VALUES & VALUING TEXTS

THE AUSTRALIAN OXFORD DICTIONARY DEFINITIONS ► Value are ‘one’s principles or standards, one’s judgement of what is valuable or important in life’.

► The way we understand the world and the ideas we have about it change over time as do the values that inform our actions and relationships. ► We need to consider the cultural and social assumptions in texts as well as how they will change over time and with different cultural perspectives.

► Ideas and themes cannot be understood without understanding the values that underpin them. E.g you can not understand war without understanding the values that inspire people to fight nor can you understand anti-war protests without understanding the values held by the people who participate in them. ► It is also possible for a person or society to have values that conflict with each other.

► Composers of texts implicitly disclose the social, historical and cultural values and assumptions that underpin how their narrators and characters think, feel, and act. ► Characters may illustrate the shared values of their world such as mateship, integrity, resilience, equality and loyalty. ► Values and cultural assumptions are not universal, they change over time and depend on context and culture.

► Composers create their texts in different times and places for a contemporary audience. They assume the reader will understand certain illusions and vocabulary as well as aspects of the social, historical and cultural context in which they produce their texts. ► As Advanced English students you are expected ‘to recognise different ways in which particular texts are valued’

Ideas, themes and values explored in the text as a whole. ► Composers explore ideas, themes and values as part of the lived experiences of characters and the world they inhabit. ► As students you need to develop as detailed an understanding as possible about the ways in which composers use language to present ideas, themes and values.

► Write a paragraph about how the composer of the related text NRL Racism is spinning out of control has used particular language features to develop a theme. ► Write a paragraph about how the composer of the related text NRL Racism is spinning out of control has used particular language features to develop a theme.