Teachers on The Year it All Ended in the Classroom

The Year It All Ended effectively supports the Australian Curriculum for History, specifically at Year 9 level. In this situation, excerpts of the text might be utilised for close reading to investigate the period of history described. Although time constraints may limit a complete examination of the text, this could be offered to select students as an extension task within this subject. Similarly, the story could operate as an engaging text for class study within English, and if undertaken at Year 9 or 10, provides numerous opportunities for cross-curricular links to History. The story delivers obvious comparisons to war poetry (Siegfried Sassoon, Wilfred Owen), film (Gallipoli), or other war novels depicting the period (All Quiet on the Western Front). Furthermore, senior students might find this an appealing text for independent analysis, and one that is effortlessly paired with the likes of Jackie French’s A Rose for the ANZAC Boys (Allen & Unwin, 2008). Written in sensitive prose, The Year It All Ended is an emotionally moving account of Australia poised precariously on the edge of social change.

Tanya Grech Welden, Secondary English/History Teacher, Gleeson College

The Year It All Ended is ideal for senior English classes but would be particularly beneficial in NSW classrooms as it deals with the concepts of journey, change and discovery. As a related text for the new HSC Area of Study, the novel explores the world’s discovery that everything has changed, the changes in the returned soldiers, Tiney’s physical discovery of her lost brother, cousin and their secrets, her discovery of her own inner strength, as well as the reader’s discovery of the rapidly changing laws post World War 1 (such as reminders that prior to the end of the war, women in Australia were legally required to leave their jobs once they married).

Bernadette Coppock, Heathcote High School

An appropriate book for English, History and Issues classes at a secondary level. Students could research or write:
• Placing themselves in the role of any of the characters and writing about how they felt.
• Making comparisons between the effects of modern war and how families feel who have lost a son or daughter in modern day battles.
• The effects of the great time delay in getting any news faced by those in 1918.
• The role of women in Victoria in 1918.
• The relationship between the First World War and the rise of suffragettes.
• It is a particularly interesting book for boys of 15 plus to read to help them understand how families feel when their sons don’t come home.

Alexia Gibbons, Teacher Librarian, Ivanhoe Girls’ Grammar School