25 May 2023
Year 11 Extension English have each been issued a Kindle… and it’s theirs to keep if they complete the two-year HSC course.
The decision was made to issue the four students with ebook readers to give them access to a wider range of reading materials for their studies. For a small fee, they can download newer books or have access to the huge range of out of copyright texts through Project Gutenberg.
“Because the course requires a lot of individual research and reading, we decided that providing them with access to these ebooks would help them with their studies,” explains extension English teacher Martin Maley, “The Kindles really open up the students to the world of literature.”
The class are currently studying the vampire myth and how it is represented in literature and film. The students are able to pick their own texts. They have they been reading through some of the seminal vampire modern texts like Twilight, Salem’s Lot and Interview With A Vampire. They’ve also been digging into some of the genre’s earliest examples like Dracula and Camilla.
The English students will move onto study literary worlds next year, focusing specifically on worlds in upheaval. This will see them tearing apart classics like Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, Fritz Lang’s Metropolis and Samuel Beckett’s Waiting for Godot.