Canon Reloaded

An innovative and contemporary student text that revitalises the study of the literary canon for middle secondary students.

Using student-friendly language and an engaging thematic approach to bring the canon to life, Canon Reloaded invites students to think about what we mean by the literary canon, why it is created and how it might be challenged. Students will encounter and respond to literary classics alongside contemporary texts and texts in translation, as they explore how themes such as journeys, love, death and the world we live in recur across a variety of historical moments and literary movements. Canon Reloaded... 

• introduces the major literary movements of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries and beyond, and profiles the major canonical writers 
• illuminates the social, cultural and historical conditions in which texts have been created and the impact these contexts have on the literature that they produce 
• explores the mechanics of language to analyse the structures and features of texts and how these work together to make meaning 
• focuses on particular aspects of literature, including literary types, genres and devices, to develop a deeper general understanding from which students can approach specific texts 
• encourages students to engage in the close reading of texts and with a variety of language modes, including writing, speaking and creating 
• provides opportunities to extend what students know through their own writing and research, and through further reading and viewing.