Your NCEA Level 2 English experience will be full of a variety of exercises and achievements standards. You’ll be tasked with honing and crafting your own writing in standards like formal writing and creative writing if you choose. You’ll then also have to put on your analytical hat and learn to unpack key themes, ideas and aspects within a book or a movie. Writing will be a key standpoint in all your assessments, so in time you will learn to master the fundamentals and reach for those high marks that you are so eagerly hungry for.
In this blog, the internals will be covered in detail, but if you want an overview of the whole year, including externals, check out this here. Maybe you're wanting some advice on how to craft those tricky essay questions? Or get some assistance on working in tandem with those annotated exemplars. Struggling to make your way through English level 2, well we look at how it can guide you towards a successful future career.
AS91101 has you creating writing that is controlled and crafted
Here you will begin to arrange a portfolio of writing all surrounding the theme of New Zealand identity. You have the option of selecting your own type of text that could be either formal or creative. Its also possible for you to venture out and do for example poetry, monologue or a feature article. You will need to submit at least 2 pieces of writing for this assessment. To unpack further, you will need to state the purpose or aim of your writing in a brief statement at the start. What are you wanting your writing to do? Entice? Challenge? Simply entertain? Either way, make sure you let your teacher know what it is you are trying achieve. This helps the teacher grasp what type of effect you are wanting to have on the reader. To gain inspiration prior to writing your samples, you will need to jump into a ‘gather’ phase, which will have you obtaining exerts and other articles to showcase a sense of research. You are able to look for pieces of writing outside of class but bear in mind you have to compose your own writing samples in person, in-class hours. During the year your teacher will help hone your craft at developing ideas, writing with a sense of control, the all-important editing as well as proofreading. Throughout your coursework, there will be an opportunity to gain feedback on your writing so that you can constantly be evolving and make it a refined piece of work. This polishing and feedback will be crucial to your overall mark. Throughout the year you will be learning about a range of current and historic New Zealand issues and texts. These will all show a sense of what it means to be a New Zealander and our identity. This could include anything from the issue of sustainability, race relations in New Zealand, the importance of Maori culture or perhaps literature like short stories or poems relevant to our country. So get your write on and launch into a short story or poem. This will be an enriching assessment full of research, refining and delivered results.
91102 will have you speaking up!
In this assessment you will be constructing and delivering a crafted and controlled oral text. In short, you will be making a speech or seminar. You will pick the topic based on a novel, film or short text that you have studied. The only thing is, it must have an issue surrounding the text that’s significant. During your research and understanding, you will need to comprehend the text from a range of perspectives. This could be from specific groups or main characters studied in the text. These should shed some light on a wider large, societal issue. You will need to chat about the key issues within the text and hone in on the various perspectives. Then you will need to research that issue in-depth. Once that phase is done, its time to bring your speech to life! To do this think about all the language techniques that you can utilise to deliver your points with punch. That’s things like using your voice well, moderating the volume, changing the tempo for impact as well as body techniques like gesture and key facial expressions to build rapport. So burrow your head in that book, get your research on and then reel us in with your hold on the language features.
Get creative and show your visual flair!
In this assessment, you will create a crafted and controlled visual and verbal text. What’s required of this? You will need to think deeply about one text that you have studied during the year. You’ll then need to brainstorm key ideas surrounding the text. For example, if the movie you studied was The Day After Tomorrow, you might pick Global warming as one of your themes to tackle. The next phase for you in class is to research your two key ideas. Also once you have picked what type of visual image you are making (static image, cartoon, brochure etc), you will then look into what language features help to cultivate effectiveness in that form of media. Does one font look great on a static image but not so professional on a brochure? Work all these kinks out and then lock in how to best use language features for your final piece. Make sure you plan! Brainstorm some ideas for your design. When you are up to creating it refine, edit and redo it so that you are happy with it. Remember its all about bringing to life those key ideas mentioned earlier. Think about your audience and who you are aiming your image towards.
Its all about texts, texts, texts!
91104 will have you analysing significant connections across texts, supported by evidence. Here you will be unpacking the similarities and differences of texts that are from the same genre. Four texts you will cover and unpack each respectfully. The great thing about this achievement standard is that the texts can be a book, film or any other extended text. So you can have fun picking them! The findings of the comparison of texts will need to be presented in a written report. There will need to be two significant connections of the texts, supporting evidence and other sources need to be cited too.
An inquiry on a piece of writing
91105 will have you using information literacy skills to form developed conclusions. What does this mean? Well, this means that you will be completing an inquiry into the ideas expressed in a certain extended piece of opinion writing. The piece of writing will need to have an issue with two contrasting viewpoints, ready for you to analyse. The purpose of the inquiry is to show that you can demonstrate your information literacy skills. You will be coming up with your questions about the article independently and recording and evaluating the information after.
Get your read on!
91106 will have you forming developed personal responses to independently read texts, backed up by evidence. You will be compiling a reading list that is suitable for a year 12 book club. This will involve you selecting, reading and then recommending six texts. You will not be allowed to pick any texts that you have studied throughout the year, so be on the lookout for new texts to jump into the world of. To nail this task you will need to form a personal response to each of the six texts. Remember evidence is your friend! Make sure you cite evidence as you discuss each text. You can pick from texts like novels, biographies, dramas, films, poems, short stories, blogs, song lyrics, newspaper columns etc. As you are reading remember to keep a log and record your impressions and the changes as you progress through the text. Once this is done you can then present your findings in either a written or oral format. Remember to explore a range of different genres and perspectives to keep your opinions fresh.
Its film time!
91107 will have you analysing aspects of a visual text through close reading that’s supported by evidence. This will involve you exploring ideas and text conventions in films. To do this you will need to be clued up on things like film terminology, which you will learn during class. Things like mis-en-scene, camera angles and lighting choices will all be covered. Brushing up on language features will be important here. You will then present your work in a visual, oral or written form.
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