VCE English as an Additional Language (EAL) (Year 11) · Unit 1 — Reading and Exploring Texts · 12m read

Reading and Exploring Texts — Personal Connections, Ideas and Perspectives

Units 1 and 2 begin by reading and exploring texts — connecting them to your own life and experiences. As an EAL student, your cultural knowledge and experiences are a real strength in this work.

Learning objective: Read a text actively, make personal connections, and identify its main ideas, characters and perspectives.

By the end of this lesson you can:

• I can use reading strategies (predicting, questioning, summarising) to understand a text.
• I can explain a personal connection to a text and the ideas it raises.
• I can describe how a character’s perspective is shaped by their culture and experiences.

A text is a mirror and a window. Sometimes you see yourself in it (a mirror); sometimes you see a life very different from yours (a window). Both help you understand the text better.

Active reading strategies

• PREDICT — use the title, cover and first page to guess what will happen.
• QUESTION — write questions as you read: Why did she do that? What does this symbol mean?
• SUMMARISE — after each chapter, write 2–3 sentences about what happened and what changed.
• VOCABULARY — note new words with a simple definition and the sentence they appeared in.
• CONNECT — text-to-self (my life), text-to-text (other books/films), text-to-world (real events).

Ideas and perspectives

IDEAS (themes) are what the text says about life: belonging, identity, family, justice, change.

PERSPECTIVE is how a character or writer sees the world, shaped by their age, culture, gender, experiences and values. Two characters can see the same event very differently.

Your own perspective also shapes your reading. You might notice things other readers miss — for example, the experience of moving between languages or countries.

Useful sentence starters:
• "This connects to my own experience because…"
• "The character sees … differently because…"
• "The text suggests that…"

Worked example (Easy)

In a story, a teenager is embarrassed when her mother speaks their home language in public. Write a personal connection and an idea statement.

1. Personal connection. Link to your own experience or someone you know.
2. Idea statement. Say what the text suggests about identity or belonging.

Answer: Connection: "Like the character, I have sometimes felt caught between my family’s language and English at school." Idea: "The story suggests that young migrants can feel pressure to hide parts of their identity in order to belong."

Common mistakes

• Only summarising the story Exploring texts means discussing ideas, not just events. Fix: After each summary, add "This suggests that…".
• Making connections that are too general ("I also have a family") Strong connections are specific. Fix: Name a specific feeling, moment or experience that matches the text.

Practice questions

1. Which is a text-to-world connection?

   1. The character reminds me of my brother
   2. This book is like a film I saw
   3. This story reflects real debates about refugees in Australia
   4. I liked the ending

   (1 marks)

2. Explain how a character’s culture or experiences shape their perspective in a text you are reading.

   (2 marks)

Summary

• Predict, question, summarise, note vocabulary and connect while reading.
• Ideas are what the text says about life; perspectives are how characters see it.
• Your own experiences are a strength in exploring texts.
• Keep a reading journal for revision.