Monthly Archives: November 2019

Unit 3 Reading & Creating Texts Year 12 English Analytical Text Response

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This is an educational resource for Mainstream English Year 12 students who are studying Unit 3: Reading and Creating Texts: Analytical Text Response.

This resource material assumes year 12 students have read their Analytical Text or in some cases watched the movie related to this unit.

Most English classes discuss either the Creative Task or Analytical Task in their year 11 ‘Transition Classes’ to year 12 English (some schools call this ‘Head-start’) before the end of Term 4 in 2019.

If you have not read your texts for either the Creative or Analytical Tasks or watched the movie, then please do this over the school holidays so you are ready for Term 1 in January 2020.

What are the Task Requirements for Unit 3 Analytical Text Response?

  1. The Analytical Task is worth 30 marks for Unit 3.
  2. The analytical text response must be in written form (an essay that responds to a prompt).
  3. Approximately 800-1000 words in length, completed under SAC conditions, set by your respective school.
  4. In this area of study students identify, discuss and analyse how the features of selected texts create meaning using textual evidence to support their responses and how they influence interpretation.
  5. Students identify and analyse explicit and implied ideas and values in texts.

What does a High-level Analytical Response Include?

  1. Students must show a detailed knowledge and understanding of the world of the text.
  2. Look carefully at characters, events, settings, narrative, language and other textual features.
  3. Support their interpretation of arguments and statements about the texts with evidence, including quotations that are integrated into the discussion.
  4. Be able to discuss and analyse the values expressed by the text, especially the ‘Message of the Author’ in a text or the ‘Message of the Director’ in a film.
  5. Clearly show that your response links to the text and essay topic given.
  6. Structure the response logically using TEEL, with an Introduction / Body Paragraphs / Conclusion that develop your ideas and reasons why you support your interpretation of the essay prompt.
  7. Use high-level metalanguage appropriately to discuss textual features which should include narrative voice, imagery, stage directions (if text is a play), cinematography (if text is a film) and explain their significance.

See below an Example Introduction Analytical Text Response for a prompt on After Darkness by Christine Piper.  The Introduction has its Main Contention and Message of Author Colour Coded.

Prompt: “What else, through my misguided loyalty had I failed to see?”  After Darkness shows that loyalty is not always a virtue. Discuss.

Introduction / Main Contention / Message of Author

The historical novel After Darkness, by author Christine Piper, explores how the limits of loyalty and discretion are tested by a protagonist who is motivated by a sense of duty, subsequently, his beliefs and misconceptions about what this entails provides the moral tension at the heart of the novel and proves that loyalty is not always a virtue.  As a result of his misguided loyalty Ibaraki chose to be guided by spurious notions of traditional duty instead of loyalty to his own conscience and as a result love, connections with people, empathy and his personal relationships suffered.  Piper highlights that Ibaraki failed to see or realise the greatest importance of his betrayal of self and that his true loyalty was not to maintain silence but to speak out against evil, which in turn informs his decision 50 years later to write to the press publicly revealing what he knows of Unit 731.  Ultimately, by expressing the truth of the heinous crimes performed in Unit 731, Ibaraki redeems himself and acknowledges the past sins of Japan as well as his own darkness that he carried within him.

 

Unit 3 Year 12 Reading & Creating Texts Outcome 1 Creative Task

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 Image result for creative pictures for writingThis educational resource is for Year 12 Mainstream English students studying in 2020: Unit 3 Reading & Creating Texts, Outcome 1, the Creative Task in Term 1.

This resource material assumes year 12 students have read their Creative Text or in some cases watched the movie related to this unit.

Most English classes discuss the Creative Task in their year 11 ‘Transition Classes’ to year 12 English (some schools call this ‘Head-start’) before the end of Term 4 in 2019.

If you have not read your text or watched the movie then please do this over the school holidays so you are ready for Term 1 in January 2020. 

What is Required in Outcome 1, The Creative Task?

To produce a written Creative Response to your text with an accompanying Written Explanation of the decisions made in the writing process and how these demonstrate an understanding of the text.  The Creative Task is worth 30% of Unit 3.  The Creative Task is assessed out of 20 (word length depends on the school but usually 1000-1200 words) with the Written Explanation (world length depends on the school but usually 250-300 words) assessed out of 10 = 30 total marks.

Most Important Aspects of the Task

  1. Whatever form you decide to take in the Creative Task you must make a connection between the original text and your Creative Response.
  2. There must be a tangible relationship present, through an in-depth understanding of the original text’s features.
  3. These features include characterisation (what motivates these characters), setting, context, narrative structure, tone and writing/film style.
  4. Establishing a clear nexus [link] between the original text and your creative piece does not mean you need to replicate everything of the text; you can stylistically choose to reject or contrast elements of the original text – as long as these choices are deliberate and unambiguous [clear-cut].
  5. Therefore, your Creative Response must demonstrate that you read your original text closely and perceptively by acknowledging these features of the text.

Some Ideas for Developing a Creative Response

  1. Explore ideas in the original text from an alternative character’s perspective:

Give voice to a minor character that didn’t have a detailed backstory =

  1. allow the character to voice his/her attitude or experience about an important event or issue that is left unacknowledged by the main characters
  2. find a place in the text where this character can give their thoughts
  3. could be at a particular moment of crisis in the text
  4. the character could adopt an internal monologue directly delivered to other characters or only to the audience
  5. can contrast the views of the other characters
  6. must still explore the values of the text and connection to original text
  7. can be 1st person voice or use 3rd person limited
  1. Explore a gap or silence in the original text:

Describe what might have happened in the lead up to where the original text begins or what might have happened after it ends =

  1. Ask yourself what are the big questions, events, ideas or values that are not answered?
  2. Is there a mystery still not explained or explored?
  3. Fill in the gap or silence by rewriting a scene in a different voice like from 1st person to 3rd person voice to offer insight into the different perspectives on an issue
  4. Write a prologue or epilogue = what new insight can you can you add with this addition and extension of the text? It must add something new – otherwise it is a redundant addition
  5. Develop the suspense, rising tension, climax and resolution of an event further than the original text = change the setting but stay as true to the world of the original text as possible
  1. Re-contextualising the original text:

Putting the same type story or similar characters into a completely different context =

  1. This works well with an original text that has short stories where you can use the views and values from the original story to create characters in a new story with a different narrative, setting, major event, crisis or point of view but still directly connects to the original text’s point of view
  2. Works well if the original story has an accident that has ramifications for the characters, you could use this idea but create another type of accident aligning with the author’s views and values / or drawing attention to another thematic idea that was not explored in the original text

See my Example Creative Story from ‘The Boat’ in Island by Alistair MacLeod

Creative Essay on ‘The Boat’ short story in Island by Alistair MacLeod