Freedom Fights and Transformative Language: a digital unit of work – NSW English Syllabus (from 2024)

The premise of this unit is framed around the notion of personal freedom and agency and how art, language and literature can reveal patterns of continuity and disruption. This unit looks at how language and systems of power are used to disempower, minimalise and dehumanise marginalised people in Australia and around the world. In doing so, it seeks to transform these power structures by giving agency to individual and communities to use language that frees, empowers, includes and respects others. It seeks to assist students to be discerning about the ways perspectives are framed and to actively challenge these perspectives through transformative language and ideas. Texts to be explored include prison writing, such as Berooz Boochani’s No Friend but the Mountain and Freedom, Only Freedom, Nelson Mandala’s Long Walk to Freedom, Nawal El Saadawi’s Memoirs from the Women’s Prison, Martin Luther King’s Letters from Birmingham Jail and Malcolm X’s Autobiography of Malcolm X. Other texts include essays and writings from advocates for refugees and other displaced peoples, such as Omid Tofighian, and other texts on human rights from the Australian Human Rights Commission. First Nations writing will also be explored, such as Kevin Gilbert’s play, The Cherry Pickers, Jack Davis’ No Sugar, Jane Harrison’s Stolen, and Tara June Winch’s The Yield, amongst others. Students will create texts of their own choosing that use transformative language to offer a different perspective on ways of knowing, being and living in the world.