Our Faces, Our Places

Year 9 English Anthology

Chapter 1

What does it mean to belong?

Think, pair, share - discuss the questions below in a small group

1. What does is mean to belong?

2. Why do people need to feel a sense of belonging?

3. How do we find strength when we belong?

4. How is identity and belonging shaped by positive and negative experiences?

5. Can belonging be fulfilling and difficult at the same time?

6. Do people have to sacrifice their true selves in order to belong?

7. How does our sense of identity and belonging alter when our environment changes?

8. Is it possible to find a sense of belonging in a new environment?

9. How does our identity and sense of belonging change when placed in different situations?

In your workbooks…

Write short paragraph responses to the above nine questions. Do not re-write the questions, include them as a sentence in your response. Note that anything in RED requires you to complete that task.

Section 1

Let’s start with your ideas

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AUSTRALIAN IDENTITY

Questions for you to consider.

1. What things make the Australian identity unique?

2. Is the Australian identity something you are born with or does it develop? What things help shape/influence identity?

3. Is it possible to change your identity? In what ways/or Why not?

4. How does cultural identity have an impact on personal values and attitudes?

5. What makes you identify with a cultural identity?

6. Does your cultural identity influence the relationship you have with others? Why/why not?

7. Are you who you are because of where you live?

8. How does where you grow up influence who you are?

9. Is where you live an important part of your identity?

10. List as many ‘classic’ images of Australia as you can

11. What is Australian identity? What immediately springs to mind?

From the website:

http://www.nationaltreasures.com.au/treasures/suitcase/

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Chapter 2

The Euro-centric & the Australian Indigenous Perspectives

Section 1

SOME BACKGROUND

“My Country" is an iconic patriotic poem about Australia, written by Dorothea MacKellar (1885-1968) at the age of 19 while homesick in England. After travelling through Europe extensively with her father during her teenage years, she started writing the poem in London in 1904 and re-wrote it several times before her return to Sydney. The poem was first published in the London Spectator in 1908 under the title "Core of My Heart". It was reprinted in many Australian newspapers, quickly becoming well known and establishing MacKellar as a poet.

You can learn more about Dorothea MacKellar and her life at this link http://www.dorotheamackellar.com.au/about.html

‘My Country’ by Dorothea MacKellar

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‘My Country’ by Dorothea MacKellar

The love of field and coppice, of green and shaded lanes,

Of ordered woods and gardens is running in your veins.

Strong love of grey-blue distance, brown streams and soft, dim skies

I know but cannot share it, my love is otherwise.

I love a sunburnt country, a land of sweeping plains,

Of ragged mountain ranges, of droughts and flooding rains.

I love her far horizons, I love her jewel-sea,

Her beauty and her terror- the wide brown land for me!

The stark white ring-barked forests, all tragic to the moon,

The sapphire-misted mountains, the hot gold hush of noon,

Green tangle of the brushes where lithe lianas coil,

And orchids deck the tree-tops, and ferns the warm dark soil.

Core of my heart, my country! Her pitiless blue sky,

When, sick at heart, around us we see the cattle die -

But then the grey clouds gather, and we can bless again

The drumming of an army, the steady soaking rain.

Core of my heart, my country! Land of the rainbow gold,

For flood and fire and famine she pays us back threefold.

Over the thirsty paddocks, watch, after many days,

The filmy veil of greenness that thickens as we gaze.

An opal-hearted country, a wilful, lavish land -

All you who have not loved her, you will not understand -

Though earth holds many splendours, wherever I may die,

I know to what brown country my homing thoughts will fly.

Australian Bush Poetry My Country © 1904 Dorothea MacKellar 6

Section 2

‘Life-Cycle’ by Bruce Dawe

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Context taskBefore you start reading the poem on the next page, find out who Big Jim Phelan was.

‘Life Cycle’ (for Big Jim Phelan)

by Bruce Dawe

When children are born in Victoriathey are wrapped in club-colours, laid in beribboned cots, having already begun a lifetime’s barracking.

Carn, they cry, Carn … feebly at firstwhile parents playfully tussle with themfor possession of a rusk: Ah, he’s a little Tiger! (And they are …)

Hoisted shoulder-high at their first League game they are like innocent monsters who have been years swimming towards the daylight’s roaring empyrean

Until, now, hearts shrapnelled with rapture,they break surface and are forever lost,their minds rippling out like streamers

In the pure flood of sound, they are scarfed with light, a voice like the voice of God booms from the standsOoohh you bludger and the covenant is sealed.

Hot pies and potato-crisps they will eat,they will forswear the Demons, cling to the Saintsand behold their team going up the ladder into Heaven,

And the tides of life will be the tides of the home-team’s fortunes – the reckless proposal after the one-point win, the wedding and honeymoon after the grand final …

They will not grow old as those from the more northern states grow old,for them it will always be three-quarter time with the scores level and the wind advantage in the final term,

That passion persisting, like a race-memory, through the welter of seasons,enabling old-timers by boundary fences to dream of resurgent lionsand centaur-figures from the past to replenish continually the present,

So that mythology may be perpetually renewed and Chicken Smallhorn return like the maize-godin a thousand shapes, the dancers changing

But the dance forever the same – the elderly still loyally crying Carn … Carn … (if feebly) unto the very end,having seen in the six-foot recruit from Eaglehawk their hope of salvation.

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Poetry responseWrite short answers in your workbook for questions 1-3, 5a & b and 6.

Questions from Insight English ftp://lamp.tcc.wa.edu.au/pub/secure/English/Insight/Year08/n%20Unit%2012-IES8.pdf

Oodgeroo Noonuccal was born on North Stradbroke Island, country of the Noonuccal nation. She attended Dulwich Primary; left school and became a domestic in Brisbane at the age of 13. As an Aboriginal person, she said, 'there wasn't the slightest possibility of getting "a better job" [even] if you stayed on at school' (Murawina, 1993).

"Dad always said to me 'you're Black, you're Aboriginal, always be proud of it, but always know this, that if you're going to do anything in this world you've not only got to be as good as the white person, you've got to be better'."

Oodgeroo served in the Australian Women's Army Service (1942-1944). She published her first book of poetry, We Are Going, in 1964, going on to become a trailblazer in published Aboriginal writing in Australia. Oodgeroo was Queensland

State Secretary of FCAATSI for ten years in the 1960s and from 1972 was managing director of the Noonuccal-Nughie Education Cultural Centre on Stradboke Island.

Throughout her life, she was a renowned and admired campaigner for Aboriginal rights, promoter of Aboriginal cultural survival, educator and environmentalist. (Australian Women’s Archive Project, Claire Land)

Her work includes We are Going (1964), which was the first book ever to be published by an Aboriginal person, My People (1970) and Stradbroke Dreaming (1972). For more info see ‘Oodgeroo: a tribute’(Shoemaker (ed), 1994

Section 3

‘We Are Going’ by Oodgeroo Noonuccal

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‘We are going’ by Oodgeroo Noonuccal

They came in to the little town

A semi-naked band subdued and silent

All that remained of their tribe.

They came here to the place of their old bora ground

Where now the many white men hurry about like ants.

Notice of the estate agent reads: 'Rubbish May Be Tipped Here'.

Now it half covers the traces of the old bora ring.

'We are as strangers here now, but the white tribe are the strangers.

We belong here, we are of the old ways.

We are the corroboree and the bora ground,

We are the old ceremonies, the laws of the elders.

We are the wonder tales of Dream Time, the tribal legends told.

We are the past, the hunts and the laughing games, the wandering camp fires.

We are the lightening bolt over Gaphembah Hill

Quick and terrible,

And the Thunderer after him, that loud fellow.

We are the quiet daybreak paling the dark lagoon.

We are the shadow-ghosts creeping back as the camp fires burn low.

We are nature and the past, all the old ways

Gone now and scattered.

The scrubs are gone, the hunting and the laughter.

The eagle is gone, the emu and the kangaroo are gone from this place.

The bora ring is gone.

The corroboree is gone.

And we are going.'

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Appreciating "We are Going"

by Oodgeroo Noonuccal

Read Oodgeroo's "We are going" (p. 32) and answer these

questions:

1. Explain why they are "silent and subdued".

2. How are white men represented? Why?

3. What is a bora ring and explain why it is so central to this poem.

4. Explain their reaction in line 8.

5. Lines 9-17 begin a 'litany'. What is the effect produced?

6. Comment on the significance of metaphors used in the poem.

7. Comment on the structure and form of this poem.

8. Why does Thunder have a capital letter?

9. Comment on the mood and atmosphere created here.

10. Combine comments on its theme,title and conclusion.

Go to http://learn.stleonards.vic.edu.au/yr9eng/files/2012/09/We-Are-Going-by-Oodgeroo-Noonuccal.pdf to read some possible the answers. Check these answers against your own.

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Gurrumul is an enigma in the Australian music industry.

Born blind, Gurrumul grew up as a member of the Gumatj clan on Elcho Island, off the coast of tropical North East Arnhemland. His fragile but powerfully emotive voice has affected the public in a way no other artist has done in this country.  This unique Aboriginal man sings songs about identity, spirit and connection with the land, its elements and the ancestral beings he is related to. His high tenor voice and aura-like persona creates emotion, compassion and a feeling of peacefulness and longing with audiences in Australia and around the world.

In today’s world where the media and the music industries are based around hype, fashion and disposable artists, Gurrumul has emerged as unique celebrity, who will ‘change the way you breathe’ (Brisbane Courier Mail, 2008) and change the way people listen to and experience his Yolngu cultural world through an accessible Western music style.

Extract from http://skinnyfishmusic.com.au/artist/gurrumul/

In Indigenous Australian culture, belonging and place are intrinsically linked to The Dreamtime, a way of understanding through stories and images the ways the physical, human and spiritual worlds came into being and how they co-exist as one.

Section 4

‘Galupa’ by Gurrumul

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Read the lyrics for ‘Galupa’ below: You can watch Garrumul performing the song here http://learn.stleonards.vic.edu.au/yr9eng/our-faces-our-places/exploring-belonging-in-poetry-and-song/

Listen to ‘Galupa’ here http://www.last.fm/music/Geoffrey+Gurrumul+Yunupingu/_/Galupa

How is Gurrumul’s description of country similar to MacKellar’s?

How is it different?

Your teacher will guide you to explore more Australian poetry at this link http://learn.stleonards.vic.edu.au/yr9eng/our-faces-our-places/australian-poets/

Write your own poem about belonging

Click on the link below to find out the detail about this task.

Your teacher will tell you the due date.

http://learn.stleonards.vic.edu.au/yr9eng/files/2015/09/Screen-Shot-2015-09-30-at-2.58.13-pm.png

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Chapter 3

STORIES OF MIGRATION

Migrant:  a person who chooses to leave their country to seek a better life. They choose where they migrate to and they can usually return whenever they like. They have time to prepare for their trip and their new life.

Refugee:  a person who is unable or unwilling to return to their country of origin because of a well-founded fear of persecution on racial, religious, ethnic or political grounds. The concerns of refugees are human rights and safety, not economic advantage. Refugees are forced to leave their country, often without warning and preparation, and cannot return unless the situation that forced them to leave improves.

Asylum Seeker:  a person who has applied for protection and is awaiting a determination on his/her status as a refugee. Whereas refugees are people who have already been determined as meeting the criteria for refugee status, asylum seekers are people whose status is in the process of being determined.

“When I arrived in America, though I had left the war physically far behind, in my mind, the soldiers were still chasing to kill

me, my stomach was always hungry, and my fear and distrust kept me from opening up to new friendships. I thought the war

was over when I left Cambodia, but I realize now that for survivors and all those involved, the war is never over just because

the guns have fallen silent.”

~ Loung Ung

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1. What is the message of this quote?

2. What might be some of the reasons people migrate to another country?

3. What challenges might immigrants face when they arrive in a new nation?

Section 1

Where do I belong now?

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Timeline of Australian Migration

Aboriginals: When the first Europeans arrived they did not find an empty land as expected. Instead, they found themselves outnumbered by more than 500,000 indigenous Aboriginal people whose ancestors had lived in Australia for at least 50,000 years.

1788 – 1868 Convict Transportation: Britain transported more than 160,000 convicts from its overcrowded prisons to the Australian colonies, an arduous journey that took roughly 8 months by sea. Prisoners were chained up for the entire 8 months, with as many as 50 convicts crammed into each cell.

1793 – 1850 Free Immigrants: During these years, nearly 200,000 free settlers chose to migrate to Australia to start a new life. The majority were English agricultural workers or domestic servants, as well as Irish and Scottish migrants. These settlers formed the basis of early Australian society.

1850 The Gold Rush: Thousands of Chinese people came to Australia during the 1850s gold rushes. By 1901, Chinese were

the third largest migrant group in Australia after the British and Germans. When the gold was exhausted many took up market gardening or established businesses such as restaurants or laundries.

1850 – 1900  Labourers: In the second half of the 19th-century South Sea Islanders were recruited to work on Queensland sugar plantations, Afghan cameleers played a vital role in the exploration and opening up of the Australian outback, and Japanese divers contributed to the development of the pearling industry.

1901 White Australia:  Did you know migrants had to pass a dictation test in any European language in order to enter Australia between 1901 and 1958?

Following Federation in 1901 Australia’s newly-formed Federal Parliament passed the Immigration Restriction Act, which placed certain restrictions on immigration and aimed to stop Chinese and South Sea Islanders from coming to Australia. These laws, known as the White Australia policy, were administered by a

Section 2

Australian Migration

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dictation test and informed Australian attitudes to immigration for the next 50 years.

1945 Populate or Perish:  In the years after World War 2,  Australia promoted immigration with the catchphrase ‘Populate or perish!’ to replenish the countless citizens lost at war. It negotiated agreements to accept more than two million migrants and displaced people from Europe, offered assisted £10 passages to Australia to one million British migrants, and finally, in the 1970s, repealed the restrictive White Australia policy framed in 1901.

1970s Boat People:  In the late 1970s a new wave of seaborne refugees docked in Darwin, firstly from East Timor and then from Indochina, most fleeing from war and violence in their home countries. The Vietnamese ‘boat people’ in particular arrived at a time of dramatic social upheaval in Australia, with heated public debate about our involvement in the Vietnam War and the new concept of multiculturalism. Despite some opposition from the wider community, the relaxation of immigration restrictions meant that most of the refugees were allowed to settle in Australia.

1990s – Present Asylum Seekers: Since the late 1990s increasing numbers of asylum seekers fleeing conflict in the Middle East and Sri Lanka have arrived in Australia by boat. Today the question of how to deal with asylum seekers arriving on unauthorised voyages remains one of the most controversial issues in contemporary Australia.

Who do you think you are?

Do you know anything about how you came to live in Australia?

What is your family’s story of migration?

Does your family have a convict history?

Did your family migrate to Australia recently?

Task: Have a conversation with a relative who knows something about your family history, then write the story of how you came to be living your life in Australia.

Text Comparison

Text 1 - Asylum seekers and refugees: what are the facts?

• Australia has a long history of accepting refugees for resettlement and over 800,000 refugees and displaced persons have settled in Australia since 1945.

• There is a difference between an asylum seeker and a refugee—asylum seekers are people seeking international protection but whose claims for refugee status have not yet been determined.

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• Although those who come to Australia by boat seeking Australia’s protection are classified by Australian law to be ‘unlawful non-citizens’, they have a right to seek asylum under international law and not be penalised for their mode of entry.

• Although the numbers fluctuate, usually only a small proportion of asylum applicants in Australia arrive by boat—most arrive by air with a valid visa and then go on to pursue asylum claims. While the number of boat arrivals has risen substantially in recent years, it is worth noting that even in high arrival years they still comprise just over half of onshore asylum seekers in Australia and a greater proportion of those arriving by boat are recognised as refugees. In 2014, arrival numbers fell again and there was only one boat arrival in Australia. As a result, the majority of asylum applicants arrived by air.

• There is no orderly queue for asylum seekers to join. Only a very small proportion of asylum seekers are registered with the UNHCR and only about one per cent of those recognised by the UNHCR as refugees who meet the resettlement criteria are subsequently resettled to another country.

• All unauthorised boat arrivals in Australia are subject to the same assessment criteria as other asylum applicants and are also subject to comprehensive security and health checks.

• Claims that refugees in Australia are entitled to higher benefits than other social security recipients are unfounded.

• The Australian Government usually allocates around 13,750 places to refugees and others with humanitarian needs under its planned Humanitarian Program. Historically, the majority of these places are granted to offshore refugees referred to Australia by the UNHCR, but some are given to refugees who arrived by air or boat and were granted protection visas onshore. However, even during high boat arrival periods, onshore grants to boat and air arrivals combined still only comprise about 50 per cent of Australia’s Humanitarian Program.

• The number of people arriving unauthorised by boat in Australia is small in comparison to the numbers arriving in other parts of the world such as Europe. Similarly, the number of asylum claims lodged in Australia is small in comparison to the USA and Europe.

• While about 20 developed nations, including Australia, participate formally in the UNHCR’s refugee resettlement program, the vast majority of asylum seekers and refugees are actually hosted in developing countries.

From the Parliament of Australia website

http://parlinfo.aph.gov.au/parlInfo/download/library/prspub/HGNW6/upload_binary/HGNW6.pdf;fileType=application/pdf#search=%22asylum%20seekers%20and%20refugees%22

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Text 2 - Australian Government advertisement

This is the latest advertisement commissioned by the Australian Government to deter asylum seekers from trying to enter Australia

by boat without a visa.

Comparing texts

1. Create a venn diagram. You can find a web-based template here http://www.readwritethink.org/files/resources/interactives/venn_diagrams/ or create your own in Pages or another app.

2. Type the title of your diagram as Asylum Seekers, then label the first circle as Text 1 and the second circle as Text 2.

3. Read both texts closely and think carefully about what is similar between them. This could be the topic, structure, writing style, images, ideas, language use, punctuation or anything else. Be a detective and find the specific detail.

4. Fill in your venn diagram with the things you notice that are common to both texts in the centre of your venn diagram.

5. Look at each text closely again, noticing those aspects which are unique to each and therefore different from each other. This could be the topic, structure, writing style, images, ideas, language use, punctuation or anything else. Record what you notice in the outer section of each venn circle.

6. When you are satisfied that you have covered both texts thoroughly, find a partner and share your venn diagram with them, then listen to what they have noticed and how they have arranged their ideas. Be sure to ask questions of each other to clarify your understanding, such as why did you place that there?

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7. As a result of your discussion, refine your venn diagram and show your teacher.

8. After all of this reading, thinking and organising, you are now ready to write.

9. Write three paragraphs, with one paragraph detailing each of the sections in your venn diagram. Answer the following questions to help you write your paragraphs:

Paragraph 1

- What is the topic common to both texts?

- In what ways are the texts similar in the ways they present the topic?

- Why do you think each text presents the topic in these similar ways?

Paragraph 2

- In what ways is text 1 different to text 2?

- For text 1, who might be the main audience it is being directed at?

- Why do you think text 1 has been written to present the information to that main audience in the ways it does?

Paragraph 3

- In what ways is text 2 different to text 1?

- For text 2, who might be the main audience it is being directed at?

- Why do you think text 2 has been written and illustrated to present the information to that main audience in the ways it does?

10. Proof read, edit and improve your first draft, then submit to your teacher with your venn diagram.

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After Anh Do and his family arrived as refugees in Sydney, he had one aim in life. Having survived two pirate attacks on their boat from Vietnam, then several months in a Malaysian refugee camp, he was determined to help lift his family from poverty.

''From an early age, all I wanted to do was earn money to buy my mum a house,'' recalls Do, now 33 and a well-known comedian.

His father had left the family when Do was 13 and his mother earned just $6.80 an hour in a clothing sweatshop.

At 14, he started a small business breeding tropical fish, after learning that $15 spent on adult fish could spawn 500 babies.

Despite more than a decade as a successful comedian, and writing a best-selling autobiography, Do confesses that he is ''the least funny guy in my family''. It was a coping mechanism for all of them to deal with the horrors of the boat trip with humour.

They left in 1980, after two of his uncles - who fought for the losing South Vietnamese/US side - escaped from a communist concentration camp. Forty people crammed on to a nine-metre fishing boat, which lost most of its food and water after a storm on the second day.

Section 3

ANH DO

Anh Do - The Happiest Refugee

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Pirates took what was left, including the engine, but one young pirate threw the group a gallon of water as his boat sailed away. It kept all but one of them alive for five days, until they were rescued by a German merchant ship.

Although Do was only a toddler at the time, he grew up hearing stories of the escape and says it has strongly influenced his approach to life. ''Rich wins over poor but family is more important than anything else.''

THE BIG QUESTIONS

Biggest break: The hardest [stand-up comedy] gig I ever did. There were 50 bikies in a pub waiting for a stripper - I was the warm-up guy. They were yelling ''Lady boy'' and ''Take off your gear''. I managed to survive that gig [in 1999] and every one since then has been a piece of cake.

Biggest achievement: Buying my mum a house. After moving 17 times, I really just wanted her to know we've made it - this is our place and no landlord is going to kick us out.

Biggest regret: I liked a girl in first year at university and I didn't tell her for five years. We were just friends. Finally I told her and she said ''Me too'' and we got engaged three weeks later. That was five years of watching her date other blokes.

Attitude to money: It's great to have but it's not everything.

Personal philosophy: My father's favourite Vietnamese saying: There's only two times in life - now and too late.

Extract taken from the article Profile: Anh Do, Sydney Morning Herald, http://www.smh.com.au/money/investing/profile-anh-do-20110131-1abk3.html#ixzz3nNjn8tYK

PICTURES OF YOU

Anh Do appeared on this television program in which guests choose a series of photographs to tell a story about themselves.

1. Take out your headphones and watch Anh’s story based on his biography The Happiest Refugee at this link https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HNI6aRwXFwY

2. If a picture tells a thousand words, what would 5-10 photographs say about you? create your own segment on ‘Pictures of You’ by choosing 5-10 pictures or photographs which tell a story about you.

3. Create your story in Keynote, Explain Everything or another app, in which you narrate over your images to tell your story. Your story should be between 2-3 minutes in length.

4. Submit to your teacher by the due date.

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Nam Le was born in Vietnam and raised in Australia. For his first book, The Boat, he received the Anisfield-Wolf Book Award, the PEN/Malamud Award, the Dylan Thomas Prize, the Australian Prime Minister's Literary Award, the Melbourne Prize for Literature (Best Writing Award), the NSW Premier's Literary Award for Book of the Year, the Sydney Morning Herald Best Young Novelist Award, the Pushcart Prize, the Michener-Copernicus Society of America Award, a U.S. National Book Foundation "5 Under 35" Fiction Selection, as well as other awards, fellowships and shortlistings. The Boat was selected as a New York Times Notable Book and Editor's Choice, the #1 fiction book of 2008 by The Oregonian, the best debut of 2008 by New York Magazine and the Australian Book Review, and a book of the year by numerous venues around the world including The Guardian, The Independent, The Los Angeles Times, The Chicago Tribune, The Christian Science Monitor, The National Post, The Australian, The Sydney Morning Herald, The Age, Amazon and Publishers Weekly. The Boat has been translated into fourteen languages and its stories widely anthologised. Le is the fiction editor of the Harvard Review. He divides his time between Australia and abroad.

From Nam Le’s website http://www.namleonline.com/bio.html

Section 4

NAM LE

The Boat by Nam Le

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The following pages are excerpts from Nam Le’s short story ‘The Boat’ from his short story collection

of the same title.

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New extract below

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New extract below

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An interactive graphic interpretation of the story

This version of 'The Boat' is an interactive graphic novel about the escape of many refugees after the Vietnam War. It is based on the story by Nam Le and adapted by Matt Huynh.

Take out your head phones and interact with this version of Le’s highly regarded story at the link http://www.sbs.com.au/theboat/