By Emily Kowal
Sitting alone in a library, hours after the final bell had rung for the day, Saachi Singh bent over a blank page, pen in hand. Her English Extension 2 proposal was due in a few hours. She had spent five years dreaming about this moment, ever since she’d decided to take the course in year 7.
Now it was time to write.
“I had so much pressure to come up with an idea in a couple of hours after five years of pondering what I want to talk about. I asked [the librarian] if she knew where I could find the Young Writers Showcase from previous years,” Singh said.
Saachi Singh, Isabel Young, Liam Michael Tannoury and Aditya Swamy have all made it into the Young Writers Showcase.Credit: Jessica Hromas
“Looking back, it was a very serendipitous moment for me because I never expected my work would also be published in that showcase.”
She is one of 19 whose work was selected from more than 1500 students to have their English Extension 2 work featured in the Young Writers Showcase, an anthology now published online. The students come from a range of schools and backgrounds. All share one core trait – passion.
“From the moment I found out that English Extension 2 was a course, I knew from that moment I wanted to do the subject because I wanted to write. I didn’t know what I wanted to write about, I had just set my mind on taking the subject.”
She’s part of a rare breed of students. English Extension 2 enrolments have fallen by more than 20 per cent since 2013; however, last year, 1483 students took the subject, up from 1248 in 2022.
Passion drives these students, explains Clare Murphy, who has taught English at Mount Carmel Catholic College in Sydney’s south-west for 32 years.
“I have taught them for years and years, and I have found it’s tremendous commitment and drive, but also there is a degree of self-belief, but a huge amount of doubt as well,” Murphy said.
“They are working with that tension all throughout the project. The achievement at the end is an amazing sense of wonder and awe.”
Inspired by her experience of sudden sight loss at 16 and her grandfather’s memory decline, Evangeline Chu’s collection of poetry explores blindness, suffering and resilience. Credit: Jessica Hromas
She remembers teaching a boy, who died in a car crash after graduating. On top of his coffin was a copy of his English Extension 2 paper.
“It meant that much to him. That’s what Extension 2 is. It’s a different type of investment. It’s a major journey they embark on.
“They have to have a drive and a commitment beyond the normal because it does take a lot of work.”
It’s becoming harder to get students to do the subject, Murphy said.
“I actually think you need to nurture them from year 7. It’s critical. What I am trying to do at my school is set the expectation that English is a place where you are all practitioners of the craft. Everyone has a story to tell,” Murphy said.
Liam Michael Tannoury wrote about his his mother’s journey as a Vietnamese refugee and his father’s past as a Lebanese child soldier – exploring themes of memory, conflict and identity.Credit: Jessica Hromas
Her student, Liam Michael Tannoury, features in the showcase. His work, a collection of poems, retold his mother’s journey as a Vietnamese refugee and his father’s past as a Lebanese child soldier.
He also uncovered an uncanny coincidence – his grandfather, whom he had never met, had written an anthology of poems when he was young.
“It felt right. Writing poetry, it didn’t really click that it was right until I found that book. I had seen it before, but it was very young and didn’t realise what it was.
“It would come very naturally. It was my first time writing a big, ambitious piece of poetry, but I found I could write a poem in 10 to 15 minutes and I would come to class and edit the next day.”
He recommends students “trust your gut” and rely heavily on your teachers.
“Try not to mimic anyone. The point of extension two is to find your own voice and find yourself as a young writer.”
Isabel Young created an auditory piece that explores maternal abuse, presented through the motif of a cicada. The idea came to her in a dream.
Isabel Young in the Jubilee Room at State Parliament.Credit: Jessica Hromas
“I had no idea what I was going to write about, and then I woke up thinking about cicadas and a fact I had learnt 10 years ago; specific species of cicadas spend 17 years of their life underground, they are above ground for about a week, and then they die.”
She, too, decided in year 7 she would do the subject. “It’s always been on my mind,” Young said.
Her advice for those considering the subject? “There is no pressure – it’s supposed to be creative and beautiful. If you feel you can’t work in that moment, that’s OK. Go study something else, take a walk – it will be there when you get back.
“Sometimes, the best writing is done after you feel like you don’t know what to do.”
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