VCE English and EAL, English Language, and Literature guide - units 3 & 4

Page 22 of the VCE English and English as an Additional Language Study Design gives guidance on Writing about protest

"Explorations of conflict and contest, what it means to protest, the value of protest, the outcomes of protest, personal stories of protest, struggle and war."

The following eBook encyclopediae may be helpful for background on protest movements. Peruse the contents or the index to locate specific protest.

•    The international encyclopedia of revolution and protest [electronic resource] : 1500 to the present / edited by Immanuel Ness. Malden, Mass: Wiley-Blackwell. 2009
  • for example Australian Aboriginal Protests by Gary Foley
•   UXL protests, riots, and rebellions : civil unrest in the modern world / Tracey Vasil Biscontini, editor. Farmington Hills, Michigan: 2018
  • LGBTQ Rights

•   Government, politics, and protest  : essential primary sources / K. Lee Lerner, Brenda Wilmoth Lerner, and Adrienne Wilmoth Lerner, editors. Detroit, Mich: Gale.2006

See our guide to Protests, activism & dissent in Victoria

Key texts

• Gillespie, Mark, ‘Friday Essay: On the Sydney Mardi Gras March of 1978’, The Conversation (posted 19 February 2016) (A)
• Pankhurst, Emmeline, ‘Freedom or Death’, The Guardian (online) ‘Great Speeches of the 20th Century’ (series)
• Vonnegut, Kurt, ‘Harrison Bergeron’ [Online], in Welcome to the Monkey House [print]
• Wyatt, Meyne, Monologue from City of Gold, Australian Broadcasting Corporation (official channel), Q+A episode broadcast 8 June 2020 (A)

Key text: Pankhurst, Emmeline, ‘Freedom or Death’, The Guardian (online) ‘Great Speeches of the 20th Century’ (series)

Students could focus on figurative language and extended metaphor in their own work, using Pankhurst’s text as a model. VCE English and English as an Additional Language (EAL) Text List 2024 p.20

Emily Pankhurst & her times

• Clark, Emily  Emmeline Pankhurst’s “Freedom or Death” Speech Energizes Connecticut Women in 1913 by Emily Clark
• Boase, Tessa. Mrs Pankhurst’s Purple Feather : Fashion, Fury and Feminism -- Women’s Fight for Change  Minneapolis: Aurum Press White Lion 1, 2018.
• Adams, Beverley. The Rebel Suffragette : the Life of Edith Rigby Barnsley, South Yorkshire ;: Pen & Sword Books Limited, 2021.
• George, Denise. Mary Lee : the Life and Times of a “Turbulent Anarchist” and Her Battle for Women’s Rights Mile End, South Australia: Wakefield Press, 2018
• Purvis, June. Emmeline Pankhurst : a Biography  London ;: Routledge, 2002.

Political speeches

• Glover, Dennis. The Art of Great Speeches : and Why We Remember Them Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011
  • featuring excerpts of 70 of the world's greatest speeches in history and drama

Key text: Vonnegut, Kurt, ‘Harrison Bergeron’ [Online], in Welcome to the Monkey House [print]

Task: Students could explore the use of satire as a form of protest, experimenting with irony and wit in their own writings. (VCE English and English as an Additional Language (EAL)Text List 2024 p.20

Analysis of the story

• A collection of essays on the story

Examples of political satire

Fake interview aired by the BBC

The satirical group the Yes Men impersonated a spokesman from Dow Chemicals, fooling the BBC who interviewed the 'spokesman' announcing that Dow would accept full responsibility for the Union Carbide Chemical disaster in Bhopal India.

It was an attempt to publicly expose the lack of action by the company for the victims.

Articles about the hoax

• Nick W. Robinson & Gina Castle Bell (2013) Effectiveness of Culture Jamming in Agenda Building: An Analysis of the Yes Men's Bhopal Disaster Prank, Southern Communication Journal, 78:4, 352-368,

  • this article discusses the effectiveness of this interview.

• Graff, V. (2004, Dec 13).  Meet the yes men who hoax the world: The two men behind the Bhopal interview stunt reveal how they did it - and why they now feel sorry for the BBC The Guardian 

• Unnamed article (2004, Dec 05). BBC apologizes for airing Bhopal hoax: Chicago Tribune

• Gedye, R. (2004, Dec 04). Bhopal anguish as BBC hoaxed. The Daily Telegraph

A modest proposal

• A Modest Proposal - For preventing the children of poor people in Ireland, from being a burden on their parents or country, and for making them beneficial to the public. Dr. Jonathan Swift 1729
  • Jonathan Swift's famously savage satire on the plight of the poor in Ireland published in 1729. Hoping to shock public opinion he proposed that children of the poor be given to the wealthy as food.
• Discussion on the text - BBC Podcast
• Ian McBride, The Politics of A Modest Proposal: Swift and the Irish Crisis of the Late 1720s, Past & Present, Volume 244, Issue 1, August 2019, Pages 89–122,

• Writing about personal journeys
• Writing about play
• Writing about protest
• Writing about country

Key text: Gillespie, Mark, ‘Friday Essay: On the Sydney Mardi Gras March of 1978’, The Conversation (posted 19 February 2016) (A)

Task: Students could explore the use of a personal reflection, or a historical reflection, experimenting with a hybrid of factual and sentimental styles within their own writings. VCE English and English as an Additional Language (EAL) Text List 2024 p.19

Items on the 1978 Mardi Gras

• The First Gay Mardi Gras from Website https://www.78ers.org.au/ retrieved 28/9/2023
• Thomas, A. (2018). Before Mardi Gras. Overland, (231), 10–19.
• Sydney mardi gras: NSW police apologise over '78er' arrests and bashings:  (2016, Mar 04). ABC Premium News

Items on AIDS in Australia

• Power, Jennifer. Movement, Knowledge, Emotion : Gay Activism and HIV/AIDS in Australia  Canberra, Australia: ANU Press, 2011.
• Willett, Graham, and Yorick Smaal, eds. Intimacy, Violence and Activism : Gay and Lesbian Perspectives on Australasian History and Society Clayton, Victoria: Monash University Publishing, 2013.
• Ware, Cheryl, HIV Survivors in Sydney : Memories of the Epidemic Cham, Switzerland: Palgrave Macmillan, 2019.

Personal reflections

• Hart, John. Stories of Gay and Lesbian Immigration : Together Forever?  New York: Harrington Park Press, 2002.

• Robinson, Peter. Gay Men’s Relationships Across the Life Course  Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire: Palgrave Macmillan, 2013

Key text: Wyatt, Meyne, Monologue from City of Gold, Australian Broadcasting Corporation (official channel), Q+A episode broadcast 8 June 2020 (A)

Task: Students could explore the use of a personal reflection, or a historical reflection, experimenting with a hybrid of factual and sentimental styles within their own writings.  (VCE English and English as an Additional Language (EAL)Text List 2024 p.20)

Articles

• Coram, S., & Hallinan, C. (2017). Critical race theory and the orthodoxy of race neutrality: Examining the denigration of Adam Goodes. Australian Aboriginal Studies (Canberra), (1), 99–111.
• Gautam, A. (2019). The monstrous other: Adam Goodes and the colonial legacy of terra nullius. Social Alternatives, 38(4), 16-20.
  • Note also the further suggested sources adjacent to these articles

Martin Luther King Jr.

The famous "I Have a Dream"  speech by Martin Luther King Jr. before 250,000 on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C  during the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom on August 28, 1963.

Martin Luther King "Ï have been to the Mountaintop" speech, delivered a day before he was murdered.

• Mirhat Aliu. An analysis of two speeches delivered by Martin Luther King Anglisticum 7, no. Special Issue (2018): 95–99.
  • choose pdf link for full text
• Articles from United States newspapers at the time of the Ï have a dream speech
• Articles on Martin Luther King from 1968 - the year he was murdered

  Mutch, T. (1916). The protest: against the conscription of human life for military service abroad. Sydney: The Australian Worker.