Ms. Dominico’s Year 12 VCE English Class

1 Multiple realities ** NOTE: This is for Thursday May 15th’s Class — Your homework tonight is on “reality TV”

THINK:
Trigger questions
• Do different people experience different versions of reality?
• Can multiple versions of reality exist at the same time?
• Can we experience more than one reality in a lifetime?

READ:
Although reality might be defined as that which concretely exists and is not rendered by the imagination, you should consider that we are all strongly motivated in our behaviour by things that can’t be scientifically shown to exist. In the one society, multiple realities exist. People from different backgrounds experience the world in different ways. The same can be said for people from the same background who hold different beliefs, values and ideals. Some people believe that UFOs regularly visit the earth and devote time searching for them, although there is no scientific or recorded proof that UFOs exist. If your behaviour is motivated by a certain belief, that belief can become a part of your reality. If we put all the things that motivate us together, we might find the following: superstitions, wild hopes and fantasies, mixed in with widely shared beliefs. Taking these factors into account, one person can experience a number of realities at any one time.

TODAY’s TASK: Writing activity

Prompt: “Not all realities are created equal.”
Write a brief piece about yourself as a child exploring the changes you have undergone to become the person that you are today.

• Do you have a different relationship to the world now than you did then?
• Were you encouraged to accept ideas that you now question?
• Are things that were once mysterious to you no longer so?
• What about things that once thrilled you, worried you or frightened you – have these changed?
• Can you recall an experience you shared with another person (e.g. a concert or a movie) which you both remember quite differently? What are the differences in your recollections? Why do you think you have remembered the experience differently?
+ Does one person have the right to criticise another person’s experience of reality? Is one person’s experience of reality more valid or important than another’s?

(** WRITE this as a POST on your BLOG**)