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Well, Year 11s, I’ve been saying for a while now that we were running out of time and, here he have it, we are actually out of time.

On Monday, while I am away being a student myself, you will complete the language-analysis task in the 100 minutes before recess. You can bring a dictionary, but otherwise this task is closed book. You will have three texts to analyse for persuasive language. Remember, you are not being asked to say who is right or wrong about the issue. You are being asked to explain how the writers used words and images to convince you of their contention.

On Thursday, we should have 100 minutes or do some lightning revision before the English exam, but there is an assembly planned so we might have half that time. Although we’ll have very little time, I’ll try to remind of some of the key things are Macbeth, Generals Die in Bed, and the context texts: Scission, Little Miss Sunshine, and Montana 1948.

Then, on Friday, you will have the English exam first thing in the morning. You will have three hours to write three essays: a text response (about Macbeth or Generals), a context response about family, and a language analysis essay in response to one article. I expect that you’ll find this exam a hard slog but, if you stay on track and keep going, you’ll do just fine.

Any questions?

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Cosi: “All the characters are mad in Cosi.” To what extent do you agree?

Maestro: Neither Paul or Keller experience genuine growth in the novel Maestro.

Identity and Belonging: Real identity can only come from a clear and shared purpose.

Language Analysis: How does the writer used language to persuade in this piece?

And, as a last-day special, I will respond within two hours to any practice essays that you send me. You can also come and see me any time between 9.30 and 1.30 today.

Year 12s,

I will be in Q10 tomorrow for our regularly scheduled class, but I won’t be there until 9.30. Feel free to come and and share your practice essays with me.

Step 1: Type of story – maturation, excess, revenge, riddle, love, fall, escape, forbidden love, quest, underdog, rise, chase, rescue, rivalry, sacrifice, discovery, temptation, transformation, redemption.

Step 2: Three characters – can be pure archetypes or hybrids

Step 3: Write the back story of your protagonist – age, gender, family, education, location, experiences

Step 4: Write the back story of another major character

Step 5: Your major character is five years old and home alone for two hours. Write a short story about how she or he spends the time.

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In the recipe in the almanac, I recommend that you open with a global statement about the topic, in this case identity and belonging.

Bree asked if I could give some examples, so here goes.

Topic: The most noble course can be to do what your community expects.

In Monty Python’s iconic film The Life of Brian, the title character instructs his many followers that they must all be individuals. As a crowd, they chant back in unison, “Yes, we’re all individuals!” This scene is openly mocking the tension in the twentieth century where we act and identify ourselves as individuals, while at the same time we avidly consume the same products and believe the same things. Literature of the last fifty or sixty years is rich with examples of both sides of this debate. On one side we have the outcasts and rebels of Westerns and war movies who decide to abandon their lawless ways for the good of the community. On the other hand we have counter-culture rebels, with and without causes, who implore us to shake off the restrictions of community life in order to be who we really are, to be an genuine individual. Navigating a noble course between these competing ideas can be tricky at the best of times.

 

And here’s another.

Topic: We are only truly ourselves in our place of birth.

In the classic story The Wizard of Oz, Dorothy is transported to a distant and magical land where she is transformed from being a victim of circumstances into being a plucky heroine complete with a band of loyal companions. Despite all that she learns and achieves in Oz, her famous line of yearning is simple, “There’s no place like home.” For all that we can travel the globe and reinvent ourselves, there are parts of our identity and sense of ourselves that will always be tied back to the place, and the community, that we were born into. From our earliest days, we learn about the geography and customs of our birthplace. And these characteristics play a crucial part in forming our identities, in making us the people that we are, no matter how far away we travel.

Now, neither of these are perfect, but they should give you an idea of how you can start with a statement that lays out the basics of your understanding of identity and belonging in relation to the prompt.

On the off chance that you need to refresh your memory about how new words are made, you can skip through the seven presentations again.

Identity and Belonging: The most noble course can be to do what your community expects.

Cosi: Cosi is a harmless fantasy that allows us to feel good about those who struggle with mental illness.

Maestro: “Maestro is only a story about talented men who struggle to adapt.” Do you agree?

Language Analysis: how does the writer used language to persuade in this article?

As always, you can send me your work.

Now that we’ve finished our processes for how new words are made, things are pretty simple.

On Monday afternoon, I’ll work you through my recommended approach to creating an effective presentation.

Then, on Tuesday and Wednesday, you’ll have 150 minutes in the library to create a terrific presentation about three to five words in English.

For each word, you will tell the audience
1. What the word means, including multiple meanings.
2. How the usage patterns have changes over the years.
3. Which process(es) are responsible for the creation of this word.
4. How this/these processes work.
5. Two sentences showing this work in action

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On Monday morning, we will building up a map of family relationships from Montana 1948 and Little Miss Sunshine. We’ll then flesh the map out with examples, written in whole and fluent sentences, just like the ones that you will be writing in your essays on Thursday.

On Thursdays, you guessed it, you’ll have 100 minutes, all closed-book, to write a context essay about family.

On Friday, we’ll jump back into language analysis, our final topic for the year. All things goes well, we’ll watch some of the polemic An Inconvenient Truth, and we’ll spot and explain the many techniques used to persuade in this film.

On Tuesday, we will finally finish our work on all those rhetorical techniques. We should only have a handful to go.

On Thursday, we’ll read a story together: perhaps Dorothy Parker’s Arrangement in Black and White.

On Friday, I’ll bring in a pile of Dr Suess books, so that you can complete your final assessment on the rhetoric unit. You’ll each choose a different book and write up a short essay explaining which techniques are used in that book, and how each technique works.

Identity and Belonging: We are only truly ourselves in our place of birth.

Cosi: The real heroes of the play Cosi are the inmates in the asylum.

Maestro: How is music used to construct meaning in Maestro?

Language analysis: How does the writer use language to persuade the reader?
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As always, you can send me your work, and I will send you feedback.

The better Identity and Belonging essays that we read yesterday had body paragraphs that were not just a topic sentence and relevant examples from texts.

Instead, the really effective essays had paragraphs that started with a strong topic sentence, and then went on to expand on and explain that idea, working in examples from the texts only to add meaning. I know this might seem like a small different, but it makes a big difference in terms of the sophistication and quality of the end result.

You should try this approach in your practice essays. Feel free, of course, to send them in and I’ll give you feedback.