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Learning Framework
Concept
Audience imperatives, characterisation, genres, purpose, setting, style and theme.
Content
Students understand that texts use specific conventions to communicate their purpose and themes, and that conventions shape the audience's response.
Skills
- Thinking
- Communication
- Social
Resource Key
When accessing content use the numbers below to guide you:
LEVEL 1:
brief, basic information laid out in an easy-to-read format. May use informal language. (Includes most news articles)
LEVEL 2:
provides additional background information and further reading. Introduces some subject-specific language.
LEVEL 3:
lengthy, detailed information. Frequently uses technical/subject-specific language. (Includes most analytical articles)
Definition of Fantasy
Fantasy Fiction Definition – What’s the best definition for the fantasy fiction genre? Fantasy genre stories revolve around magic or supernatural forces, rather than technology. Stories from the fantasy genre are set in fanciful, invented worlds or in a legendary, mythic past that rely on the outright invention of magic. Knights, wizards, kings, and dragons are all common in fantasy, but aren’t always required. Swordplay, archery, horseback riding, and spell-casting are also staples of the fantasy genre.
@. (2014). Fantasy Fiction Definition - Complete List of Book Genres. Retrieved September 12, 2016, from http://book-genres.com/fantasy-fiction-definition/
Links
How does fantasy differ from science fiction and fairy tales?
- Science fiction stories also operate outside the normal boundaries of the real world but they are usually set in the future and involve the wonders of technology
- Fairy tales are shorter than most fantasy works. Characters and settings lack specificity. Seldom are place names given or detailed descriptions of characters provided in fairy tales; nuances and subtleties of portrayal are deliberately ignored.
Fantasy literature is a genre, or type, of fiction. Fantasy stories are about magical people or beings that exist in fantastic or strange worlds. These stories provide entertainment for adults and children alike.
A short video on the elements of Fantasy.
Fantasy has the longest and richest literary heritage of all of the forms of genre fiction. Indeed, fantasy could be said to be the progenitor from which the other forms came from. Fantasy's habit of taking real-life situations and characters and introducing them into a world where unexpected (and unexplainable) things happen has resonated with readers since the earliest days.
Character creation in book and film
What are some of the ways novelists create the characters in their books? Are these options available to writers of movie screenplays? Listen to renowned screenwriter John Collee as he describes the importance of action in revealing character, using the film adaptation of 'The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe' as an example.
First shown on ABC's Jennifer Byrne's Presents 9 March 2010
The lion, the witch and the wardrobe by C. S. Lewis
Literature study guide by Spark Notes
Key terms
- AllusionSomething that is said or written that refers to or mentions another person or subject in an indirect way.
- AudienceThe group of readers, listeners or viewers that the writer, designer, filmmaker or speaker is addressing. Audience includes students in the classroom, an individual, the wider community, review writers, critics and the implied audience.
- CharacterisationHow the people in the text have been presented – their behaviours, appearance, dialogue, actions and reactions.
- ConventionGenerally accepted rules, usage or standard formats employed in structuring texts, which are evident in a number of different texts. Conventions allow readers/viewers to make meaning of texts more readily if they have a knowledge of the conventions used in the text. Conventions can be seen as codes that have become widely acknowledged.
- Figurative languageWord groups/phrases used in a way that differs from the expected or everyday usage. They are used in a non-literal way for particular effect - for example, symbolism, simile – ‘white as a sheet’;metaphor – ‘all the world’s a stage’; personification – ‘the wind grabbed at my clothes’.
- GenreA category to which a text belongs, eg. fiction, non-fiction, novel, short story, biography, drama, expository, feature article, feature film, documentary, as well as detective, comedy, tragedy, romance, western, science-fiction, etc. All genres have their own codes and conventions - particular features that they draw on to tell their stories. Texts can conform to the generic expectations, subvert the conventions, have elements of both or even draw on different generic conventions.
- MagicThe power of apparently influencing events by using mysterious or supernatural forces.
- Medieval periodThe Middle Ages, generally attributed to England/Europe when referencing the Fantasy genre.
- MetaphorA word or phrase used to describe somebody/something else, in a way that is different from its normal use, in order to show that the two things have the same qualities and to make the description more powerful, for example She has a heart of stone; the use of such words and phrases.
- Mythical creaturesAn animal described in texts that sometimes involve the supernatural. Other legendary animals, such as the unicorn, were claimed in accounts of natural history by various scholars of antiquity.
- PersonificationGiving a non-human thing human qualities.
- PurposeWhy a text has been created or is being read.
- Sensory languageWords groups/phrases that are used in a way that appeals to the five senses – taste, touch, smell, sound or sight.
- SimileA word or phrase that compares something to something else, using the words like or as, for example a face like a mask or as white as snow; the use of such words and phrases.
- ThemeAn idea, concern or argument developed in a text; a recurring element. (For example, the subject of a text may be love, and its theme could be how love involves sacrifice). A work may have more than one theme.