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Listed under:  Language  >  Language modes  >  Creating texts  >  Personal responses
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Heywire: To disconnect or not to disconnect?

How often are you ever truly alone? Today's technology can mean that we're in constant contact with friends and family. In this Heywire audio story, Dayna Duncan shares a time when she both needed to be connected and to balance her use of social media with other priorities in her life.<br /><br /> Could you write or record ...

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Heywire: The slow sizzle of SFX

Without the benefit of visual images, audio texts often rely on sound effects to create a mood or to position the audience, sometimes without their realising it. Analyse how Rafiqua Fattah's sound effects affect you as you listen to her Heywire audio story, which presents her perspectives on life as an Australian who is ...

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Writing London: Discovery and rebirth

How do writers respond to, and write about, the great city of London. Listen as some of London's greatest writers, including Andrea Levy, Jeremy Reed, Ian McEwan and Bernard Kops, reflect on the experience of writing in and about London. Consider what Bernard Kops means when he asks, 'Where was I born after I was born?'

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This Day Tonight: Understanding satire: the 'ocker' Australian

What do 'Borat', 'The Simpsons', 'Gulliver's Travels' and political cartoons have in common? They are all forms of satire: a particularly tricky genre of text. In this clip, explore the concept of satire and how it is constructed.

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Radio National: 'The Great Gatsby' and Baz's blockbuster

Have you ever been drawn into one of those arguments about which is better: the film or the book? In this clip, explore some responses to Baz Luhrmann's film adaptation of 'The Great Gatsby' and discover some of the factors that influence people's evaluations. It would be boring if we all had the same opinions, but have ...

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First Tuesday Book Club: The power of one book to captivate Australia

Bryce Courtenay's novel 'The Power of One' has sold millions of copies worldwide. But just how did a debut novel, set in South Africa and written by a South African author, end up on the list of '10 Aussie books to read before you die'? Find out more in this clip.

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Hey diddle diddle' sung by Teddy Rock

Watch and listen as Buzz, Belle and Bop perform 'Hey diddle diddle' in this animated music video. Then try to create your own sentences that include pairs of words that sound the same at the end (rhyme).

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Jane Austen: Marriage and inheritance

How important is the wealth of a potential marriage partner to you? Why was the estate of a potential husband important in Jane Austen's novels? Consider the significance of marriage in middle and upper class England, as explained by the University of Oxford's Professor Kathryn Sutherland. This clip from the British Library ...

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Radio National: The Great Gatsby meets Willy Loman

Different writers can use quite distinct ways to make similar comments about their culture. In this audio clip, explore the connection between F Scott Fitzgerald's novel, 'The great Gatsby' and Arthur Miller's play, 'Death of a salesman'. At first the two texts might seem very different, but are they more similar than we ...

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Jane Austen: The secret meaning of the dance

Why did Jane Austen write about dancing in her novels? What could attendance at a ball or local dance tell us about the characters and their relationships? Professor Kathryn Sutherland explains the significance of dances in the late-18th and early-19th centuries and suggests why Ms Austen chose to describe them in great ...

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Jane Eyre: Tapping into childhood

How was childhood depicted in English literature in the mid-nineteenth century? In this clip from The British Library, two experts in the works of the Bronte sisters discuss the manner in which children were regarded in the 1800s and consider the significance of Charlotte Bronte's accounts of childhood in Jane Eyre. This ...

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The language of criticism

Language is a powerful tool and the way it is used can sometimes disempower or devalue people and their ideas. Listen to young art critic and aspiring painter Robert Hughes as he discusses the Beat Generation. Explore how questions can be used to influence listeners and how language can reveal the attitudes and values of ...

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David Malouf on violence in literature

Do you think we live in a violent world? Do you agree with David Malouf when he says that violence is everywhere? Should stories reflect what is happening in the world? How do you feel about violence as a theme in literature?

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Feathers, Fur and Fins: A song about snakes

Do you know any songs about Australian animals? Listen to this song about snakes performed by Don Spencer. Watch and listen, as the clip shows different types of snakes and even some trained people trying to catch a snake.

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Storyline Online: Strega Nona by Tomie dePaola

Strega Nona – “Grandma Witch” – is the source for potions, cures, magic and comfort in her Calabrian town. Her magical ever-full pasta pot is especially intriguing to hungry Big Anthony. He is supposed to look after her house and tend her garden, but one day, when she goes over the mountain to visit Strega Amelia, Big Anthony ...

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Storyline Online: How I learned Geogrpahy by Uri Shulevitz

Having fled from war in their troubled homeland, a boy and his family are living in poverty in a strange country. Food is scarce, so when the boy’s father brings home a map instead of bread for supper, at first the boy is furious. But when the map is hung on the wall, it floods their cheerless room with color. As the boy ...

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Writing wild places

How do you write about a place that is disobedient?' Four of Britain's prominent writers consider the emotions that wild places evoke. In this clip, Robert Macfarlane, Simon Armitage, Sara Maitland and Owen Sheers consider the qualities of wildness: silence; escape; beauty; threat; and a sense of being both lost and found.

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First Tuesday Book Club: Navigating 'The Secret River'

Kate Grenville's multiple-award-winning novel 'The Secret River' explores an earlier period of Australian history. What is it that makes this novel so compelling and troubling for its many Australian readers? As you watch this clip, consider how this book encourages readers to re-evaluate their beliefs and values.

Audio

Heywire: Hip hop against waste dump

Many hip hop artists have expressed concerns about the world through their music. The Northern Territory's Kylie Sambo is no exception. Listen to her protest against the construction of a nuclear waste dump on her people's lands in Muckaty, near Tennant Creek. Could you write or record a story about yourself and/or your ...

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ABC News: Julia Gillard addresses misogyny in parliament

Former Prime Minister Julia Gillard's 2012 address to Parliament, in which she described the Federal Opposition's criticism of her support for controversial politician Peter Slipper as being misogynistic, proved to be one her most memorable. The speech went viral and was reported widely in international media, scoring over ...