Growing Up Disabled in Australia

NOTE: This unit primarily uses person-first language to refer to people with disability. You should always ask what language a person with disability prefers and use it accordingly. See the PWDA Language Guide for more information about respectful language, and the Victorian Government website for definitions of ‘person-first’ and ‘identity-first’.

Introductory activities

Teachers should be aware that discussions of disability have the potential to be extremely sensitive. There may be students in your class with disability; who have a family member with disability; or who are uncomfortable discussing disability for many reasons. There may also be students who have little or no experience with disability, and who may express curiosity or concern around this topic.

Collections such as Growing Up Disabled in Australia react against the history of accounts written about people with disability instead of by them. Reading the lived experiences of individuals with disability is empowering and recognises the importance of authentic voices in literature.

Given that this book contains many short texts, it can be used in the classroom in different ways:

1. The class can study the whole text.
2. Groups of students can focus on different chapters, comparing the writers’ perspectives.
3. The book can form part of a comparative study with another text, e.g. the book or film adaptation of My Left Foot (Ireland) or I Can Jump Puddles (Australia).
4. The book can be used, among other texts (e.g. non-fiction, film, extended prose fiction, poetry, reports, websites), for a study of a topic area such as ‘achieving agency’; ‘advocacy and persuasion’; ‘the individual in society’; ‘individual identity’; ‘conformity and non-conformity’; ‘otherness and inclusion’; or ‘diversity in Australian society’.

Assumptions about disability

Before reading the anthology, students can consider what they know about disability in Australia, including any images of ‘disability’ that they may have been exposed to via mainstream media.

• What are some of the stereotypes about people with disability that mainstream media accounts tend to rely on or perpetuate?
• Is the portrayal of people with disability as ‘courageous’ or ‘inspirational’ a positive vision, or does it merely separate the ‘exceptional’ from the ‘ordinary’?

Students should consider how they can discuss disability in a respectful and non-stigmatising manner. Ask them:

• What do you think has changed about the way people without disability treat people with disability?
• What do you think about society’s progress towards awareness of disability rights?
• What aspects of life do you think might have improved for people with disability over time?
• What do you think it means to ‘grow up disabled in Australia’? Does it mean something different in the 21^st century to what it would have meant 40 or 50 years ago?

Students can write a short statement on what they expect to learn from a book called Growing Up Disabled in Australia.

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Links to general capabilities and cross-curriculum priorities

Growing Up Disabled In Australia affords students the chance to examine issues related to Personal and Social Capability (identifying with the perspectives of others), Ethical Understanding (considering values, attitudes and perceptions within texts) and Intercultural Understanding (empathising with the cultural beliefs, values and attitudes of others). The editor, Carly Findlay, has attempted to represent the diversity of people with disability in Australia through her careful selection of accounts. Those that relate to the aforementioned general capabilities, and to the cross-curriculum priorities of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Histories and Cultures and Asia and Australia’s Engagement with Asia, are listed below.

Language

In her ‘Introduction’ to the text, Findlay reflects on the internalised ableism that once led her to perceive ‘disabled’ as a negative and unrelatable label (p. ix, para. 1–2).

• What are the implications of referring to someone as ‘a disabled person’ (identity-first) as opposed to ‘a person with disability’ (person-first)?
  • This can be a complex and deeply personal question; you may wish to consult the Victorian Government website for robust definitions of each term, as well as quotes from people who use them.
• How would you define ableism?
• What is the difference between ‘integration’ and ‘inclusion’?
• Are the terms ‘disability’, ‘condition’ and ‘impairment’ different? Do any of them overlap?
• What do students assume about a book titled Growing Up Disabled in Australia?
• What does the term ‘disabled’ assume?
• What does the phrase ‘additional needs’ suggest? Is this preferable to ‘special needs’?

The disability community is diverse and conversations about language are taking place in many different areas. As an example of one such conversation, students can consider the language used by members of the autism community.

• Why do some people on the autism spectrum prefer to identify as autistic rather than as a person with disability?
• Does the idea that ‘everyone is neurodiverse’ empower people with autism, or does it deny their uniqueness?
• What are the implications of using identity-first language (i.e. ‘an autistic person’)?

Students can research the importance of the hashtag #ActuallyAutistic and the resulting emphasis on autistic people telling their own stories.

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Personal response on reading the text

Begin by examining the ‘Introduction’, where Findlay summarises the intent of the anthology. In the second paragraph she recalls growing up without a shared sense of identity or community, which prevented her from advocating for support or calling out discrimination. This opening highlights the importance of perception in the way we identify ourselves.

Students can discuss:

• Why is it important to speak up against the discrimination levelled at people with disability?
• What does it mean to ‘perpetuate the othering’?
• Why are pride and community necessary for all individuals?
• What made Findlay re-evaluate her thinking on disability?
• What did she discover from her work in mainstream media?
• How does she identify now?
• What does she say about the purpose of the book?
• There were over 360 submissions to the anthology. What criteria did Findlay use to select what was published?

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Understanding life writing

The contributions to this anthology are all examples of life writing. Whether memoirs, oral histories, poetry or reflections on experience, they are all forms of autobiographical writing based on personal experience. Life writing refers to texts that:

• reconstruct real experiences (non-fiction)
• explore the life of the author (autobiography)
• may take the form of memoirs or personal essays
• record memories and observations
• are driven by time and usually structured chronologically
• are generally written in the past tense with a strong first-person narrative voice
• may include oral testimonies and eye-witness accounts

Students will notice that the genre of life writing encompasses a variety of literary forms. The purpose of Growing Up Disabled in Australia is to showcase the writing of often-marginalised voices: those belonging to people with disability, who may experience discrimination in mainstream society. This means that the book has both literary and socio-political dimensions.

Assign groups of students a few chapters from the book, and have them consider how these stories reflect the features of life writing as listed above. They should think about well-known examples of life writing from around the world; Anne Frank’s The Diary of a Young Girl, Nelson Mandela’s Long Walk to Freedom and Frank McCourt’s Angela’s Ashes are three international examples of the genre.

Ask:

• Why do you think these texts are so widely read? Is it for their literary qualities, or because they enlighten us about a particular person’s life at a particular place and point in history?
• Why would we read the stories of the 46 ‘ordinary’ Australians in this anthology, and what messages do they have to share with us?

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Social vs medical models of disability

The move from the medical model of disability to the social model has implications for the way society regards disability and its responsibilities towards people with disability.

The social model, which empowers the individual, provides the framework for the accounts in Growing Up Disabled in Australia. It focuses on removing the barriers placed on people with disability and on making society more accommodating for them. It exists in opposition to the medical model, which views disability in terms of deficits and privileges the opinions of ‘experts’ who make judgements about individuals based on their perceived capacity. The medical model does not acknowledge the voices, strengths or agency of people with disability.

The social model is referred to throughout the book, including on p. xi, where Findlay shares People with Disability Australia’s (PWDA) definition. This acknowledges the barriers faced by people with disability while arguing for changes that facilitate their equal participation in society. In other words, it is society’s responsibility to accommodate the person with disability, not the other way around.

Students can see how the anthology’s contributors interpret these models on pp. 7 (medical), 11–12 (medical and social) and 77 (social). On p. 110, Robin M. Eames compares how each model frames their disability. What is the difference in perception? What role can anthologies like Growing Up Disabled in Australia play in shifting public perceptions of marginalised groups?

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The collection

Growing Up Disabled in Australia contains 46 chapters written by people with disability. The book showcases both the diversity of their experiences and the commonalities in their interactions with the people and the world around them. Importantly, it amplifies voices that are often marginalised and overlooked in our society.

As discussed above (Understanding Life Writing), the entries also showcase the diversity of life writing, with contributors utilising poetry, letters, images, dot points and other text types.

The stories

Direct students to construct a table, listing each chapter in the anthology and guessing what it will be about.

Some titles suggest the genre (‘Selected Epistles’ by Olivia Muscat), while others declare the writer’s disability (‘A Polio Story’ by Fran Henke) and others still their journey of acceptance (‘Learning My Place’ by Chantel Bongiovanni). Students can discuss and categorise the chapters. What does each title highlight?

Students might like to look at the ‘Notes on Contributors’ at the end of the book (p. 301) to see if these confirm their thinking about each chapter.

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Synthesising task

This book is part of Black Inc.’s Growing Up series, which highlights the experiences and voices of specific groups and communities in Australia.

Ask students:

• What are the other titles in this series?
• Who might be the intended audience? Is the goal to reach readers who will identify with the accounts in the texts, or to give the stories of minority groups a general readership?

Can students think of any other groups they would like to see represented in the series? They can write a letter to the publisher asking them to consider that group for another book in the series.

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The writer’s craft

A thematic approach to the collection

The anthology can be studied for its use of first-person narrative accounts that explore key themes around identity, individuality, autonomy and self-determination. Some authors recall resisting the notion that they might be disabled, only coming to accept their identity later in life; Eliza Hull vividly expresses this shift in her own thinking over time (p. 94, para. 4), while Todd Winther mentions the perceived stigma of identifying as a person with disability (p. 126, para. 1).

Students can explore these ideas in relation to social attitudes:

• Why would someone be reluctant to identify as having disability?
• How might acknowledging and taking pride in this facet of identity become a source of strength and belonging?

Some contributors express an interest in advocacy and disability pride (especially those with intersectional identities). El Gibbs discusses this in relation to the social model of disability (p. 12, para. 2), and the positive experience of advocating for one’s community is inherent in several other accounts.

Focus questions for each chapter

Growing Up Disabled in Australia contains a rich variety of personal accounts; it would be inappropriate to privilege some above others. Depending on the composition of your class, however, some accounts may be more pertinent or relevant to your context.

The following table provides focus questions for a close reading of each chapter. Students can work in groups or individually to explore assigned stories.

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Structure

Memoirs often illustrate an important idea about humanity. Paradoxically, while they investigate the details of an individual life, their attempts to make sense of that life often communicate universal experiences or ideas. This is why they often end with a moment of realisation or revelation. The accounts in Growing Up Disabled in Australia mostly follow this narrative pattern, with some kind of epiphany or acceptance as a resolution.

Beginnings and endings

Students often focus on the introduction of a text, but the conclusion is just as important – if not more so. Ask students what they expect to find in introductions and conclusions centred on life writing. Have them draw a table with two columns labelled ‘beginnings’ and ‘endings’, then provide the following list of statements from the anthology. Ask them to identity which statements are beginnings and which are endings, and add them to the appropriate column.

Students should justify their decision for each statement:

• Was it language or ideas that made them decide the statement was a beginning/ending?
• Did the statement open or close the discussion?
• Was there a sense of coming to a realisation?

They can then select one of the beginning statements and use it as inspiration for their own short story – not about the author’s disability, but rather their own life experiences.

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Narrative structure

Revisit the narrative structure of short stories:

exposition/orientation > complication > rising action/series of events > climax > denouement/resolution

Memoirs, which follow series of events in people’s lives, are generally expressed as narratives.

Students can choose one account from Growing Up Disabled in Australia and trace its narrative structure based on the elements listed above.

• Do all of the accounts follow this pattern?
• Some entries start with a complication – why?
• Some accounts use features of writing that are more aligned with reports (e.g. the numbered list in ‘Catching Meaning’, p. 197). How does this affect the memoir?

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Style

Logos, pathos and ethos

An important feature of the collection is its movement between logos, pathos and ethos: facts, figures and important sources of information (logos) are juxtaposed with feelings (pathos), leading to a discussion or a call for the reader to reassess their values (ethos). The combination of all three makes texts like Growing Up Disabled in Australia highly persuasive.

Students can practise identifying the purpose of different statements. Have them draw a table with three columns labelled ‘logos’, ‘pathos’ and ‘ethos’, then match the following statements to the correct headings.

Students can then examine an assigned chapter to see how logos, pathos and ethos work together.

• Look at the way ‘Noisy Silence’ ( 62–73) balances official documents (logos) with personal accounts (pathos) to influence our thinking and values (ethos).
• How does a poem like ‘December Three’ ( 89–90) balance the three rhetorical features of logos, pathos and ethos?
• Trace logos, pathos and ethos in ‘Question Marks and a Theory of Vision’ (pp. 1–5), focusing on pp. 4–5 (from the paragraph about Plato to the end of the piece).

Ask students to share:

• a passage that moved them and why it did so (how did the language support the ideas)?
• a passage that taught them something new about disability
• a passage that was about advocacy and the importance of advocacy

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Synthesising activities

Choose ONE of the following activities to complete with students (or allow them to choose from the available options).

1. Infographic

Students are to select one account from Growing Up Disabled in Australia and design an infographic that conveys their personal response to the narrative. They can use Canva or a similar platform to create the infographic and cover any of the following points (plus any others they come up with) in their response:

• What do we learn about the writer’s identity and/or coming-of-age?
• How does the narrative explore the challenges and obstacles they have dealt with?
• What does the text tell us about social attitudes? Does it suggest that society needs to change, or does it reflect a vibrant and supportive community?
• How does the writer express their own uniqueness? What do they want us to know about their character?
• What is the text’s broader message? What can the reader take away from it?
• Does the writer use any interesting stylistic features or narrative choices to help tell their story?
• Is there a specific antagonist or obstacle?
• How does the text examine the challenges that the writer has contended with throughout their life?

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2. Roundtable

The contributors to Growing Up Disabled in Australia represent a diverse cross section of Australian society, united by their experience of growing up with disability. What do students think they would say to each other if they met in person? Working in groups, students are to script and present an imagined roundtable involving two or more contributors, referring to quotes from their writing to support the discussion.

3. Feature article

Students are to imagine that they are newspaper journalists writing a feature article entitled ‘Exploring the social model of disability: Australians speak out!’ What issues do they think the contributors of Growing Up Disabled in Australia would want to raise in this piece? They should select examples from THREE accounts in the anthology and incorporate them into a piece of writing that discusses the contributors’ perspectives.

Students may need to do some background research on the social model of disability; PWDA’s resource would be a useful starting point.

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Ways of reading the text

Fictocriticism: disability, politics and advocacy

Fictocriticism is a unique postmodern style of writing that involves the composition of a work with both fictional and critical elements. It often uses a personal account as the springboard for a discursive or reflective text that engages in a broader social commentary. In Australia, fictocriticism first emerged in the work of women writers reacting against the formal and academic nature of analytical writing published at the time. They sought to produce experimental and provocative work that recognised the importance of a personal perspective on social and political issues.

Many of the accounts in Growing Up Disabled in Australia are fictocritical in nature. The value of the social model of disability, and of advocating for the removal of barriers that obstruct equal participation in society, are central to the anthology. Its clearly defined scope (i.e. the formative experiences of Australians with disability) foregrounds the notion that there is something unique or worthy of discussion within its pages.

Many of the contributors discuss how activism and an understanding of the political dimensions of disability are important in their lives. Others demonstrate how expressing their creativity and telling their own story enables them to raise awareness and improve social consciousness around issues related to disability.

Observations from the text about the importance of social consciousness and activism include:

• Andy Jackson on how poetry affirms difference and facilitates togetherness (p. 5, para. 5)
• El Gibbs on her shared battle for autonomy, and the gap between her understanding of disability as a social construct versus her lived experience (p. 12, para. 2–3)
• Fiona Murphy on the denial of deaf children’s access to sign language and how structural barriers have prevented their full participation in society (p. 46, para. 2)
• Jordon Steele-John on the potential ‘self-delusion’ of believing that your personal experiences transcend the collective experiences of a marginalised group, and pretending that disability has no impact on identity (p. 77, para. 2)
• Jane Rosengrave on what disability pride means to her, and how speaking out about past abuse and discrimination is a form of political activism (p. 147)
• Kath Duncan on her initial fear of owning her disability (p. 167, para. 1)
• Fran Henke (p. 180) on going on to lobby for polio survivors in a society that was so unsupportive and neglectful that it almost drove her parents to the brink (p. 180)

Individuals exist within a broader social, political and historical framework. We are always grappling with social norms, whether we choose to accept or react against them. Although the contributors to this anthology range in age and background, and although their stories often reflect beliefs about disability at particular moments in Australian history, their stories are linked by the fusion of personal experiences and social/political attitudes.

Comparison with other texts

Representations in the media

Notable individuals

Apart from the contributors to Growing Up Disabled in Australia, students can research some notable Australians with disability who have been active in public or literary life. Ten have been suggested below:

• Dylan Alcott (1990–), Paralympian and 2022 Australian of the Year
• Michele Castagna (1944–2016), disability advocate
• Quentin Kenihan (1975–2018), disability advocate
• Alan Marshall (1902–1984), writer
• Anne McDonald (1961–2010), writer and disability advocate
• Ron McCallum (1948–), first totally blind Australian to be appointed to a full professorship
• Louise Sauvage (1973–), Paralympian
• Steady Eddy, AKA Christopher Widdows (1968–), comedian
• Nick Vujicic (1982–), evangelist and motivational speaker
• Donna Williams (1963–2017), writer, artist and teacher

There are also young Australian influencers, such as actress Chloe Hayden and model Madeline Stuart, who communicate positive and inclusive messages about disability to their followers.

Ethical issues

Students can consider the complex ethical issues represented by SBS’ The Feed in a segment entitled ‘Down Syndrome Life’. It presents the stories of two people with Down syndrome, both of whom lead happy and rewarding lives; this is juxtaposed with an interview with a medical professional who discusses the termination of pregnancies following pre-natal diagnosis of Down syndrome.

Students can discuss:

• How do the narratives interact with each other?
• Do you agree with SBS’ decision to engage in a discussion about the right to life while simultaneously presenting the stories of living individuals with disability?
• Do you think the message to the audience is one of acceptance, or is it intended to provoke a debate?
• The segment refers to internalised ableism: conscious or unconscious discrimination against people with disability due to perceived inferiority or incapacity. How does the program address the idea of ableism?

Also consider how The Feed represents the views of the medical profession in this segment. Students can relate this to the medical model of disability, which the contributors to Growing Up Disabled in Australia often critique.

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Representations across the world

Growing Up Disabled in Australia aims to counteract the negative stereotypes that persist about people with disability. Representations of physical difference in classic texts such as Victor Hugo’s The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1831) and Gaston Leroux’s The Phantom of the Opera (1910) misrepresent disability within the horror genre. Although the title characters’ humanity becomes evident as their stories unfold, the attitudes adopted towards them are at best patronising, and at worst contemptuous.

Over the course of the 20^th century, first-person accounts by people with disability began to articulate a more personal and empowered view, highlighting positive experiences despite the constraints imposed by an often-ableist society.

It is important to note that Growing Up Disabled in Australia celebrates the lived experiences of people with disability. This is quite different from third-person narratives about characters with disability, or memoirs written by parents or siblings. Works of fiction such as Eleanor Spence’s The October Child (1976) or Elissa Down’s The Black Balloon (2008), for example, explore the more removed perspectives of family members of people with disability. The pleasure and the project of Growing Up Disabled in Australia, however, lies in its advocacy: it provides a platform for marginalised voices to tell their own stories and communicate a message to mainstream society.

Invite students to explore other representations of people with disability in 20^th century literature, such as:

• The World I Live In by Helen Keller (1908, American)
• My Left Foot by Christy Brown (1954, Irish)
• I Can Jump Puddles by Alan Marshall (1955, Australian)

The following excerpts focus on moments or sensations from the writers’ lives, highlighting their diverse experiences as people with disability. Keller’s dependence on touch emerges through her sensory descriptions of objects; Brown shares the moment he discovers a way to express himself; and Marshall explores his community’s reaction to his illness.

Helen Keller (1880–1968)

Keller became deaf and blind after contracting an unknown illness as a toddler. She eventually learned to communicate with her hands and became a writer, activist and public speaker. Footage of Keller delivering a speech in Sydney in 1948 (from 0:44 onwards) is illuminating.

Keller was a passionate socialist and wrote extensively. Read para. 5 of Chapter 1: The Seeing Hand from The World I Live In, in which Keller discusses ideas, impressions, and deriving meaning from tactile sensations.

• Consider the sensory imagery in Keller’s writing. What images stand out for you?
• What makes this a remarkable piece of writing? Discuss its literary qualities and any language techniques that you notice.
• What do you think of the book’s title? Why is it significant?

Christy Brown (1932–1981)

Brown was born with cerebral palsy into a working-class Irish family. Although doctors advised his parents to commit him to a hospital, they were determined to raise him at home with the rest of his siblings (he was one of thirteen). Brown later discovered that he could control his left foot and learned to write and paint.

Read about this moment of discovery in My Left Foot, from the final sentence on p. 13 to the middle of p. 16 (when Brown’s mother asks him to copy the letter ‘A’).

• How does Brown convey the impact of his nurturing family on his life?
• Note the often-dramatic tone of this excerpt. What do we learn about Brown’s craft from his use of emotive language?
• Why does Brown describe the weather in this excerpt? What atmosphere does this create? Consider the imagery of the fire and the shadows.
• How does Brown create a sense of tension and suspense in this excerpt?
• My Left Foot was a phenomenally popular and widely published book. Why do you think this is the case, based on the writing in this excerpt?

Alan Marshall (1902–1984)

Marshall was born in country Victoria and developed a physical disability after contracting poliomyelitis. His autobiography celebrated life in early 20^th century Australia and was widely studied in schools.

Read about the prevailing social attitudes towards disability in the early 1900s as explored in I Can Jump Puddles, from the second half of p. 3 to the middle of p. 5 (when Marshall’s father attempts to explain how his son became ill).

• How do Marshall’s memories explore the stigma attached to physical disability at the time?
• How do we know that this work is set in rural Australia? How does Marshall create a strong sense of setting in his writing?
• Why do you think Marshall has chosen to recall the sense of fear and anxiety created by the polio epidemic?
• How does Marshall emphasise the importance of religion in his community? How does he convey a sense of realism in his memoir?

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Evaluation

Evaluation can take two directions: a personal response to the accounts within Growing Up Disabled in Australia, or an assessment about the place of the anthology in the wider world of texts about disability.

Ask students to assess:

Which account in the anthology stands out for you and why? Is it the style or the ideas that you find most appealing?

Having considered other texts about disability, invite students to consider this book in the context of its predecessors.

How successful is Growing Up Disabled in Australia at giving voice to those who have been historically silenced or treated as ‘others’?

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Rich assessment task (productive and receptive modes)

Writing fictocriticism

Students can choose two or three of the accounts listed under Fictocriticism (or any other accounts from the anthology with a strong social or political theme) and identify a common thread that runs between them. They can then compose a fictocritical piece of writing that draws on their personal responses to their chosen texts, and demonstrates an understanding of how people with disability have been treated by mainstream Australian society. This piece should be titled according to the connection that students have identified (e.g. ‘The Importance of Speaking Out’ or ‘Problems With Assumptions Made by Society’). They should conduct their own research and incorporate information about social attitudes, advocacy and other statistics relating to disability.

Students can experiment with the stylistic possibilities of a fictocritical piece by:

• interspersing facts with references to the personal accounts from the anthology
• expanding on ideas that might have broader relevance for people with disability in Australia
• choosing a symbol or motif that represents the shared experiences of people with disability and exploring this symbol in descriptive detail
• moving between free verse, prose and analysis to create a multi-layered text that experiments with both informative and imaginative forms of writing

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Summing up

In her introduction to Growing Up Disabled in Australia, Carly Findlay sets out several goals for the anthology: being a friend to those in need; changing history; showcasing the diversity of disability; and giving people with disability a sense of pride and belonging (pp. x–xi).

Ask students:

Has Findlay been successful in her aims? Explain why.

Discuss as a class, then have students present their individual responses as a written review.

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Rich assessment tasks (receptive and productive modes)

The following assessment tasks will allow students to engage with the themes, structures and techniques of different accounts from the anthology at an achievable level. Each task can be differentiated according to students’ needs; see this sheet (PDF, 144KB) for suggestions.

1. Group podcast

Students may wish to listen to some podcasts about disability, such as Dylan Alcott and Angus O’Loughlin’s ListenABLE. This rich podcast aims to ‘break down stigmas, change perceptions, and challenge what you think it’s like to live with disability’. Alcott and O’Loughlin achieve this by interviewing Australians with disability, exploring the variety of their experiences and enabling listeners to better understand their lives.

Students should consider the features of this podcast, including its conversational style; the hosts’ discussion of related issues in their introduction; their in-depth conversation with the interviewee; and the use of short bursts of muzak to transition between different parts of the episode.

Task

Working in groups of three or four, students are to produce a five- to seven-minute podcast. They will need to incorporate features of the podcast form and give each group member a speaking role.

The topic of the podcast will be:

What should Australians know about the experiences of people with disability?

The podcast should be targeted at a mainstream audience, with the conversation taking the form of a roundtable discussion. Students should appoint one or two hosts and two or three guests. Each guest should represent the opinions of ONE contributor from Growing Up Disabled in Australia. They should refer to relevant challenges and life experiences in their contributor’s writing, and relay any messages this person may have shared about how they want to be treated or what they want society to know or do. Students may also discuss the social model of disability, but the focus should be on what they have learned and understood from different contributors’ experiences.

Each group member will submit a 300–400-word reflection on how this task enabled them to engage with and think deeply about the issues presented in Growing Up Disabled in Australia. This will be used for individual assessment.

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2. Textual experimentation

One of the most interesting features of Growing Up Disabled in Australia is the prevalence of non-linear narratives. Many of the contributors have experimented with different textual forms to find what best enables them to convey and respond to their own life experiences.

Given the centrality of disability to this anthology, and the infrequency with which this theme is explored in mainstream publications, it can be easy to lose sight of the book’s significant literary value. The accounts are often beautifully and vividly written, and their authors demonstrate a willingness to explore textual form in unconventional ways. This provides valuable reading material for English students and those who enjoy reading and writing narrative non-fiction.

Contributors who have experimented with textual form include:

• Olivia Muscat (pp. 14–21), who uses a series of epistolary fragments to respond to people’s misperceptions about blindness or low vision. These letters allow her to humorously critique the assumptions and stereotypes about people who are blind or have low vision.
• Dion Beasley and Johanna Bell (pp. 22–28), who use fragments of free verse as a form of poetic flash-fiction to explore Beasley’s memories of growing up disabled in the remote Northern Territory.
• Kerri-ann Messenger (pp. 53–55), whose poetry is marked by rhetorical questions and repetition. Her writing explores both her personal memories and some of the feelings shared by people with disability.
• Anna Whateley (pp. 62–73), who writes in a series of flashbacks that alternate between primary sources (most notably her diaries) and a retrospective narrative voice. This creates a sense of dramatic irony, juxtaposing her younger self’s innocence with her adult self’s more reflective understanding of her neurodiversity.
• Jordon Steele-John (pp. 74–82), Jane Rosengrave (pp. 142–148) and Isis Holt (pp. 184–189), whose oral histories have been recorded in transcripts from separate interviews.
• C.B. Mako (pp. 89–90), who uses free verse (often marked by single-word sentences) to discuss their intersectional experiences as a person with disability from a migrant community.
• Marla Bishop (pp. 149–151), who adopts a third-person voice in a free verse poem to reflect on their experiences from an outside perspective.
• Carly-Jay Metcalfe (pp. 182–183), who transforms Sylvia Plath’s poem ‘Lady Lazarus’ in relation to her own experience of living with a chronic health condition.
• Ricky Buchanan ( 227–231), who uses multiple fragments with a strong first-person voice to narrate a series of moments chronicling her disability journey.
• Sarah Firth ( 273–292), who shares her experiences in the form of a comic. This visual medium helps to juxtapose her own perspective with those of the people around her, illustrating how neurodiverse individuals experience a lack of understanding or empathy.

Students can explore some of these accounts; how do their authors use different textual forms to achieve their purpose and communicate with their implied audience? How have they experimented with style, structure and form to communicate their subjective experiences?

Task

Students will explore how ONE of the aforementioned contributors experiments with textual form to present a piece of life writing. They will then emulate the features of this form to:

1. produce their own short memoir or autobiographical account, OR
2. write the life story of someone they know.

The length of the completed task will vary according to the textual form chosen:

• Poems should exceed 250 words
• Narrative fragments should exceed 500 words
• Students should feel free to experiment with Firth’s comic-style narrative, as long as they produce a text of similar length (more than 20 panels)

Students will also critique their own work in a 300–400-word reflection. They should focus on answering the following questions:

1. How has a text from Growing Up Disabled in Australia provided inspiration for my experimentation with form?
2. How did this experimentation lead me to create a piece of narrative non-fiction that tells a life story?

(AC9E10LA08)   (AC9E10LE08)   (AC9E10LY05)   (AC9E10LY06)