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NSW Curriculum
NSW Education Standards Authority

11–12English Studies 11–12 Syllabus

Record of changes
Implementation from 2026
Expand for detailed implementation advice

Content

Year 11

Elective focus areas

The following elective focus areas can be selected for Year 11 or Year 12.

Elective C: On the road

Through the study of texts in this focus area, students consider how literature represents a diversity of cultural experiences and perspectives, and how it can teach individuals about distant and different places and cultures. This focus area gives students opportunities to extend their knowledge and understanding of language, culture and customs through texts that represent the experience and consequences of travel and tourism. Students develop intercultural understanding and broaden their perspectives of cultural and global issues in a contemporary world. By engaging with different cultures, places and communities through texts about travel, students critique and evaluate the effect that journeying can have on people’s lives.

Students engage with a range of literary and other texts that are encountered or produced as part of the experiences of travel, including advertising, journalism and filmmaking. They have opportunities to examine the language of blogs, reviews, travel advertisements and documentaries, as well as comprehend government advice about overseas travel. By considering the stories and perspectives represented in texts, students develop an understanding of the personal challenges and opportunities presented by travel.

Understanding
  • The ways language forms and features are used to communicate ideas and shape meaning

  • Explicit and implicit meaning in texts

  • The ways mode and medium can influence language and structure

  • The ways that audience, purpose and context shape meaning in a variety of social, community and workplace texts

Responding
  • Compose a variety of texts that use language forms and features to present particular attitudes, values and perspectives

  • Compose critical texts that use appropriate evidence to support a clear point of view

  • Use complex sentences to communicate the relationship between ideas in a range of texts

  • Use appropriate textual forms and structures to communicate information and ideas

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