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MODULE A: Genre
This module requires students to explore and evaluate notions of genre. It develops their understanding of the conventions and values associated with generic forms. (Reread English Stage 6 Syllabus 
p 89)
Introduction to Elective 2: Crime Writing
In this elective students examine texts composed in a range of media that encompass and scrutinise a crime and its investigation. Students consider how crime writing has evolved by extending, reimagining and challenging the conventions of the traditional detective story. Crime writing presents unlimited combinations, subversions and transformations of the classic 'whodunit' murder mystery. It is often self-consciously and/or playfully reworking the elements of the ‘whodunit’. Some of the elements explored in the study of crime writing include how changing contexts and values have brought about changes in the traditional crime stories and resulted in new conventions, new understandings of what constitutes a crime and who plays the role of detective and even what ‘justice’ means. Students will also account for the increasing popularity of different forms of crime writing while the traditional detective stories continue to retain their appeal.
In this elective students are required to study at least three of the prescribed texts, two of which must be print texts, as well as other texts of their own choosing. In their responding and composing they explore, analyse, experiment with and critically evaluate their prescribed texts and a range of other examples of this genre. They explore the diversity within the crime writing genre in a range of contexts and media.
Prose Fiction
- James, P D, The Skull Beneath the Skin, Faber/Allen & Unwin, 2006, ISBN-13: 9780571228539
- Ondaatje, Michael, Anil’s Ghost, Picador, 2001, ISBN-13: 9780330480772
or
Drama
- Stoppard, Tom, ‘The Real Inspector Hound’, in Tom Stoppard: Plays 1, Faber/Allen & Unwin, 2005, ISBN-13: 9780571177653
or
Film
- Hitchcock, Alfred, Rear Window, Universal Pictures, 1954
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