Student work Year 9 Composer Study
Here is some wonderful work recently done by some of our Year 9 English students.
Review of Swallow the Air by Tara June Winch
Gina Hong
Winch’s novel, Swallow the Air is a powerful read, unravelling the perspective behind current issues like racism and discrimination. The series of short stories follows the life of a young Indigenous girl called May Gibson. Winch leads us through May’s adventures, piecing together her past and her struggles as she journeys to find identity. The first chapter of the novel begins with “I remember the day I found out my mother was head sick.”. The use of a dramatic first line captures the reader’s attention as the rest of the story intrigues the reader even further. Winch’s use of first-person and sensory imagery further accentuates the personal connection Winch creates in her stories that pull the reader in, guiding them through the story and immersing them into May’s world.
As May attempts to find belonging, we experience her triumphs and falls. We get to sympathise with her as she faces rejection time and time again, getting back up each time to search for a place of belonging. Throughout May’s quest to reconnect with her father, signs reveal that he isn’t who she thought he was, but it isn’t until Territory that his violent and savage persona is revealed. “There he was, watching the men bleed faces. There he was, Dad. The day I truly faced him, at his side, not the stranger I’d wished for, or made myself imagine”. The reader can almost hear the desperate plea in May’s voice as her thoughts and reality conflict. The last line of the paragraph, “He was the monster I’d tried to hide.” is a flawless summary of the ugly truth that May has been suppressing, as she finally realises her mistake.
Winch’s use of violence and profanity effectively emphasises her message, enlightening the reader while maintaining a tender tone. By uncovering darker themes masked by her wistful tone, we find the hidden meaning behind the stories, unwinding the truth behind generations of injustice and prejudice as we see the result of poverty, violence and abuse play out in front of our eyes. May’s life echoes the sorrows of the stolen generation in an eye-opening way and begs the reader to see the hidden impact of racism and discrimination on modern life.
What’s most remarkable is how Winch makes such an intense read relatable to our everyday experiences, connecting her personal experiences with ours, making the reader question whether their experiences differ that much from May’s. Through the book, we are educated on the issues surrounding Indigenous discrimination and how we are only taught the events of the past and not how they pave the way for the future. By creating the comparison between the reader and May, it allows us to question our privilege and fight for justice.
Rest of my life
Frank Tran
My dad always reiterated the ‘fact’ that nothing is impossible, that if you put your mind to it you can achieve anything. And I believed him in my youth, young-me always tried every sport, activity, hobby under the sky. His words were like a bible quote verse, a mantra I repeated, the coal to my daily fire. Through my newly found philosophy, I found the beautiful game of basketball. I would huddle up in front of the tv with my blanket and my pillow and watch for hours on end the ball swish through the net. There was something so fascinating, so mesmerising about the how each player drew a unique masterpiece each week. The way the players guided the rock into the net and glided through the sky. The looks of pure happiness on their faces after winning. I wanted to experience that more than anything.
So, I applied for my first basketball team at the age of 7, with my dad’s words in the front of my head. It had been more difficult than usual to convince my parents to apply. When I popped the question to them, they instantly pointed elsewhere, “I think math or robotics club would fit you the best”. When I asked why, they left it at that, and so began my addiction.
Despite the pressure from my parents to attend a high school out in the west hills, I decided to accept an offer from a sports school out east, around a 40-minute commute from home. I couldn’t be more excited. Games were every Friday, and my whole world was set around that date. Workout twice a week, practice thrice and rest the day before. I was the star on the team, the main guy, the one everyone would be watching. I remember the day of my first
game vividly, even the feeling of the restless night before; the tingling and shivers going up and down my chest. I remember running onto the court and hearing the muffled buzz of the crowd, and the stadium shaking. I remember the feeling my heart banging on my chest, of my lungs clawing for air, the hotness of my body, the numbing of my senses, the swish of the net. I remember saying to myself “I want to do this for the rest of my life”.
But I was never good enough. “Not tall enough, not athletic enough, not strong enough” the scouts would say. I didn’t even get a chance. Not one. It was all a lie. Nothing is impossible; what a load of bullshit. Who am I if not out there on the court? Maybe I should have clung to school like most of my peers, but if I did that, I would’ve never fell in love. But maybe it would have been better if I hadn’t fallen in love with this cruel game.
Reflection
The premise of my story is to highlight sometimes all the effort and motivation in the world is not enough to achieve what you want. The significant idea illustrated by Tara Winch I used in my story is the idea of the how the passage of time can change a person significantly. In her short story ‘It’s too difficult to explain” the main concept is that over time the main character felt like he didn’t belong in his place as a fast sprinter. Although I didn’t know it at the time of writing this piece, in hindsight this story drew heavy inspiration from that story, with both stories featuring an athlete that has fallen off and has become lost.
My first sentence is an attempt to replicate the philosophical first sentences that is universally applied in the short stories of Winch. ‘Nothing is impossible’ leaves the text open
ended, and usually implies that the story will be a happy story with the protagonist achieving a hard feat, keeping the reader engaged.
The use of profanity in the last paragraph replicates Tara June Winch’s tendency to use crude language in tense situations to put emphasis on what the protagonist is saying
Tara June Winch usually concludes her story on a sentimental note, with the character often questioning or looking back on the past, often with words like maybe. My version tried to show the characters sentimentality towards his basketball career, comparing it to a broken relationship.
Falling Behind
Julia Webster
‘Hey, what class is next?’
I snap out of my zoned out state, the memories vanishing like a dream.
‘Oh, we have history,’
I realise science has already ended. I didn’t do all the work. I’ll do it later. Up the narrow staircase I go, towards history. The voices of my classmates blend into a wall of sound ahead of me. I take two steps at a time, trying to catch up, but I find myself lost again in a maze of misremembered memories. What was, what wasn’t, what could have been.
Mirages of those I used to know obscure my vision. As I get closer the chatter crescendos, but I am off-beat. I stumble down.
Once settled at the back of history class, a documentary begins to play. It is about the history of India. They say history repeats itself, and it did, but now I’m not sure that it does. Long ago, when there was no change, no innovation, no record, the past, present, and future must have blended together. Life was a cycle where parents lived in the same world as their children; they would do, eat, act, and live the same as generations before them had, and after them would. They followed in the footsteps of their ancestors, but now we march forward, ahead, beyond.
We have entered a new pattern. The future is a path to the unknown, and the past feels forever gone. Life a century ago was so different, and I have no idea what will come in the next century. Now we have so much more of the world to experience than those before us, but not nearly as much more time. I thought about that as I sat in history class. My mind was so crammed with thoughts and experiences, everything so vast and changing; I lagged behind, dissecting and processing my past while the present moved by me.
I filled my lungs, felt them press against my other organs, and then I let the air spill out. I felt a moment of clarity but not contentment. My mind slowed down and I caught up with the present. I let myself notice things, the etched names on the school desk; a dim screen playing games in someone’s lap; whispers on the other side of the room.
The clock hangs above us, above all. It’s 5.
Wait.
No, it’s not.
The second hand remains still. The clock must be broken. Left with no sense of time and a somewhat resolved existential crisis, I figure I might as well watch the documentary. It’s currently in a section about the rise of Buddhism, a religion that preaches reincarnation. I’m not surprised they believe that, and that other religions teach of an afterlife. No one wants their time to be up.
The bell rings; class is over. I head home. The harsh angle of the sun through a window creates a glow as I walk down the long and narrow staircase, taking care, holding the railing, one step after the other.
Reflection
Throughout Tara June Winch’s work a key idea is time and history; This was the idea I chose to base my short story around. An example of a focus on time and history in Winch’s work is in Cloud Busting, where a large amount of the story is a flashback to 1967 ‘Anyway, Goulburn, ‘67.’. From the story It’s Too Difficult to Explain Winch talks about the effect of time on humans ‘…between twenty and thirty…decade…kind or brutal to the face.’ My short story focussed around how thinking too much about the past leads to losing focus and cognisance in the present.
Winch uses a lot of sensory imagery and physical movement to indicate emotion, as seen in Wager ‘I lent back into my seat and closed my eyes and listened..,’. I attempted to replicate this through the main character taking ‘two steps at a time’ and then they ‘stumble down’. The fall of the main character down the stairs also is a metaphor for how they feel as though they are falling behind the present and getting caught up in the past. Metaphors are common in Winch’s writing too; in Wager, a bathtub is a metaphor for a womb ‘…overwhelmingly out of place in her bathtub.’ In Cloud Busting, alliteration on a ‘b’ sound is used to create a sense of defiant joy ‘…beach, belly up to the big sky.’. I try to achieve this through repetition of an ‘m’ sound in ‘…maze of misremembered memories.’ to create a muddled and hazy feeling. Winch has a wistful and philosophical tone in her writing that I tried to capture with my short story.
The Storm Inside
Owen Druery
Thunder boomed and lightning flashed, illuminating my feeble boat, as I was thrown about on the waves of my own despair. Alone in the well of losing someone you love. The memories were flooding through my mind, pushing past sandbags and sea walls. Tiny tsunami’s growing from the pool of tears at my feet. I was lost within myself, and blinded by the searing pain of the hole inside of my heart.
A knocking noise replaced the thunder, and the clouds parted enough to let instinct open the door. I lifted my blotchy eyes to meet my fathers. He held me still, and steered my boat for a bit, just bobbing up and down on the rolling waves. He murmured something in my ear and pulled me up.
I was 9, and Pa and I were out fishing in the lake. The water was glistening and the wind was ruffling my hair, and it was a wonderful day. I got a snare and began to reel in, until a dark shape appeared in the water. I pulled, and up it came, leaping from the depths, shining brightly in the sun. After we put the fish in a bucket, we looked back and saw my great grandmother, smiling and waving from the shore like a rose in a field of daisies.
As I walked to the window, the rain came down, unforgiving and unrelenting. I sent my own little raindrops down to the ground and then sat in a puddle of my own creation. I let out a sigh at the thought that the bright pink flowers of our bougainvillea would soon explode once more into life, at a time where bright flowers don’t really fit in. The next day, the flowers did bloom, so I went out, collected a few, and put them in a vase.
The waves were smaller, still rocking me up and down, but in a comforting way. The storm was further away too. A salty breeze blew from the east, and the blistering sun pierced through scraps of clouds and burned into me. Night fell, and the stars shone with the reflection of infinite beams of light, shining their hope through the empty vacuum of darkness known as space.
The funeral was to be in a week’s time, but I was still stuck in the past, trying not to think about the future. It was the summer holidays and the sun was penetrating through the clouds of yesterday’s rain, and the Australian cricket team was about to win the match. Four generations of my family sitting together, basking in the sunlight and the victory of our skillful cricket team. The old couch, held together by string, sat across from the window that let in the sweeping views of the lake. The seagulls called to each other, carried by winds from across the globe, and we had one of the best times of my life.
My storm inside was raging, but my little boat, I knew, could make it through.
Reflection
Tara June Winch writes in a very specific style that uses lots of metaphors and symbolism, alluding to things yet to happen. I attempted to use these in my writing, especially through the symbolism of clouds and rain to sadness. Winch has consistently used a philosophical first sentence, and so I have attempted to copy her and have used the symbolism of a storm and the metaphor of the waves of my own despair. I attempted to use paragraphs to show the difference between memories and the present, which Winch used in The Last Class. My key idea was the passage of time, and was displayed through switching the time every paragraph. Winch used the key idea of passage of time in Swallow The Air. Often, Winch mentioned the title of her piece at the end, so I have also concluded my writing with a sentence that utilises the title. I also alluded to the metaphorical boat I used in the first sentence when I brought it into my last sentence to increase the impact of the words. Making my last sentence its own paragraph was also to help exaggerate the metaphor. Imagery was very common in Winch’s writing so I have tried to include as many different types of imagery as possible. I also attempted to allude more to the following paragraphs, for example, the link of the rose and the bright bougainvillea flowers. I have attempted to follow the style of Tara June Winch in my story by consistently using metaphors and imagery to enhance my writing like T.J. Winch.
