Looking For Alibrandi: Brief Overview, Analysis And Literacy

Assessment 1:

1. Explain and justify why literature is important. You could address why it is important in general, for a specific age group, or a particular group in society. This justification should be relevant to your chosen book – approx. 450 words

The significance of literature in school children allows access to different literatures. Teachers and parents should help students develop a love and interest in reading. Not only is reading literature important in developing skills to succeed in a school or post-school, but it is valuable for other reasons as well. Literature has a role in children’s personal development. There are values in exposing children to literature because it provides students with opportunities to respond and it gives students appreciation about their own heritage. (Crippen, 2017)

Literature has different benefits from students learning such as cultural value, expanding horizons, building vocabulary, improve writing skills and critical thinking. (Drucker, 2013)

Cultural value stories have built an importance to human history since it began from what we are aware of facts, myths and legends. If students are to understand and participate in the culture to which they live in, they must first learn about the stories that culture has been built around.

Expanding horizons everyone tends to get so caught up in their own lives that they forget what’s going on in the world around them. And children and teens are particularly prone to this. It’s a goal of education to expose them to ideas from other cultures, to teach them about the histories and peoples of other times and places, what it was like to live in that period, how the people talked and thought and acted.

Having a large and wide-ranging vocabulary is essential for several reasons. It helps with both writing and reading abilities. The larger your vocabulary is, the more in-depth discussions you can have on important topics and issues, both in and out of the classroom. Reading literature is a great way to build and enhance vocabulary, because of the descriptive nature of a story, any novel will include plenty of words students have never heard. They’ll see those words learning their meanings.

Writing skills can be taught, but the best way to become a better writer is to read books. Students who are encouraged to read have more knowledge of how language works. This effect can even be made transparent by encouraging students to try writing in a particular book or author’s style.

Critical thinking in education is to give students the tools they need to become a valuable part of society, and one such tool is the ability to think critically. Teachers often use literature to promote this kind of thought by teaching students how to analyse what they read, understand others’ opinions. Few activities give students’ critical abilities such a workout as the close reading of a work of literature. (Drucker, 2013)

2. Provide a brief overview of your book e.g. storyline / characters / setting etc. – approx. 100 words

Josephine Alibrandi is a 17 years old teenager who lives with her single mother of Italian decent; Josephine is in her final year of high school. She is introduced as a typical teenager, with issues of insecurity, peer pressure, and maintaining relationships with those around her. The book begins with Josephine as arrogant student who is see to be challenging the authority of Sister Gregory in religious education class of St Martha’s High School, a wealthy Catholic private school that Josephine attends on a scholarship. She feels isolated due to her illegitimacy and Italian family history, and dislikes her strict grandmother Nonna. Josephine’s father, Michael Andretti, who she has never met, has just moved back to Sydney and work in a law firm, which adds another level to Josephine’s complexity.

3. Analyse the book using at least three of these categories: structure / narrative, language, social detail, genre, plot, characterisation, visuals / illustrations, setting, or theme. How do these aspects of the book provide insight and develop the readers’ understanding of diversity? Use examples from the book where possible – approx. 450 words

The characterisation of Josephine Alibrandi is that she is a 17-year-old student in her final year of school at a private catholic high school; Josephine is of Italian and Australian descent and finds it hard to fit into social groups due to her family having limited money compared to fellow students from much more well off families. Josephine lives with her mother, as her father has never been in her life until, during her final year of high school that creates another personal level that Josephine has to deal with, she finds out a family secret that her nonna has kept from her. By the end of the book, Josephine has made important and dramatic changes to her life ‘Relief because I was finally beginning to feel free. From whom? Myself, I think.’ (pg221)

The setting for the book Looking for Alibrandi is set within inner suburbs of Sydney in the 1990s where she and mother live. Josephine attends a private catholic high school, which she successfully earned a scholarship. Josephine has a big difference between the other students at the school as her family have little money and the other students come from wealthy and privileged backgrounds. After school Josephine goes to her grandmother’s house where they still live by Italian traditions. At the beginning of the book, Josephine’s father is not in her life until he moves back to Sydney to work.

Josephine is half Italian and Australian and often finds she is trying to belong to both cultural groups. Josephine feels like an outsider in the Italian community and also at school where most students are Australians. By the end of the book, Josephine’s cultural journey allows her to find pride in her Italian background and family traditions. She learns to appreciate cultural traditions and acknowledges culture as essential to her own identity.

The novel opens with Josephine as a typical teenager who feels that the world is so unfair to her. The issues that she faces are presented in a way that makes them relatable to all young adults. However, as Josephine comes across difficult situations and new relationships, she starts to view the world more positively. She learns that she should complain less about her life, as others may have worse problems. The tragedy of a friend’s suicide and learning about her own family’s past, makes Josephine more understanding to those around her, as she gets a handle on her own identity.

• https://sites.google.com/site/alibrandiwiki/home/culture
• https://www.gradesaver.com/looking-for-alibrandi/study-guide/summary
• https://brightkite.com/essay-on/a-character-research-of-josephine-alibrandi-from-searching-for-alibrandi-by-melina-marchetta

4. Discuss the factors that impact on the literacy of the group in the book. Justify why these factors could impact on a person’s / group’s literacy. Use examples from the book where possible – approx. 450 words

The impact that literacy has through the book Looking for Alibrandi is it can provide an insight for other Australian’s potentially in Josephine’s same position being a second-generation Australian. It can be a tough situation coming to a new country unable to communicate in the same language and dealing with a change in culture, Joesphine states in the book “I hope I never have to live in a country where I can’t communicate with my neighbor.” (pg 170) this is referring to her nonna and the struggles she had to deal when she immigrated to Australia.

Through the start of the book Josephine refuses to accept the traditions of her Italian heritage and tries to do everything she can to avoid it, but as the book progresses Josephine begins to change her ways and starts to understand how lucky she is and how the family had to struggle to fit into society and worked at having the Italian culture accepted. The quote that I believe fits this is “You can’t hate what you’re part of. What you are. I resent it most of the time, curse it always, but I’ll be part of me till the day I die.” (pg 218) Josephines realizes and accepts that her Italian heritage will always be part of her.

Josephine grows as a teenager throughout the book as she deal with her family, friends and trying to be accepted in a society that was still adapting to the diverse difference in heritage and cultural traditions, In the quote “But I think I cried more our of relief than self-pity. Relief because I was beginning to feel free. From whom? Myself, I think.” (pg 313) Josephine comes to idea that only she is holding herself back in society and begins to not worry what other think of her heritage and starts to get involved with family traditions and also include her friends into these things as well.