SSST (School-supported self-taught Language A): Areas of exploration

The area of exploration of readers, writers and texts aims to introduce students to the skills and approaches required to closely examine literary texts as well as to introduce metacognitive awareness of the nature of the discipline by considering the following guiding conceptual questions:

1. Why and how do we study literature?
2. How are we affected by literary texts in various ways?
3. In what ways is meaning constructed, negotiated, expressed and interpreted?
4. How does language use vary among literary forms?
5. How does the structure or style of a literary text affect meaning?
6. How do literary texts offer insights and challenges?

In this area of the course, you will study texts that allow you to consider how history, culture, geography and many other external factors are all important to fully understand a literary text. While still attentive to the features of literary texts, in this area you will look at how the works you are reading represent, reflect and become part of life and culture. In doing so, consider the six guiding conceptual questions for this part of the course:

1. How important is cultural or historical context to the production and reception of a literary text?
2. How do we approach literary texts from different times and cultures to our own?
3. To what extent do literary texts offer insight into another culture?
4. How does the meaning and impact of a literary text change over time?
5. How do literary texts, reflect, represent or form a part of cultural practices?
6. How does language represent social distinctions and identities?

Connections between literary texts can be established in a variety of ways, such as through the study of a group of texts from the same literary form—for example, fiction, the sonnet, a tragedy; an exploration of a topic or concept as represented across literary texts—for example, power, heroism, gender; or an investigation into one of the seven concepts in studies in language and literature, such as representation or perspective.

Consider the six guiding conceptual questions in this part of the course:

1. How do literary texts adhere to and deviate from conventions associated with literary forms?
2. How do conventions and systems of reference evolve over time?
3. In what ways can diverse literary texts share points of similarity?
4. How valid is the notion of a classic literary text?
5. How can literary texts offer multiple perspectives of a single issue, topic or theme?
6. In what ways can comparison and interpretation be transformative?