The English for Life Home Language series contains contemporary learning and teaching material for home language learners and uses similar themes to provide a source of general knowledge of increasing depth. English for Life is an integrated language text, compiled according to the requirements of the Curriculum and Assessment Policy Statement and approved by the National Department of Education for use in schools. The texts extend the learner’s understanding and application of language usage and language skills, as learners are required to interpret and respond to a variety of visual material; reading and understanding literature. A Teacher’s Guide for each level provides suggestions for presenting lessons and a full set of answer keys. An accompanying CD assists teachers with copies of rating scales: rubrics, crosswords and dealing with exams.

This book focuses on non-fictional, visual narratives (including comics; graphic narratives; animated documentaries and online, interactive documentaries) that attempt to represent violent experiences, primarily in the Levant. In doing so it explores, from a philosophical perspective, the problem of representing trauma when language seems inadequate to describe our experiences and how the visual narrative form may help us with this. The book uses the concept of the ineffable to expand the notion of representation beyond the confines of a western, individualist notion of trauma as event based. In so doing, it engages a postcolonial perspective of trauma, which treats violence as ongoing and connected to several incidents of violence across time and space. This book demonstrates how the formal qualities of visual, non-fiction may help close the gap between representation and experience through the process of 'dark' writing.