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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 12

Narrative and human experiences

Students develop their knowledge and understanding of human experiences through encounters with narratives. Through their study of ONE prescribed text and a variety of other texts students develop their understanding of what narrative is, how it is constructed, how it is represented and how it is part of our world.

Students also consider the impact of perspective in narratives to explore and represent individual and collective human experiences. Through their study of a prescribed text, they engage with language and ideas to develop their skills of analysis and evaluation of familiar and unfamiliar texts. Students develop an understanding of the connections between texts and the ways narratives represent motivations, experiences, and consequences.

In their analysis and composition of critical and creative texts, they explore how context can generate tensions, influence choices and shape perspectives. They also consider how storytelling represents perceptions of themselves, their experiences and their world. In their compositions students use language to respond to and tell stories that communicate human experiences and reflect ways of thinking about themselves and their world. Through their critical and creative responses to texts, students consider the ways that narratives use language to communicate rich and diverse human experiences.

Understanding
  • The ways personal, social, cultural or historical contexts shape meaning in texts

  • The ways narrative represents ideas, information and perspectives in texts

  • The ways author’s shape and influence meaning in texts

  • Use of inference and an understanding of symbolism to interpret ideas and information in texts

  • The impact of structure, language and tone to convey ideas and perspectives in narratives

Responding
  • Compose creative and critical texts that convey ideas, information and perspectives about human experiences

  • Compose texts that use appropriate text and grammatical structures to communicate ideas, information and arguments

  • Use formal and informal language for particular audiences, purposes and contexts

  • Use evaluative language to communicate opinions and arguments about familiar and unfamiliar texts

  • Use a range of simple and complex sentences to compose cohesive paragraphs in texts

  • Plan, draft and edit a variety of compositions

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