Aesthetic Features
Engaging with aesthetic texts “allows us to rehearse different ways of seeing the world and different emotional reactions”.[1] Such engagement is crucial for the development of empathy.
The aesthetic is far more than that which is simply “beautiful” in a text. It refers to the complex relationship between perception and sensation. It encompasses a wide range of emotional and critical responses to texts.
Aesthetic features refer to those aspects of texts that prompt emotional and critical reactions. As such, the aesthetic is closely tied to reader/audience positioning. Aesthetic features may draw upon and interplay with textual features already used for other purposes.
In senior English, students are given opportunities to create their own aesthetic features in persuasive and imaginative tasks in order to position readers/audiences. Students are also given opportunities to evaluate the aesthetic features of texts and their effects on reader/audience positioning. This can be done in the expository mode and may involve student reflection on personal emotional and critical responses to texts.
POETIC DEVICES: Alliteration, Assonance, Imagery, Metaphor, Personification, Simile, Symbolism
WRITTEN DEVICES: Imagery, Irony, Metaphors, Motifs, Personification, Representation, Symbolism
SPOKEN DEVICES: Images, Motifs, Rhetoric, Symbolism
FILM DEVICES: Costuming, Editing, Imagery, Motifs, Photogrpahy, Screenplay, Symbolism
DRAMATIC DEVICES: Costuming, Dialogue, Motifs, Style, Symbolism
[1] R Misson & W Morgan, 2006, Critical Literacy and the Aesthetic: Transforming the English Classroom, National Council of Teachers of English, Illinois, p. 136 Page 33 QSA English Senior Syllabus 2010
The aesthetic is far more than that which is simply “beautiful” in a text. It refers to the complex relationship between perception and sensation. It encompasses a wide range of emotional and critical responses to texts.
Aesthetic features refer to those aspects of texts that prompt emotional and critical reactions. As such, the aesthetic is closely tied to reader/audience positioning. Aesthetic features may draw upon and interplay with textual features already used for other purposes.
In senior English, students are given opportunities to create their own aesthetic features in persuasive and imaginative tasks in order to position readers/audiences. Students are also given opportunities to evaluate the aesthetic features of texts and their effects on reader/audience positioning. This can be done in the expository mode and may involve student reflection on personal emotional and critical responses to texts.
POETIC DEVICES: Alliteration, Assonance, Imagery, Metaphor, Personification, Simile, Symbolism
WRITTEN DEVICES: Imagery, Irony, Metaphors, Motifs, Personification, Representation, Symbolism
SPOKEN DEVICES: Images, Motifs, Rhetoric, Symbolism
FILM DEVICES: Costuming, Editing, Imagery, Motifs, Photogrpahy, Screenplay, Symbolism
DRAMATIC DEVICES: Costuming, Dialogue, Motifs, Style, Symbolism
[1] R Misson & W Morgan, 2006, Critical Literacy and the Aesthetic: Transforming the English Classroom, National Council of Teachers of English, Illinois, p. 136 Page 33 QSA English Senior Syllabus 2010