Jared Thomas' "My Spare Heart" teachers' review

Brief description and distinctive features

Brief description of My Spare Heart

My Spare Heart is a pacy and engaging story written from the point of view of Phoebe who is seventeen. Her parents have divorced and now Phoebe has moved to live with her father, an academic and his new partner, Caitlin. Phoebe is resentful of the move from her life in the city not only because of a new school (a Steiner school) but she is protective of her mother who has become increasingly dependent on alcohol. Removed from the day to day life with her mother, Phoebe is now becoming more aware of the extent and gravity of her mother’s addiction.  But Phoebe struggles with her new school, a competitive basketball team and her relationship with her father’s new partner. While Phoebe’s dad is Aboriginal, her mother is not and Phoebe’s growing understanding of her own culture and identity will become part of her strength and recovery. Alcohol features in other families too, all white so that the challenges of alcoholism is more broadly examined and Jared Thomas increases our awareness that families are vulnerable in these stressed environments. 

Thomas says one of the inspirations for writing My Spare Heart was to show that the problem of alcoholism is a broad one. 

Dr Jared Thomas is a Nukunu person of the Southern Flinders Ranges. He has written a number of YA books including Songs that Sound Like Blood.  His novel, Sweet Guy, was short-listed for both the Victorian Premier's Literary Awards and the Adelaide Festival Awards for Literature. Jared Thomas was awarded the Kuril Dhagun Indigenous Writing Fellowship for his novel, Calypso Summer. He attributes his success at representing the adolescent voice to his three daughters, who have provided him with advice and valuable proof-reading. 

Pre reading

Read Cara Shipp’s Listening from the Heart: Rewriting the Teaching of English with First Nations Voices (2023 AATE 150pp) to explore better ways to engage with First Nations People and their stories, their histories and cultures and to understand the protocols and appropriate terminology to use when reading and studying texts by First Nation authors. This warm, wise and generous book will be a huge help in the classroom. 

Distinctive features of My Spare Heart

• Written by First Nations author
• First person narrative through the perspective of the main character Phoebe adds to the authenticity of the character’s voice
• Realistic young adult experiences which highlight the importance of facing adversity and building resilience  
• Insights to different school systems and the importance of schools as communities for support
• The incorporation of text messages  reinforces youth culture and gives other perspectives on the narrative
• Weaves in songs from the past and present which add an extra layer of interest
• First Nations detail is powerful and enriching to both the story and the contribution to strengthening understanding about connection to Country and identity
• Detailed and extremely valuable teachers notes written by First Nations writer and teacher Cara Shipp are available to download from the Allen and Unwin website here.
• NITV Radio has an interesting interview with Jared Thomas where he provides a summary of the story and a discussion of some of the topics explored in the book. You can listen to it on the SBS website here.

Ways to use My Spare Heart in the classroom

• This novel could be an effective close study unit and then the unit could be expanded to reading more widely as students explore a range of other texts which give different perspectives on growing up, youth culture and adolescence (see the connecting texts suggested at the end of this blog).  
• The novel’s title is a clever summary of the emotions and challenges that face Phoebe: she wishes she had a “spare heart” as her current one is broken. Find this reference and discuss how this honest insight affects your understanding of Phoebe and what she is enduring.
• The opening chapter is important in establishing the context for Phoebe’s anxieties and fears. List the five most significant challenges facing Phoebe in this establishing chapter.
• The first-person narrative enables deep insights to Phoebe but sometimes we are less aware of what others may be thinking. The inclusion of text messages not only provides these additional insights but adds a contemporary adolescent mood. Choose one of these sections – p. 44-49 p. 79-81, p. 289-291 and in about 200 words discuss the contribution these text messages make to the narrative.
• By p. 206 Phoebe has revealed her distress at her mother losing her driver’s licence and the lack of trust Phoebe now feels. Phoebe acknowledges that she has realised the precariousness of her mothers’ situation: “The me from that time didn’t know how unreliable Mum actually was.” Phoebe decides against texting her friend Katie as she did not want Katie to “know what was going on. It was embarrassing and sad.” Imagine Phoebe did text Kate: compose a dialogue of texts between Phoebe and Kate. 
• What role does basketball have in the representation of the novel’s key ideas? Choose five examples from the novel to illustrate these ideas. 
• The difficulties facing Phoebe’s mother are not resolved at the end. In the closing lines of the novel Phoebe says:
  “I thought what I’d learnt most is that there’s days that I can give mum my full heart, and there’s others when I can only give her my spare heart. The main thing is, we still have days, and there’ll be many more.” 
  
  In what ways does this paragraph draw together the key concerns of the novel?

Tasks: 

• Jared Thomas incorporates a range of songs to add interest to the narrative including:
  • The Beatles Black Bird p. 77
  • A Tribe Called Quest p. 103
  • References to Kanye, The Doors and Hendrix p. 113
  • Baker Boy p. 114
  • Cyndi Lauper Time After Time p. 115
  • Deep Purples’ Hush and Black Night p. 123
  • Led Zeppelin’s Whole Lotta Love and Heartbreaker p.178-179
  Create a playlist of these songs and choose your favourite to explore the lyrics. Does your chosen song contribute to the novel’s themes and ideas or is it being used to establish authenticity of youth culture? 
• A good book or film increases our understanding of human emotions, making us more empathetic and connected to others. Explore this idea with close reference to My Spare Heart. In what ways does Jared Thomas draw us into the world of Phoebe and develop our understanding of the challenges she faces and how she meets some of those challenges.
• Choose two texts from the Connecting Texts below to read. Consider another novel and one in a different form e.g. verse novel, graphic novel. Including My Spare Heart reflect on which text most engaged you in the worlds of adolescence. Write a 300 persuasive letter to your school’s English faculty advocating your choice be included as a close study at your school.

Relevant details in relation to the new NSW English 7-10 syllabus

Text requirements: My Spare Heart is extended prose, a novel by an Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait author. It has cultural, social and gender perspectives, including from popular and youth cultures.

Concepts could include Narrative, Point of View, Characterisation.

Relevant NSW English 7-10 Syllabus content

Reading, viewing and listening to texts

A student: uses a range of personal, creative and critical strategies to interpret complex texts EN5-RVL-01

• Develop a deeper understanding of themes, ideas or attitudes by revisiting and reinterpreting texts to find new meaning
• Analyse the main ideas and thematic concerns represented in texts
• Investigate how layers of meaning are constructed in texts and how this shapes a reader’s understanding and engagement
• Analyse how the use of language forms and features in texts have the capacity to create multiple meanings
• Read increasingly complex texts that challenge thinking, pique interest, enhance enjoyment and provoke a personal response
• Engage in sustained and varied reading that presents increasingly diverse and complex perspectives and experiences, including those of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples, and respond in a range of ways, including through extended written responses
• Consider how the social, cultural and ethical positions represented in texts represent, affirm or challenge views of the world
• Evaluate experiences of reading by sharing responses to texts
• Evaluate the ways reading texts help us understand ourselves and make connections to others and the world
• Understand and reflect on the value of reading for personal growth and cultural richness
• Reflect on how reading promotes a broad and balanced understanding of the world and enables students to explore wider universal issues

Understanding and responding to texts A

A student: analyses how meaning is created through the use and interpretation of increasingly complex language forms, features and structures EN5-URA-01

Representation

• Analyse how contextual, creative and unconscious influences shape the composition, understanding and interpretation of all representations

Code and convention

• Use metalanguage effectively to analyse how meaning is constructed by linguistic and stylistic elements in texts
• Analyse how language forms, features and structures, specific or conventional to a text’s medium, context, purpose and audience, shape meaning, and experiment with this understanding through written, spoken, visual and multimodal responses

Connotation, imagery and symbol

• Analyse how figurative language and devices can be used to represent complex ideas, thoughts and feelings to contribute to larger patterns of meaning in texts, and experiment with this in own texts
• Analyse how Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander authors use figurative language and devices to represent culture, identity and experience

Point of view

• Examine elements of focalisation, such as omniscience, limitations, indirect speech, tone, reliability and multiple narrators, and how these interact to shape perceptions of meaning in texts, and apply this in own texts

Characterisation

• Analyse how engaging, dynamic and complex characters are constructed in texts using language features and structures, and use these features and structures in own texts

Narrative

• Analyse how narrative conventions vary across genres, modes, media and contexts and how they can be used to represent ideas and values and shape responses, and apply this understanding in own texts
• Explore how narratives can represent and shape personal and shared identities, values and experiences

Understanding and responding to texts B

A student: evaluates how texts represent ideas and experiences, and how they can affirm or challenge values and attitudes EN5-URB-01

Perspective and context

• Understand how the personal perspectives of audiences are a product of historical and cultural contexts
• Analyse how texts can be understood or interpreted from different perspectives, and experiment with this idea in own texts
• Evaluate how texts can position audiences to accept, challenge or reject particular perspectives of the world, and reflect on this in own texts
• Analyse how elements of an author’s personal, cultural and political contexts can shape their perspectives and representation of ideas, including form and purpose
• Explain how texts affirm or challenge established cultural attitudes and values in different contexts

Style

• Analyse how the distinctive aesthetic qualities and stylistic features of a text can shape and be shaped by its purpose, and experiment with this in own texts
• Examine the way an author’s distinct personal style shapes meaning in their work

(English K-10 Syllabus 2022 © NSW Education Standards Authority for and on behalf of the Crown in right of the State of New South Wales, 2023)

Connecting texts