Getting Familiar with the Unfamiliar Level 2 is an easy-to-follow workbook that will prepare students for tackling this exam at the end of the year. Once students have completed the workbook they will be able to read any text they encounter with confidence and write thoughtful responses. The workbook has been created for students to use with little or no teacher intervention. However, it would also be a great resource in the classroom. The authors expect that, taken as a series of lessons, texts 1 and 2 of each section would take two to three hours each to work through thoroughly as a class. Texts have been carefully selected to: ' show exemplars of excellent writing (fiction and non-fiction) ' engage students in their study of poetry ' provide lots of practice at identifying and decoding language techniques/features ' teach students how to go 'beyond the text' and learn effective strategies to analyse texts ' teach students effective strategies for how to produce better personal reading responses. As well as teaching close reading of unfamiliar texts, we believe it is also a great resource to use in the classroom for a range of the NCEA English standards. Getting Familiar with the Unfamiliar Level 2 includes a wonderful range of interesting and challenging texts which students will respond positively to and the steps into analysis will provide some wonderfully insightful responses.