Ellen van Neerven's "Flock" teachers' review for NSW HSC 2027-2030

Brief description and distinctive features

Teaching these short stories cannot commence until Term 4 2026 and will be first examined in 2027.

Flock: First Nations Stories Then and Now is set for study in 2027-2030 in Year 12 for English Studies in Narrative and human experiences and EAL/D in Texts and human experiences.

Note: Two stories which differ from Studies for EAL/D do not feature in this blog: Each City by Ellen van Neerven and River Story by Mykaela Saunders. 

Why choose Flock: First Nations Stories Then and Now for Narrative and human experiences?

• Six short stories ranging from 3 to 15 pages 
• All writers are First Nations so this makes the text an authentic selection for the syllabus requirements
• The selected stories are written by well-known First Nations writers: Tara June Winch, Archie Weller, Adam Thompson, Melanie Saward, Melissa Lucashenko and Jeanine Leane. 
• Other writers in the collection may be known to students: Samuel Wagan Watson, Gayle Kennedy, Jane Harrison, Tony Birch and Jared Thomas 
• Stories are accessible, engaging and pacy 
• The stories represent a range of authentic human experiences and emotions
• Some stories are quite confronting in content e.g. ‘Shadows on the Wall’ and ‘Galah’
• Some stories explore the often fragile and uncertain world of First Nations lived experiences 
• The range of stories gives students opportunities for considering construction and representation
• The stories enable authentic exploration of the key content points of Narratives and human experiences and are particularly valuable for considering specific aspects of the focus area content:
  • Students develop their knowledge and understanding of human experiences through encounters with narratives … (and) develop their understanding of what narrative is, how it is constructed, how it is represented and how it is part of our world.
  • Students also consider the impact of perspective in narratives to explore and represent individual and collective human experiences. 
  • Students develop an understanding of the connections between texts and the ways narratives represent motivations, experiences, and consequences.
  • They explore how context can generate tensions, influence choices and shape perspectives. 
  • They also consider how storytelling represents perceptions of themselves, their experiences and their world.
  • Through their critical and creative responses to texts, students consider the ways that narratives use language to communicate rich and diverse human experiences.
• These content points from English EAL/D are represented in Flock:
  • Students interpret and respond to texts that examine what it means to be human. 
  • They experiment with different approaches to textual appreciation and analysis
  • Students examine how texts provide insight into emotional, intellectual, physical, cultural and lived experiences and draw from personal experience to make connections between themselves, the world of the text and their wider world.
  • They consider the role of storytelling throughout time in communicating and reflecting the human experience. 
  • They explore how texts represent the tension between agency and conformity in our human experience, while examining the paradoxes of motivation and behaviour. 
  • Students analyse texts, comparing and contrasting the ways composers, narrators and personas represent insights into the human experience and explore their own assumptions about the possibilities of human experience.

Ellen van Neerven is the editor of this collection. Ellen van Neerven is of Mununjali Yugambeh and Dutch heritage. Ellen’s first book, Heat and Light, was the recipient of the David Unaipon Award, the Dobbie Literary Award and the NSW Premier’s Literary Awards Indigenous Writers’ Prize. Van Neerven is also the author of two poetry collections: Comfort Food, which was shortlisted for the NSW Premier’s Literary Awards Kenneth Slessor Prize; and Throat, which won the Kenneth Slessor Prize, the Multicultural NSW Award and Book of the Year in the NSW Premier’s Literary Awards. Van Neerven’s memoir, Personal Score: Sport, Culture, Identity, won the Victorian Premier’s Literary Award for Non-fiction in 2024.

Flock will enable authentic and meaningful connections to the Stage 6 Syllabus’s specific considerations for studying texts authored by Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait Islander Peoples:

• The artistic and Cultural value of these texts, including ideas, arguments and representations of identity, histories and Cultures
• How Country/Place, Community and lived experiences shape the perspectives of Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait Islander Storytellers and audiences
• How Storytelling, Aboriginal Languages and Aboriginal English are expressions of Culture, identity and Customary practices
• How the modes of these texts may recognise and contribute to Cultural conventions or practices of oral Storytelling
• How Cultural symbolism, imagery, allusion and irony are used to shape meaning
• How personal values and perspectives are broadened and reconsidered through engagement with these texts

From the Stage 6 English Syllabus (2024)

Flock: First Nations Stories Then and Now contains twenty stories and apart from the six prescribed by NESA, students may have encountered other writers including Jane Harrison, Gale Kennedy, Jared Thomas, Samuel Wagan Watson and Tony Birch. All stories in the collection have been previously published over a timeframe from 1996 until 2021. The collection’s title, Flock, and the engaging cover reference the idea of individual voices becoming one in a flock. 

In her introduction van Neerven says: 

We all have our own pair of beautiful wings, but we fly together in formation. Together we are stronger. We flock together.

The cover features the work of artist Kukula McDonald who is part of the prolific and prestigious Papunya Artists.  The sulphur-crested cockatoos are significant to First Nations identities and connection to Country. Access this site which provides some useful information on the significance of the sulphur-crested cockatoo and some of Kukula’s engaging artwork: https://www.aboriginalartuk.com/post/kukula-mcdonald-and-the-spirit-of-the-black-cockatoo

Ways to use Flock in the classroom

Teaching this novel cannot commence until Term 4 2026 and will be first examined in 2027.

Who are the writers?

Group task: Divide the class into six small groups and allocate one writer to each group.

Each group is to research their writer and create a 300-500 word document in dot points of interesting information other than what is provided below. For example, Jeanine Leanne was a high school teacher before moving to academia. Each group is to find an image which they think best captures the writer.

Each group is to share their insights before exploring each story. 

The English Studies Focus area, Narrative and human experiences privileges the concept of ‘narrative.’ 

The ETA concepts include these points in understanding and teaching narrative:

Understand narrative conventions, such as setting, plot and sub-plot, and how they are used to represent events and personally engage the reader, viewer or listener with ideas and values in texts, and apply this understanding in own texts.

What is narrative, how it is constructed, how it is represented and how it is part of our world?

The word ‘narrative’ has been part of our language for millennia having originated in the Latin ‘narrare’ meaning to ‘tell’ or ‘relate’. But humanity has been telling stories or constructing narratives well before spoken and written language was invented. Indeed, it is part of humanity to tell stories to describe and make sense of the world around us.  The earliest way this had been achieved is cave and wall paintings by First Nations peoples around the world. As time evolved, wandering minstrels and poets would share stories to avid listeners in towns and villages. Then stories became part of the printed world. Printed copies of poems, short stories, novels and plays are a relatively new phenomena aided by the growth of the industrial revolution and inventions like the printing press. With more people being educated and learning to read saw a purpose and audience for printed stories. The growth of railways in Britain saw the first book shops and today airports are one of the most popular sources of people buying books for a long flight. 

Storytelling is an important element of First Nations histories and cultures, so this collection is an authentic text to be exploring this focus area. 

The short story is a genre within the storytelling oeuvre and is a popular form found in magazines, online sites, printed collections. 

The short story as a form

The short story is an excellent vehicle for story-telling and engaging adolescents. It differs as a form from extended prose and has distinctive features:

• It is short: it should be able to be read in one sitting- usually about 15-20 minutes
• Description is tight and focused, and the action tends to move quickly
• It usually has 1-3 characters
• It tends to have a single focus 
• It has a unity of time and place: the setting tends to be singular and the time-span compressed
• The introduction should efficiently and quickly orient the reader to the key features of the narrative
• It usually has one central conflict 
• The story ends at the high point of action and leaves the story there
• It often ends with a punch or twist

Flock and Narrative and human experiences

The six stories set for English Studies below give students a range of human experiences to explore and the range of narrative voices enable different perspectives on these experiences and a way to see the world differently. The stories also explore experiences which create tension and a range of consequences created by different behaviours of the characters within the stories. EAL/D students also study ‘Honey,’ ‘Galah’, ‘Dreamers’, ‘Forbidden Fruit’ as well as ‘Each City’ by Ellen van Neerven and ‘River Story’ by Mykaela Saunders.

Moving from content and language choices to specific elements of the focus area

For each story answer these questions:

1. What have you come to understand about human experiences by encountering this story?
2. In what ways has the construction of the story shaped your knowledge and understanding of the human experiences within the story?
3. In what ways has the narrative voice shaped the perspective which enables the writer to represent individual and collective human experiences?
4. How effective is the use of the story’s context in generating tension, influence choices and shape perspectives? 
5. What are the key language choices which each writer uses to communicate human experiences? 

HSC style-like questions

Teaching these short stories cannot commence until Term 4 2026 and will be first examined in 2027.

The more opportunities students are given to write about the set stories in Flock, the more confident they will be for the challenges of their Trial and HSC. Consider workshopping some of these questions, writing introductions, essay plans and choosing quotes to best suit the question.

There is a sample English Studies examination on the HSC site:

https://curriculum.nsw.edu.au/learning-areas/english/english-studies-11-12-2024/assessment/hsc-examinations

• How do the stories in Flock create narratives that reveal human experiences? In your response make close reference to at least two stories.
• How does Melissa Lucashenko represent the human experiences through the construction of her short story, Dreamers? In your response make close reference to Dreamers and at least one other story from Flock.
• How effectively do the stories in Flock tell stories to reveal significant human experiences? In your response make close reference to at least two stories.

There is a sample English EAL/D examination on the HSC site:

https://curriculum.nsw.edu.au/learning-areas/english/english-eald-11-12-2024/assessment/hsc-examinations#english-eald-hsc-examination-specifications-english_eald_11_12_2024

Sample NESA EAL/D question:

• ‘Above all else, people need freedom.’ How does this statement reflect the concerns explored in van Neerven’s Flock: First Nations Stories Then and Now? In your response, make detailed reference to your prescribed text.

Flock and the English Studies HSC examination

Please note the changes which have occurred for the 2027-2030 English Studies examination compared to the 2026 examination: 

The examination will consist of one written paper worth 60 marks.

• Time allowed: 2 hours plus 10 minutes reading time.
• The paper will consist of 3 sections.
• Questions may be based on stimulus and/or unseen texts.

Section I: Narrative and human experiences (15 marks)

• There will be 4 or 5 short answer items.
• Items will be based on stimulus and/or unseen texts related to Narrative and human experiences.

Section II: Narrative and human experiences (15 marks)

• There will be one item.
• Students will be required to write an extended response based on their prescribed text.

Section III: Writing for purpose (30 marks)

• There will be 2 or 3 items.
• One item will be worth at least 15 marks.
• Each item will require an informative, analytical, imaginative or persuasive response.
• Items may require students to draw on their understanding of the prescribed texts.
   

Flock and the English EAL/D HSC examination

Paper 1: Texts and human experiences

• Time allowed: 1 hour and 30 minutes plus 10 minutes reading time.
• The paper will consist of 2 sections.

Section I (20 marks)

• This section will contain 4 to 6 short-answer questions.
• Questions may contain parts.
• Questions will be based on stimulus and/or unseen texts related to Texts and human experiences.

Section II (20 marks)

• There will be one question.
• The question will require an extended response based on the student’s prescribed text.
• The question may include stimulus and/or unseen texts.

Relevant details in relation to the new NSW English Stage 6 HSC syllabus

Teaching these short stories cannot commence until Term 4 2026 and will be first examined in 2027.

Outcomes from English Studies syllabus which can be explored in this focus area with Flock:

ESD-12-01

• uses strategies to explain and interpret information, ideas and perspectives in a variety of texts

ESD-12-02

• analyses how authors shape meaning and influence audiences through context, textual form and features in a range of modes and mediums

ESD-12-04

• Composes critical and creative texts that structure ideas, information and arguments for particular purposes

ESD-12-05

• Communicates perspectives and arguments using accurate terminology, grammar and textual evidence.

Outcomes from English EAL/D syllabus which can be explored in this focus area with Flock:

EEA-12-01 

• Evaluates the ways an author’s choice of textual forms and features shapes meaning in texts from different modes and mediums 

EEA-12-02 

• Analyses the ways context, cultural references and perspectives influence composition and audience response

EEA-12-04 

• Communicates ideas, perspectives and arguments in a range of modes for a variety of purposes, audiences and contexts

EEA-12-05 

• Composes critical and creative texts that use textual form and language features to shape meaning for a range of purposes and audiences