English Update - Term 2

This is a busy time of the year, where many of our ākonga have assessments due and are balancing these alongside other school activities such as the production. It is important that if ākonga are struggling to keep up with the pace or are in need of extra support that they reach out to their teachers as soon as possible. The Thursday lunchtime tutorials provide an excellent opportunity for ākonga to receive one on one support. Classes who have assessments in the second half of this term will be sending out an email to whānau giving details about the assessment and dates. Please do not hesitate to contact your child’s teacher if you have any questions. 

Year 9 

Kia ora, my name is Val Autridge and since the beginning of the term I have been teaching classes 9T, 9W and 10O. It has been a very busy few weeks settling in and getting to know the students.  The main focus has been on creative writing and there have been some highly imaginative and well written stories emerging. Last week we were honing the skill of paragraph writing. Between now and the end of term we shall be looking at creating advertising for a movie night followed by a post unit writing assessment. Please get in touch if you have any questions or wish to discuss anything. 

Year 9 Creative Writing 

They smelled sweet, like hot chocolate on a cold day. Their scent was so intoxicating that it was hard to pull away from their path. Small critters and bugs hovered around them, their beady eyes filling up with the soft hue of blue that the plants emitted. 

The critters slowly bit down on the glowing berries, the bright juices of their berry-like form squirted out across the mossy floor of the fungi forest and steam suddenly began to rise from where the liquid sat.

The sickeningly sweet smell overpowered all else, the critters turning away and sprinting from the scene. More of the glowing berries started to grow, sprouting out of the ground and rising towards the starlight. Their hums morphed into blood-curdling screams.

The surrounding plants grew with them, their trunks thickening, bark emerging to cover their surfaces. The berries throbbed bigger and bigger until they were the size of great old trees that reached their branches towards the sky. 

The electric blue berries popped, emitting a large roar that sounded like a choir of lions defending their land. Large blue petals flopped away from the centre, settling into large flowers that sang with the voices of sirens, wrapping any living creature that heard its enchanting call around its branches to do its bidding. 

Packs of creatures flocked around the fungi, rubbing their bodies against their veiny stems. Drool dropped from their mouths, a wave of purrs and thumping erupting from the animal crowd. Bugs landed on the petals, their forms beginning to grow in size. The surrounding animals had become about five times their size and were still growing. Their eyes slitted and bounced around their sockets rapidly as they continued to fight one another for the mere touch of such a beautiful organism. 

As the bugs grew in size, their weight made the petals droop lower and lower near the ground, and the petals began to creak. Their tips lightly scraped the bottom, the fungi twitching before snapping shut. Purple blood sprayed the surrounding area, the screams of the dying creature muffled by the thick petals’ embrace.

Blayze H.

Year 10

Year 10 English students have just completed their first major assessment of the year: a piece of creative writing based on a class novel. I am pleased to report that many students performed very well on this assessment. Coming up, students will focus on developing their oral presentation skills, learning the techniques necessary to deliver an effective speech. They will be performing their speeches during weeks 9-10 of this term.

Last term, some of our Year 10 students collaborated on a project with students from the art department to write short stories that the art students interpreted. The art students used the stories provided to construct “interpreted collages” and “digital collage presentations.” They employed techniques of contemporary collage and article illustration, and the results were fantastic. This was a great opportunity, and we enjoyed working with Ms. Thomson and the art department.

Senior English 

This term our Level 1 ākonga have been developing their writing skills in preparation for the two external standards in terms 3 and 4. We have also been reading and analysing a class novel. In the next three weeks students will be completing an assessment based on the class novel. Students will have eight class periods to complete their assessment, and they can also work on it at home. The final due date for the assessment will be 25th of June. 

The Level 2 Literacy for Work students are currently working on their presentations. Some have chosen a vocational pathways topic, while others are doing their presentation on an issue presented in a text. These will be completed in the next two weeks. We have students out of this class regularly with various trips, so it is important that they work at home when they can and take up the tutorials on offer from their teacher.

The students have just submitted their 2.10 assessment, which involved analysing a scene in a film. They will now be working towards their external examinations, where they will learn how to write about different aspects of a film. This will include writing about elements such as plot, character, and theme.

Our Level 3 English classes are working on a significant assessment this term. This involves viewing ideas in a novel through a critical lens. This assessment is time-consuming and ākonga will be working on this outside of class time. The due date for this assessment is Friday the 21st.