Swimming Upstream

Swimming Upstream - Anthony Fingleton

Swimming upstream is a factual text on the life of Australian swimmer Anthony Fingleton. This autobiography tells of the struggles, hardships, the proud moments, Anthony’s family life and other facades that lead to his successful career as a swimmer. This text has also been turned into an Australian movie and displays a positive image of Australia. Although this is an autobiography the text is written like a narrative and follows the basic structure of an everyday novel.

This autobiography is highly informative about the life of an athlete wanting to strive for success and the challenges that they need to overcome. It is highly engaging and inspiring to read this text and many students who have a love for sport would be able to relate to the issues articulated throughout the story. Anthony Fingleton’s road to success was not an easy one and by reading this text a sense of pride, resilience, motivation and determination is clear in this author’s journey.  This novel would be most appropriate for student’s years 9-12 as it deals with issues within society during a historical time period. Older students would be able to gain a clearer sense of the time the events occurred, the moods and emotions taken from Anthony’s point of view and the different viewpoints which can further engage them. This autobiography creates many cross curricular opportunities through subjects such as SOSE, history, drama, English and P.E which can all connect to English. This is a truly inspiring story and would highly engage and be relatable for the young adults in our classrooms.

Author: Anthony Fingleton

2002, Text publishing Company Melbourne, Victoria

IBSN: 1-877008-29-X

Genre/theme: Autobiographical

Age: 14 -18 (years 9-12)

Contributor: Keelan Mackle