As a novelist, I should be grateful ACARA has focused on persuasive writing, as all that seems to damage is our innate capacity for advertising copywriting. I hate to think what teaching to a narrative writing test might look like, for which, apparently, you need “a beginning and a complication” with a conclusion that “may be weak or simple” and “not all words used successfully.”
Read MoreCycling home from school dropoff this week I saw, taped to a bikeway sign, one of those notices asking for help finding a lost dog. The dog’s name was Malta, it said, and there was a picture of a regal but not unkindly poodle-like face with a blond bouffant frizz on top. I had the strangest feeling I was going to find Malta so I tore off one of the phone number tabs and set off along the creekside trail.
Read MoreGenerous but needy, Chinese elms and other weed trees bring their gifts, but they also kill everything that isn’t them, including our hapless eucalypts with their fussy seed pods which are no match for the sprouting elms.
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