HSC English 2027 to 2030 prescribed texts by focus area (Advanced and Standard)

This page lists the 2027 to 2030 prescribed texts for HSC English Advanced and English Standard, which follow the new 2024 syllabuses and are first examined in the 2027 HSC. NESA says these prescriptions must not be taught until Term 4 2026. If you sit the 2026 HSC, you use the older 2019 to 2026 list instead. English Advanced students study four prescribed texts and English Standard students study three, drawn from the lists below (the rules for each course are in the sections that follow). Where a text is a collection, all the listed poems or stories together are the prescribed text, and NESA says an exam question that quotes a text will quote the listed edition (if that edition is out of print, schools may use any suitable edition).

Where the data comes from. The titles, authors, editions (publisher, year and ISBN) and set poems, stories and essays below are NESA's data, read directly from the NSW Curriculum Year 12 content pages on 7 October 2026. The "also on 2019 to 2026" notes come from comparing those lists with NESA's 2019 to 2026 prescriptions PDF. Where a title appears on both lists, the course, module or set selection can differ, and we say so.

Texts and human experiences (Advanced and Standard)

The same list applies to both courses. You study one of these as your prescribed text for this focus area.

Prose fiction

• Jessica Au, Cold Enough for Snow. Giramondo Publishing, 2022. New to the prescriptions.
• David Malouf, An Imaginary Life. Random House UK, 1999. New to the prescriptions (Malouf's Earth Hour was on the old list, a different book).
• Henry Lawson, The Penguin Henry Lawson Short Stories. Penguin, 2009. Set stories: The Drover's Wife, The Union Buries Its Dead, Shooting the Moon, Our Pipes, The Loaded Dog. Also on 2019 to 2026 (Standard Module A), same edition and same five stories.

Poetry

• Rosemary Dobson, Selected poems of Rosemary Dobson. NESA, 2026. Set poems: Young Girl at a Window, Summer's End, Cock Crow, A Fine Thing, Child of Our Time, Piltdown Man, Every Man His Own Sculptor. Also on 2019 to 2026 (Common Module), but a different book and selection (see below).
• Gwen Harwood, Selected Poems. Penguin Books, 2001. Set poems: The Glass Jar, The Violets, At Mornington, Father and Child (I and II), A Valediction, Beyond Metaphor, The Sharpness of Death. Partly on 2019 to 2026: only the single poem Father and Child was set before.
• Samuel Wagan Watson, Love Poems and Death Threats. University of Queensland Press, 2014. Set poems: The Remedy of Butterflies, Finn, Let's Talk!, El Diablo Highway, Blacktracker... Blackwriter... Blacksubject, End of Days, Addendum. New to the prescriptions.

Drama, film, media or nonfiction

• Richard Flanagan, Question 7 (nonfiction). Random House Australia, 2024. New to the prescriptions.
• Michael Gow, Away (drama). Currency Press, 1988. Also on 2019 to 2026 (EAL/D Module C only, same edition), so it is new to Advanced and Standard.
• Rachel Perkins, One Night the Moon (film), 2001. Also on 2019 to 2026 (Standard Module A and EAL/D Module A).

The new Rosemary Dobson selection

Rosemary Dobson is prescribed in both the old and new cycles, but the book and the selection changed (Rosemary Dobson Collected, UQP 2012, before; NESA's own Selected poems now). Only Young Girl at a Window, Summer's End and Cock Crow appear in both. If your notes are on the 2019 to 2026 Dobson poems, treat the other four new poems (A Fine Thing, Child of Our Time, Piltdown Man, Every Man His Own Sculptor) as new reading.

Textual conversations (English Advanced)

You study one pair. Each pair is joined by "and" in NESA's list.

• Barbara Baynton, Bush Studies (prose fiction; Text Publishing, 2012), with Ali Cobby Eckermann, Inside My Mother (poetry; Giramondo Publishing, 2015). Set poems: Clay, Inside My Mother, Warriors at Salt Creek, Unearth, Eyes, Key, Jacob, Nurture. Inside My Mother was also on 2019 to 2026 (Standard Module A), but only three of the eight set poems (Unearth, Eyes and Key) were also set then.
• William Blake, The Complete Poems (poetry; Penguin UK, 1977), with Olga Tokarczuk, Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead (prose fiction; Text Publishing, 2018). Set Blake: To Morning; from Songs of Experience The Sick Rose, The Tyger, The Human Abstract, A Poison Tree; Proverbs of Hell (Plates 7 to 11); The [First] Book of Urizen, Chapter 1 (Plate 3). Both new to the prescriptions.
• John Keats, The Complete Poems (poetry; Penguin Classics, 1977), with Jane Campion, Bright Star (film, 2009). Set poems: On First Looking into Chapman's Homer, When I have fears that I may cease to be, La Belle Dame sans Merci, Ode on a Grecian Urn, Ode to a Nightingale, Ode on Melancholy, Bright star! would I were steadfast as thou art. Both also on 2019 to 2026 (Advanced Module A, as a pair). Bright Star is the same film. For Keats the selection changed: five of the seven set poems (La Belle Dame sans Merci, Ode to a Nightingale, Ode on a Grecian Urn, When I have fears, Bright star!) were set before, while To Autumn and The Eve of St Agnes are not set again.
• Shakespeare, Hamlet (drama; Cambridge University Press, 2014), with Emily Dickinson, The Complete Poems (poetry; Faber Poetry, 2017). Set Dickinson poems (by Johnson number): 167 To learn the Transport by the Pain, 280 I felt a Funeral, in my Brain, 384 No Rack can torture me, 435 Much Madness is divinest Sense, 449 I died for Beauty but was scarce, 670 One need not be a Chamber to be Haunted, 712 Because I could not stop for Death, 1206 The show is not the show. Both also on 2019 to 2026, but only in Extension 1 (Elective 4), as two of six separate choices rather than a pair, and not in Advanced. Hamlet is the same edition. The Dickinson selection differs: only 280, 449 and 712 were set before.
• Shakespeare, Julius Caesar (drama; Cambridge University Press, 2014), with Niccolo Machiavelli, The Prince (nonfiction, translated by Tim Parks; Penguin, 2011). Both new to the prescriptions.
• Virginia Woolf, Mrs Dalloway (prose fiction; Penguin, 2019), with Stephen Daldry, The Hours (film, 2002). Both also on 2019 to 2026 (Advanced Module A, as a pair). The Hours is the same film; the Mrs Dalloway edition is newer (Penguin Classics, 2000, before).

Critical study of literature (English Advanced)

You study one.

• Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice. Penguin Classics, 2003. New to the prescriptions (Austen's Emma was on the old list).
• Michael Ondaatje, Warlight. Vintage, 2019. New to the prescriptions.
• Louise Gluck, Poems. Penguin Classics, 2022. Set poems: The Wild Iris, Nostos, Vita Nova (You saved me, you should remember me), Youth, Mitosis, Harvest (It's autumn in the market), A Village Life. New to the prescriptions.
• W. B. Yeats, WB Yeats: Poems selected by Seamus Heaney. Faber and Faber, 2005. Set poems: The Wild Swans at Coole, An Irish Airman Foresees His Death, Easter 1916, The Second Coming, Sailing to Byzantium, An Acre of Grass, Long-legged Fly. New to the prescriptions.
• Shakespeare, Othello. Cambridge University Press, 2014. New to the prescriptions.
• Shakespeare, King Henry IV, Part 1. Cambridge University Press, 1998. Also on 2019 to 2026 (Advanced Module B), same edition.

King Henry IV, Part 1 is on both lists. It was prescribed for 2019 to 2026 and is prescribed again for 2027 to 2030 in the same edition, so existing study material on it carries over. See also our guide to King Henry IV, Part 1.

Language, identity and culture (English Standard)

You study one.

• Jhumpa Lahiri, The Namesake. HarperCollins, 2004. Also on 2019 to 2026 (EAL/D Module C only, same edition), so it is new to Standard.
• Tara June Winch, Swallow the Air. University of Queensland Press, 2021. Also on 2019 to 2026 (EAL/D Module B only), with a newer edition (UQP 2006 before), so it is new to Standard.
• Raymond Antrobus, The Perseverance. Tin House Books, 2021. Set poems: Echo, Jamaican British, Ode to My Hair, Dear Hearing World, The Ghost of Laura Bridgman Warns Helen Keller About Fame, Dr Marigold Reevaluated, To Sweeten Bitter. New to the prescriptions.
• Adam Aitken, Kim Cheng Boey and Michelle Cahill (eds), Contemporary Asian Australian Poets. Puncher and Wattmann, 2013. Set poems: Stamp Collecting (Boey), The Onyx Ring (Khokhar), Bumboat Cruise on the Singapore River (Wei Wei Lo), Airforce Ones (Musa), New Accents (Yu), Circular Breathing (Savige), Translucent Jade (Ten). Also on 2019 to 2026 (Standard Module A and EAL/D Module B, same anthology), but only three of the seven set poems (New Accents, Circular Breathing and Translucent Jade) were also set then.
• Colm Bairead, The Quiet Girl (film), 2022. New to the prescriptions.
• Alana Valentine, Shafana and Aunt Sarrinah (drama). Currency Press, 2010. Also on 2019 to 2026 (Standard Module A and EAL/D Module B), same edition.

Close study of literature (English Standard)

You study one.

• M. T. Anderson, Feed. Candlewick Press, 2012. Also on 2019 to 2026 (Standard Module B), same edition.
• Robbie Arnott, Limberlost. Text Publishing, 2023. New to the prescriptions.
• Carol Ann Duffy, Collected Poems. Pan MacMillan Paperbacks, 2019. Set poems: War Photographer, Stealing, In Mrs Tilscher's Class, We Remember Your Childhood Well, The Good Teachers, Little Red-Cap, Mrs Midas. Not on the 2019 to 2026 list. Only two Duffy poems appeared then (Originally and Yes, Officer), inside an anthology for EAL/D, and neither is among these seven.
• Oodgeroo Noonuccal, My People. Wiley, 2020. Set poems: Corroboree, Ballad of Totems, No More Boomerang, Son of Mine, We Are Going, The Past, Reed Flute Cave. On the 2019 to 2026 lists in a different form. Standard Module B then set a selection of Oodgeroo poems rather than the book, and The Past and Reed Flute Cave are the two also set for 2027 to 2030. My People itself (Wiley 2008) was an EAL/D Module A text, where Corroboree, We Are Going and The Past were also set.
• Shakespeare, Much Ado About Nothing. Cambridge University Press, 1998. New to the prescriptions.
• Denis Villeneuve, Arrival (film), 2016. New to the prescriptions.

The craft of writing

There are no prescribed texts for The craft of writing in either course.

Older study pages (2019 to 2026 list only)

These pages cover texts from the 2019 to 2026 list that are not on the 2027 to 2030 Advanced or Standard lists. They are useful mainly if you sit the 2026 HSC: All the Light We Cannot See, Nineteen Eighty-Four, The Crucible, The Tempest and The Poetry of Rosemary Dobson (the older selection). Past the Shallows is also on the older list, but it is prescribed again for 2027 to 2030 in English Studies and EAL/D (see below), so its page still applies there.

Does my course need a Shakespeare text?

English Advanced: yes. Of your four prescribed texts, at least one must be by Shakespeare. The options this cycle are Hamlet and Julius Caesar (Textual conversations) and Othello and King Henry IV, Part 1 (Critical study of literature). Shakespeare is no longer a separate fixed category, so a play can also be your drama text.

English Standard: no. Standard students study three prescribed texts, one each from prose fiction, poetry, and drama, film, media or nonfiction. Much Ado About Nothing is one of the options in Close study of literature.

English Studies (2027 to 2030)

English Studies students study one text from this list for Narrative and human experiences: Favel Parrett, Past the Shallows (Hachette Australia, 2013); Ellen van Neerven (ed), Flock: First Nations Stories Then and Now (UQP, 2021; set stories Cloud Busting, Shadows on the Wall, Honey, Galah, Dreamers and Forbidden Fruit); Bruce Dawe, Selected poems of Bruce Dawe (NESA, 2026; Enter Without So Much as Knocking, Up the Wall, Homo Suburbiensis, Weapons Training, Life Cycle, The Not-so-good Earth, The Cornflake); Oodgeroo Noonuccal, My People (the same Wiley 2020 selection as Standard); Michelle Law, Miss Peony (drama, Currency Press, 2023); and Rachel Perkins, One Night the Moon (film, 2001).

For Writing for purpose they study at least four of six short texts: Evelyn Araluen, Finding Ways Home; Ray Bradbury, The Pedestrian; Helen Garner, Dear Mrs Dunkley; Luka Lesson, May Your Pen Grace the Page; George Saunders, Failures of Kindness; and Tim Winton, My Father's Axe. See what's changed in English Studies.

English EAL/D (2027 to 2030)

NESA publishes a separate list of six texts for each of Texts and human experiences, Language, identity and culture, and Close study of text. Students study one prose fiction text, one poetry text and one drama, film, media or nonfiction text across the course. Several titles are shared with the Standard list: The Namesake, Swallow the Air, The Perseverance, Arrival and My People, and Past the Shallows is shared with Studies. The full EAL/D lists are in what's changed in English EAL/D.

English Extension 1 and Extension 2

Each of the five English Extension 1 electives has six prescribed texts (30 in all), and you study three of them (at least two extended print) plus one related text of your own choosing. All 30 are named in what's changed in English Extension 1. English Extension 2 prescribes the author (Henry James, Haruki Murakami or Alexis Wright) and areas of critical enquiry, not particular works: see what's changed in English Extension 2.

For what else changed in the course, read what's changed in English Advanced and what's changed in English Standard. For English Studies, EAL/D and the Extension courses, see the sections above.