment about the situation the writer was in, or writes about. The second is to add to the development of your magic sentence in the body paragraph. When writing the final part about the link to the wider theme or idea, just include something about the context.
Here are some examples. Again, they come from Diary of a Young Girl: Anne Frank
Introduction:
Check that you included everything –
- Title
- Author
- Genre
- Background
So this would be an example of an introductory sentence that incorporates context.
Now the body paragraph
Example 1
Example 2
Key Takeaways
At this stage we have looked at the way that non fiction texts are put together, we have learned about the context of a piece of writing, and how narrative perspective and development can impact our understanding of the content.
Now we need to move onto the deeper study of the text.
Types of supplementary texts
Here is a list of the possibly supplementary texts that you could use.
- advertisements,
- brochures,
- leaflets,
- editorials,
- news stories,
- articles,
- reviews,
- blogs,
- investigative journalism,
- letters,
- podcasts,
- autobiographies
- biographies,
- travel writing,
- diaries,
- essays,
- scripted speech,
- narrative writing,
- textbooks, and
- descriptive writing
Let’s look at the next five. I will be using Anne Frank as a reference point here.
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essays,
Essays are a widely used, but mostly misunderstood area of nonfiction. Essays are the expressive writings of individuals in an extended form. We think of essays at school as being on a defined topic in answer to a defined question – often using that defined structure.
However, essays as a genre are just non fiction writings that express a viewpoint, one that is reflective and subjective. You could write an essay about the state of the world, or one about something completely obscure like the importance of eating cheese right before bed to enhance your dreams.
Here is an extract from an essay on Anne Frank
Anne Frank, a name that resonates with millions around the world, symbolizes the human spirit’s resilience in the face of horrifying adversity. Born on June 12, 1929, in Frankfurt, Germany, Annelies Marie Frank was a German-Dutch diarist, globally recognized for her poignant diary written during the Holocaust.
Anne Frank was born into a liberal Jewish family. Her father, Otto Frank, was a decorated German officer in World War I. However, when the Nazis came to power in 1933, Otto, sensing the impending danger, moved his family to Amsterdam, Netherlands. For a while, they lived a peaceful life, until the Nazis invaded the Netherlands in 1940, and the Franks found themselves entrapped once again.
You’ll note it is a little like a biography, but shorter and adds little detail along the way.
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scripted speech,
World War 2 produced a number of high profile speeches, from Churchill’s ‘Fight on the beaches’ to Roosevelt’s ‘Day of Infamy’. Reading through these speeches will help you to understand some of the ideology of the time.
You can read about more speeches here
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narrative writing,
There has been a massive uptick in the amount of writers using World War 2 as inspiration. As part of your general reading you may like to choose one that relates to the context that you are reading about in the text study.
In terms of Anne Frank, you can read a couple of examples here and here
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textbooks,
You’re currently reading a text book, albeit online. You can pick up an encyclopaedia, or check out part of a history book to learn more about the era that you’re working in.
Of course, Wikipedia is a great place to start. However, check out the links at the base of the page which will help lead you to other, more detailed parts of the story.
You can read the wikipedia page here
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descriptive writing
Look at the narrative writing, desciptive writing sits nicely as parts of the narrative.
You may like to also read some poetry from the concentration camps here
The Butterfly
The last, the very last,
So richly, brightly, dazzlingly yellow.
Perhaps if the sun’s tears would sing
against a white stone…
Such, such a yellow
Is carried lightly ‘way up high.
It went away I’m sure because it wished to
kiss the world goodbye.
For seven weeks I’ve lived in here,
Penned up inside this ghetto
But I have found my people here.
The dandelions call to me
And the white chestnut candles in the court.
Only I never saw another butterfly.
That butterfly was the last one.
Butterflies don’t live in here,
In the ghetto.
Pavel Friedmann 4.6.1942
Ko te reo te tuakiri | Language is my identity.
Ko te reo tōku ahurei | Language is my uniqueness.
Ko te reo te ora. | Language is life.