Area of Study: Belonging - General Information + Rubric (1 Viewer)

[Without Wings]

From 2009 the concept for the Area of Study is ‘Belonging’. The Board decided to delete the three focuses in favour of a sole focus to allow the concept and prescribed text or texts to be examined in greater depth.


Area of Study: Belonging
This Area of Study requires students to explore the ways in which the concept of belonging is represented in and through texts.

Perceptions and ideas of belonging, or of not belonging, vary. These perceptions are shaped within personal, cultural, historical and social contexts. A sense of belonging can emerge from the connections made with people, places, groups, communities and the larger world. Within this Area of Study, students may consider aspects of belonging in terms of experiences and notions of identity, relationships, acceptance and understanding.

Texts explore many aspects of belonging, including the potential of the individual to enrich or challenge a community or group. They may reflect the way attitudes to belonging are modified over time. Texts may also represent choices not to belong, or barriers which prevent belonging.

Perceptions and ideas of belonging in texts can be constructed through a variety of language modes, forms, features and structures. In engaging with the text, a responder may experience and understand the possibilities presented by a sense of belonging to, or exclusion from the text and the world it represents. This engagement may be influenced by the different ways perspectives are given voice in or are absent from a text.

In their responses and compositions students examine, question, and reflect and speculate on:
• how the concept of belonging is conveyed through the representations of people, relationships, ideas, places, events, and societies that they encounter in the prescribed text and texts of their own choosing related to the Area of Study
• assumptions underlying various representations of the concept of belonging
• how the composer’s choice of language modes, forms, features and structures shapes and is shaped by a sense of belonging
• their own experiences of belonging, in a variety of contexts
• the ways in which they perceive the world through texts
• the ways in which exploring the concept and significance of belonging may broaden and deepen their understanding of themselves and their world.

Source: Board of Studies: Prescriptions: areas of study, electives and texts — HSC 2009–2012


Belonging Texts set for Study
A list of the texts set for study can be found here.
http://www.boardofstudies.nsw.edu.au/syllabus_hsc/pdf_doc/hsc_english_poster_09-12.pdf


Belonging Notes
http://community.boredofstudies.org...y/227464/notes-taken-lecture-hsc-markers.html

Belonging Textbooks/Study Guides

• Nelson Belonging: A Workbook for Senior Students by Dwayne Hopwood
• HSC Area of Study Belonging + CD by Shelley McNamara
• Belonging An Area of Study by Barbara Stanners
• Belonging HSC English Area of Study by Melaney McGuiness
• Belonging 1 Guide to the HSC English Area of Study: Belonging by Curran, Hough, Lovell

Thanks for those links Without Wings. The study guides I have yet to peruse look promising, but I will let the 2009ers judge instead (Never been a fan, but have to give them a chance right?)

I would like to contribute a piece written by a colleague (of a colleague) of mine: Kate Eliza O'Connor from St Scholastica's College (Schols).

Every word in the English language supposedly has an average of five different meanings, and the concept of “belonging” can be ambiguous. Belonging may relate to the notion of being an appendage: a sign of possession or a word denoting ownership. It could be a sense of place inspace – a feeling of belonging to the land, being enmeshed in an environment, a social class, a cultural context or a particular era. Belonging can mean the assignation of an identity, an act involving being pigeonholed, stereotyped, placed within a certain group as the result of societal assumptions. Belonging may also relate to the construction of a self through socialisation and the desire to belong. It can result in a sense of identification, a means of locating oneself within discourses and ideologies. Or it could lead to the downfall and deconstruction of individuality.

Essentially, as has been noted in external forums and discussions, belonging can be simplified (or 'reduced') to the basic premises of:

1) Ownership.
2) Cultural / Geographical connection (rooted in our personal histories).
3) 'Stereotypes' or categorisation of normative and deviant groups.
4) Subjectivity and self (at this point i would consider Freudian and Kristevan theories, particularly for the stronger students).
5) The tension between construction of identity and destabilisation of individuality.

I believe the ideas raised in the above example can be suitably expanded upon by interested students, particularly as a syllabus outcome is for them to develop "ways in which exploring the concept and significance of belonging may broaden and deepen their understanding of themselves and their world" (Prescriptions of the new HSC syllabus, page 10).

Thanks again for organising this new sub-forum Without Wings

I've come up with an acronym on the concept of belonging - Pass Da Rice Paul

Process driven: belonging is dynamic, ongoing and changing. One journeys towards the state of belonging.
Alienation: when one does not belong to an entity i.e. feelings of isolation, loneliness and social awkwardness.
Similarity: the features in common with the members of a group.
Stereotyping: an irrational stock image of a particular group e.g. people with a very low-income occupation are socially inferior.

Dominant culture: mainstream society and its strong effect of one's belonging status e.g. the media (advertisements).
Associations: our interconnectedness with others, who we share our belonging experiences with.

Relationships: the often personal connections with others, belonging to a relationship.
Identity: one's identity, individuality and uniqueness often dictates where/what group they belong to.
Comparative: belonging makes it easier to differentiate people on the basis of a range of factors e.g. what group they belong to.
Exclusivity: belonging can divide humanity, leaving certain people out of the group/entity e.g. the Great Schism split Eastern and Western Catholics.

Prejudices: the irrational, learned and virtually subconscious ideologies made about certain groups e.g. racism, homophobia.
Active/passive: active is a group where one is aware that they belong to it e.g. family, friends, school, work, clubs, teams while passive is where someone belongs to a group but is usually not consciously aware of it e.g. the human race, gender.
Unity: belonging brings people together and unites people in commonality.
Longing: belonging is a basic human need; a constant desire throughout our lives; we long, we search, we wish for the right group/entity to belong to.

 

[strawberrye]

Brilliant guide! I would also recommend Karen Yager's powerpoint presentation on Belonging-it has some pretty good stuff on deconstructing the rubric and informing individuals on how to construct strong theses