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NSW Curriculum
NSW Education Standards Authority

11–12English Extension 11–12 Syllabus (2024)

Implementation from 2026
Expand for detailed implementation advice

Content

Year 12 – Extension 1

Literary worlds

Literary worlds are textual creations of imagination through which a complex relationship is established between author, reader and text. Literary worlds are the Loading  Loading  of people and events; they transcend time and space, and offer depictions that are realistic or metaphoric, possible or fictional, public or private. Students engage with, interpret and experiment with the complex relationship between texts, authors, readers and Loading . They explore a range of short texts and extracts from larger works that construct literary worlds.

Students evaluate a range of texts that construct literary worlds. They deepen their understanding of the ideas and ways of thinking represented in texts and how these are shaped by textual Loading  and Loading  features. Students consider aspects of personal, social, Loading  and historical contexts in their responses to, and compositions of, literary worlds. They examine the ways literary worlds can affirm or challenge their own Loading  and their assumptions about, and experiences of, the ways texts make meaning.

In their study of literary worlds, students experiment with Loading  and creative compositions. They communicate their understanding of the ways literary worlds are constructed to express complex ideas and emotions, motivations, attitudes, experiences and values. These compositions may be realised in various forms, Loading  and mediums.

Each elective in this focus area involves the study of THREE texts from the prescribed list, with at least TWO of these texts required to be extended print texts, which may include poetry.

Students are also required to study ONE related text for the elective.

Understanding
  • The aesthetic qualities of language and the ways they shape meaning and communicate values

  • Changing contexts and values, and how they influence the ways meaning is made

  • A range of critical Loading  that shape personal responses to complex texts

  • Social, historical and personal values in texts, and how they shape meaning and influence responses

Responding
  • Craft extended texts in a variety of modes and mediums to communicate an understanding of evolving literary Loading  and Loading 

  • Craft original texts that experiment with and manipulate textual form and stylistic features to shape meaning and present informed perspectives

  • Craft Loading  arguments that Loading  a range of critical perspectives about a text’s cultural assumptions and values, informed by analysis of textual evidence

  • Craft texts that reflect on stylistic and language choices to represent the complex relationship between texts, authors, readers and contexts

  • Use sophisticated and controlled language with clarity to express informed perspectives

Prescriptions (2027–2030)

These prescriptions must not be taught until Term 4, 2026. They will be examined in the HSC from 2027.

For prescriptions examined in the current HSC year, see HSC English prescriptions 2019–2026 [PDF 560.06 KB].

Elective 1: Confessional worlds

In this elective, students consider the interplay of performance, intimacy and artifice in confessional worlds. They explore and evaluate the construction of voices used in confessional worlds as representations of revelation and evaluate the implications of unreliability, subjectivity and bias. In reading and engaging with texts students explore how the auto-biographical nature of confession challenges, enlightens and personalises significant cultural, historical, and political contexts and can reveal insights about authenticity, identity, memory, and self-representation. Students explore the way writers adapt, reshape, and experiment with textual forms, language features and voice to interact with their socio-cultural contexts. They examine how language can both reveal and conceal an author’s culture, context, and personality.  

In their responding and composing, students explore, analyse, experiment with, and critically evaluate, their prescribed texts and other appropriate texts. They write imaginative compositions that use textual forms and language to represent confessional worlds.

In this elective, students are required to study THREE of the prescribed texts, which must include at least TWO extended print texts. Students are also required to study ONE related text of their own choosing. Texts can be drawn from a range of contexts and media to explore how writers continue to construct and interrogate confessional worlds.

Extended print
  • Brontë, Anne, The Tenant of Wildfell Hall (prose fiction)Penguin UK, 1996, ISBN: 9780140434743
  • Didion, Joan, The White Album (nonfiction)HarperCollins Publishers, 2017, ISBN: 9780008284688‘The White Album’, ‘Holy Water’, ‘Bureaucrats’, ‘Good Citizens’, ‘Notes Toward a Dreampolitik’
  • Hughes, Ted, Birthday Letters (poetry)Faber and Faber, 2005, ISBN: 9780571194735‘The Shot’, ‘Trophies’, ‘Moonwalk’, ‘Error’, ‘A Short Film’, ‘The Beach’, ‘A Picture of Otto’
  • Mansfield, Katherine, The Collected Stories (prose fiction)Penguin Classics, 2007, ISBN: 9780141441818‘Prelude’, ‘Je ne Parle pas Francais’, ‘Bliss’, ‘Psychology’, ‘The Daughters of the Late Colonel’
  • Williams, Tennessee, The Glass Menagerie (drama)Penguin, 2009, ISBN: 9780141190266
Film or media
  • Anderson, Wes, The Darjeeling Limited (film)2007

Where a prescribed text is listed as a series of poems or short stories, all listed selections constitute the prescribed text.

Specific editions of the texts set for study are listed here. If the specified edition is out of print or widely unavailable, schools may use any suitable edition of the text selected. Where a text is quoted in an examination question, it will be from the listed edition.

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