WHAT IS THE CREATING AND PRESENTING AOS ASKING OF ME?

The Creating and Presenting Area of Study is asking you to think deeply and creatively about humanity and the universe.

Firstly, it presents you with a Context to direct your thinking, in this case you are being asked to wonder about issues surrounding people's understandings of self and place OR the lessons life teaches us. You need to keep the Context being considered at the forefront of your mind as you work on your learning and assessment tasks.

Next, it asks you to use a focus text as a beginning point from which to launch your exploration of the Context. You need to read your focus text and think about the issues and ideas arising within it and how the author/s delivers their perspectives on things to the reader. Having done this, you need to expand your thinking to consider where these issues and ideas are arising elsewhere within society, beyond the set text.

Finally, it asks you to use your knowledge and thinking on all these things to present your own perspectives in expository, persuasive and imaginative texts you you create. Your are given a last challenge at this point of assessment as you will be presented with a writing prompt that you must engage with and use to shape your piece of writing. Alongside this your texts need to also demonstrate you have been engaging in deep thought about the Context and how it is apparent in the focus text and the world.

SPIRAL OUT



One interesting way some people find helps them understand this Outcome is to view the focus text as the centre of their study from which they can spiral out their thinking to incorporate consideration of all the other influencing elements. E.g., TEXT - characters - themes - values - author purpose - use of literary devices - CONTEXT - beyond the focus text,  issues - intertextuality - universalities - philosophies - PROMPT - connections - inspiration - perspectives - insights - WRITING - my creation, my ideas, my messages, informed and sophisticated, linked to Context, text/s and prompt.

2015 Contexts and Focus Texts

  

CREATING AND PRESENTING 2015 STARTS HERE!

The Creating and Presenting Area of Study breakdown:

For the Creating and Presenting Area of Study you will be required to create pieces of writing in a variety of forms. This area of study requires you produce expository, persuasive and imaginary forms of writing. You will work with focus texts which will provide you with examples of writing techniques and ideas to inspire your own creations. These focus texts are models of writing. This area of study also requires you to reflect on a Context and a prompt when you create your writing pieces. The writing you create needs to contain obvious links to the focus text, Context and prompt.

In short, create expository, persuasive and imaginative pieces of writing that -

• Explore the Context

• Draw from the focus text

• Consider the ideas of the prompt 

SOMETIMES GLADNESS - The Lessons Life Teaches Us

Unit 2, Outcome 2 – Creating and Presenting

'There is nothing in life as beautiful as life...'?

Welcome to your studies of Bruce Dawe's collection of poems entitled Sometimes Gladness. As part of the Creating and Presenting Areas of Study for your VCE, this study asks you to explore a Context, focus text and further sources to show that you can engage with universal issues and topics that influence and affect humanity. When you think about such things and share your thoughts, you are participating in influencing the world we all belong to, be it on a local, national or global scale. Your Creating and Presenting studies are designed with the fact that you each have a voice and the power to share it, the power to shape the world you live in in some way, thankfully, very freely within our society. The poetry of Dawe is to be used as a springboard for inspiration and ideas for you to utilise in the creation of your own writing pieces, pieces that must be designed with purposes and audiences in mind, with messages to deliver to the reader. 'The lessons life teaches us' is the Context from which you are to approach your studies, so keep this at the forefront of your mind as you zone in on topic possibilities for creating persuasive, imaginative and expository texts.

1. SG - Intro sheet.docx by on Scribd

Beginning to explore the Context

EXPLORING IDEAS OF UNDERSTANDING SELF AND PLACE OR THE LESSONS LIFE TEACHES US - Where does an investigation of this Context lead us...?

The first clue to what we need to develop our knowledge around is staring us in the face. What do you think it could possibly be? Of course, what can 'self and place' mean? Or, what can 'the lessons life teaches us' mean?

Defining concepts such as self and place and the lessons life teaches us can be an involved and exciting journey once you start to delve into the complexities of ideas that are associated with them. Just like Garfield, we are going to put on our reporter's hats for a time. We are going to conduct a series of vox pop interviews to get to the bottom of just what 'self and place' or 'the lessons life teaches us' can mean to different people. We are also going to make sure we complete a thorough investigation by developing some extra vox pops that ask for comment on issues that arise around the ideas of 'understanding self and place' or 'the lessons life teaches us'.


What does it mean to you to understand one's self and how do we all fit within our world's societies?

REPORTER DUTIES:

1. Organise paper and a pen, write up the heading Understanding Self and Place Vox Pops
2. Write down the compulsory vox pop question - What does the idea of self and place mean to you?
3. Develop two further questions that are related to the Context, 'Understanding Self and Place'. For example: What is your response to the statement racism is prevalent in Australian society?
4. Conduct interviews with a minimum of three people and record their responses.
5. Publish the responses you get on our Padlet Post It Wall. While doing this add any further insights you find yourself thinking about the Context. You can link to images and video to enhance your comments.

USING PADLET/WALLWISHER

To use Padlet you will need to create an account. Set up your account using the MSC guidelines, ie., use your school username and e-mail address to sign up. Your stickynotes will need to feature your school username to be considered as your completed learning for the task.



Sign up to Padlet and then contribute to our discussion wall

Sign up to Padlet and then contribute to our discussion wall

Created with Padlet
Understanding Self and Place discussion wall

Unit 2: Outcome 2 - Creating and Presenting Writing Folio Task

Scribd copy S-N tasks - SAC... by on Scribd

Sometimes Gladness - Life Cycle by Red Bingham

Life Cycle by Bruce Dawe by on Scribd

Connections between Sometimes Gladness and other texts

TASK:

• Consider the Context, a focus text poem/s and short film and identify connections they share in ideas, themes and topics.
• Analyse all texts under review for literary devices they use, are there any techniques shared by the texts?
• Develop Context writing ideas using the Context, texts and your thinking about and analysis of them to inspire you.

EXAMPLE RESPONSE:




Context - The Lessons Life Teaches Us
Focus text/poems - Sometimes Gladness
'First Corinthians at the Crossroads'
'Miss Mac'
'Then'
'Bedroom Conversations'
Beyond the set text influence: Granny O'Grimm's Sleeping Beauty

The connections I can see between 'First Corinthians at the Crossroads' and Granny O'Grimm's Sleeping Beauty are that they both deal with the idea of female expectations of themselves. They also are a commentary on the pressures society place on people in terms of stereotypes and how they can lead to a person feeling as lesser. In terms of 'the lessons life life teaches us', both texts imply that predominantly, our societies and cultures teach us to value youth and beauty above anything else. In 'First Corinthians at the Crossroads' the female narrator explores a turning point in her life as she changes her hair from 'blonde' to 'brunette'. The idea that it is 'all over' for her as she makes this change suggests she is resigned to the fact that she is aging and her 'lips ... [have] tasted their last Tango'. In this poem Dawe expresses the idea that women are pigeonholed by a society that denotes a woman of a certain age is not viewed as desirable or worthwhile, she must 'an everlasting...dusk...confront'. Confrontingly, he outlines that this type of judgement can even take place based on the colour of a woman's hair! Granny O'Grimm is very much in agreeance with this outlook on society. The hurt and anger she feels at being treated as redundant is clear as she lays a curse to send them to their death as they fall asleep, a reflection of her feelings that they have written her off as well as dead just because she is old.

'Miss Mac' discusses the inevitably of being forgotten with age. The opening lines of the poem declare, 'In order to be forgotten, it's not necessary to do much, except watch the wrinkles gather'. The links between 'Miss Mac' and Granny O'Grimm's Sleeping Beauty are obvious. They both put forward the premise that the roles and activities for elderly in society are limited. 'Miss Mac' approaches the idea from a resigned position with a tone of sadness,

'Then' - As you age society loses respect for you. Even though this is wrong, this is the way it is.

'Bedroom Conversations' - Intertextuality is at work in this poem, it references the fairytale Snow White. The vanity of youth is highlighted in this piece of poetry, with the young girls in the poem completely focussed on their looks. Dawe makes it clear that vanity such as this is making people and our society ugly. It is the same idea as O'Rourke, the director of Granny O'Grimm's Sleeping Beauty, is presenting in her re-interpretation of the fairytale Sleeping Beauty.

Some literary devices that I can see at work in the poetry and Granny O'Grimm's Sleeping Beauty are:

Intertextuality - Biblical and fairy tale references are used in some of the texts
Anaphora - 'Then' uses anaphora by opening each stanza with the phrase, 'When you are older...'
Repetition - 'First Corinthians at the Crossroads' and Granny O'Grimm's Sleeping Beauty each employ repitition.
Juxtaposition - Juxtaposition of old and young is used in each of the poems and Granny O'Grimm's Sleeping Beauty'.

Further beyond the set text inspiration:

We Own The Night by 'The Wanted' also explores ideas, themes and topics that relate to age and expectations society has for people and how they should behave depending upon their age. The song and its film clip challenge the notion that age renders you useless, redundant and forgotten in the world. It aligns young and old alongside each other in celebration, welcome of the prescence of everyone. The lesson this text puts forward strongly is the idea of seizing the day - 'carpe diem', and that you can make the choice to subvert stereotypical roles that it can feel like society has been put in place to rule and regulate your life dependent on looks, age, etc.



A writing idea/s for this Context and Focus text:

A piece that could work for this Context, focus and is obviously inspired by ideas beyond the set text would be -

An expository e-zine article that explores whether the expectations Western popular culture perpetuates are truly ostracising to certain demographics, especially the elderly and females. It will feature a visual that uses juxtaposition, just as the majority of the influencing texts do. In this case, the image of Barbie compared with a real woman will be how juxtaposition is employed. Though the discussion will be looking at all aspects of the topic, there will be a slight incorporation of opinion as I will outline my viewpoint at the end of the article, after I have explored the topic in depth.

The visual that will accompany the article:

Using this example response as a guide, analyse one of the other short films we have viewed to complete the task.