Talking texts with teachers #8

"Fiction isn’t created in a vacuum; it is born out of human experience and this is invariably made clear when authors speak about their work."

Bridget Forster is the Head of Kerferd Library at Mentone Girls’ Grammar, where she also teaches Year 12 Literature. Last year she concluded a Reading Australia Fellowship exploring the use of AI generated texts in the classroom to interrogate the notion of an Australian literary voice. Bridget has featured on the Educator Hot List for influential teachers and was the recipient of a SLAV Innovators Award.

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What is the best text you've ever taught, and why?

For Year 7, teaching Jane Godwin’s Falling from Grace was a lot of fun. It’s a mystery set around Point Nepean on the Mornington Peninsula, which is an area many students were familiar with. Before we started the unit, I went down and photographed all of the significant sites - such as the quarantine station; the cemetery; and the signed off areas warning of unexploded bombs - and aligned them with quotes from the text. The next year all students visited the park and painted a landmark as part of Year 7 Camp, which was even better. I think that for students to see their local landscape (be that urban or natural) rendered into print is a powerful thing. It enriches their experience of the landscape thereafter.

What is the worst?

The Giver remains a middle school perennial favourite. No disrespect to Lois Lowry, but I’d rather not teach it again…

Was there a book that you studied in school that left an impression (good or bad)?