Fears and Ideas

year long elective

Subject Overview

Fears and Ideas is a year-long English elective designed to foster critical thinking and engagement with real-world ‘big ideas’ around language, power and control. In this subject you will explore the relationship between language and power across a range of texts, including film, radio, news and plays. This subject is influenced by the field of linguistics, discourse (the study of narratives and power) and political and social sciences. It aims to give you a taste of possible different directions for your future English studies and to extend your critical literacy skills.

Testimonials

Mainstream English looks at purely building up your skills, Fears does this while also exploring the challenges that society is facing. Fears and ideas enables people to engage more in the content through discussions and debates on topics that are impacting or have impacted the world that we live in now. Incorporating this in to learning essential English skills makes the learning more interesting.

Fears looks at how society and bias influence literature and how it can be used to give more power to certain groups and take power away from others.  It also looks at how society's fears leak into literature. I am finding the course really interesting and recommend it to students looking for a challenge/extension in their English Pathway who are finding mainstream a bit dull. 

Content and ideas: 

In Semester One, you will consider how the language we speak shapes our understanding of the world; how language can be used as a tool to gain power, and, the relationship between language and truth. You will study the way that regimes or governments use words for particular purposes, and the impact of this on people and citizens.

In Semester Two, you will explore the recurring ideas of ‘Monsters and Madness’ in different literary texts. You will consider questions such as: how is fear used as a tool of control in our society? How do representations of ‘monsters and madness’ create fear of the unknown? How are our understandings of mental health and ill-health influenced by popular culture and literature?

Typical class activities:

• Group discussion, jigsaws, and socratic seminars

• Close reading and analysis of passages

• Exploration of media texts

• Study of graphic novels

• Reflective, expository or analytical writing tasks

• Research project

Skills focus:

• Critical thinking and reasoning

• Written expression, particularly the justification of ideas

• Analysing the ‘hidden meaning’ encoded in texts

• Exploring the social values and beliefs shaping texts

Assessment Tasks:

The range of assessment tasks for this subject may include:

• Text Response Essay

• Expository or persuasive essays

• Research tasks

• Group collaborations and presentations

• Discourse analysis (media texts activity)

Do this subject if:

• You aren’t quite sure which VCE English to take

• You want to engage in a challenging and rigorous English subject

• You want to consider big ideas about the way we live

• You’re interested in the way that we discuss current events 

Content Warning: This subject contains in-depth study of films with an M15+ rating. It is recommended that students are aged fifteen or over when undertaking this subject.