Year 12 Extension 2 English Students Develop their Major Work Concepts

17 Mar 2022

English Extension at Marian Catholic College Kenthurst

In Extension 2 English, students have an opportunity to choose a form through which to explore a key concept that they wish to present in their Major Work.

Below are the individual student writing forms and concepts of the Extension 2 students this year. This is a summary of their major work project at this stage and the motivation for their ideas.

English Extension at Marian Catholic College Kenthurst

Melina Krkac - Short Fiction

Before deciding on the concept of my Extension 2 Major work, I was adamant on the idea of doing something challenging, something that would push the subconscious boundaries I have created for myself when writing, and something that would allow me to explore my abilities of establishing a unique and impactful story. I have always found myself immersed in the intricacies of psychology, more specifically, the education and awareness surrounding mental health. My goal is to analyse the complexities of mental illness through the construction of my Major work. This will be achieved by carefully centralising the story around the emotions and struggles of the protagonist.

As a result, my selected concept is the long term impact of complex trauma upon the development of an adult female, with specific concentration upon its influence on the healing mechanisms and emotional behaviours of the individual. I have chosen to present the concept through the perspectives of the 5 stages of grief, which will act as the metaphorical ‘observers’/narrators of the protagonist's journey through healing. The effect of this will allow the reader to comprehend the themes of the story independently in a way that best resonates with them, whilst also pursuing the evaluation of the intricacies of trauma and mental illness.

English Extension at Marian Catholic College Kenthurst

Lily Murphy - Short Fiction

Tiger is an observation of an adolescent learning how to grieve for family by watching her remaining members stumble and fall throughout the course of a year. The short story follows Sadie, a 17-year-old girl struggling with mental health and the toils of high school life, suddenly thrust with an extra dose of grief when her estranged grandfather passes unexpectedly. With a limited worldview, Sadie can only rely on the support system of her family; a dysfunctional collection of broken people that will never admit it.

Nearly an adult, Sadie is often left alone with her grief, with the expectations she will handle it well (spoilers, totally doesn’t). She spends the year thinking back to the brief moments she spent with her grandfather, learning who he was through the bitter and sweet stories of the family he left behind, meeting said family for the first time in a decade, and as a sidenote, figures out how to grieve in a healthy way along the way.

English Extension at Marian Catholic College Kenthurst

Jordan Stubing - Poetry

For my major work, The Shattered Menagerie, I chose to do a suite of poetry based on the theme of a broken family and their child.The family is falling apart and nobody is there to save them. The shattered menagerie continues to live on even in the death of the father and later the mother. I have used the mother and father as subtle voices juxtaposed with their daughter’s voice that enforces the context and background to the story, as well as the voice that offers reasoning to the situation.

The suite of poems offers a progression of the main protagonist’s life in three phases: childhood, adolescence and adulthood. With this process I will build her descent into madness through a psychological exploration, as well as a journey to maturity and acceptance of what happens to her. My driving purpose is to highlight how we try to escape a psychological nightmare and evolve from this.

English Extension at Marian Catholic College Kenthurst

Cooper Tighe - Short Film (Multimedia)

My Major Work will be a short film which will use hyperbolic criticism in order to showcase the importance of movie-going and the dangers of modernisation within the film industry. My major work will suggest that film is about human beings conveying emotional, psychological experiences to one another, highlighting the difference between contemporary cinematic blockbusters. I hope to convey this through a literal persona - the cinema itself - conversing with an audience, as well as a distant and slightly dysfunctional family being brought closer together through the discussion of movies.

My short film will also take photographic inspiration from the German Expressionism movement for my cinematography in order to highlight the emotional turmoil of an uncertain future and the importance of artistic heritage for the preservation of great pictures.

Written By

Marian Catholic College Kenthurst
www.mariankenthurst.catholic.edu.au

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