Ms. Dominico’s Year 12 VCE English Class

Unit 3: Context SAC (SAC #4) Material: context-sac-1-sac-4-material-and-prompts
***NOTE: We have specified the audience…***

Another “How To” Tip!

What do I write?

Step 1: What are the ideas in the prompt? What does the prompt MEAN?

Step 2: How does the prompt relate to “Whose Reality?” (context)

Step 3: How does the prompt relate to Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind?

Step 4: What can I write that will address the ideas in Step 1, 2 and 3?

Granted that Ian McEwan is not a Year 12 VCE student, play along with me for the purposes of this activity.

Let’s Pretend:
* Ian is a Year 12 VCE student
* that he was given the same prompt as you for Post #6 (memory and lives shaping…)
* you are his VCE assessor

TASK: Follow the instruction in today’s Word document (Sample Written Explanation and Student Piece of writing) to highlight and assess McEwan’s writing. Post your edits onto your blog so we can all learn from you!

Here is the file: sample-written-explanation-for-atonement1

A written explanation would help!

“To see the importance of the written explanation (Insight p. 133) where the ideas generated from the text must be clearly explained in cases where the actual text is not mentioned by name in the response itself.” – Ms. Duffy

First of all, stop panicking! This is a totally achievable task.

You just need to spend some time looking at examples, and practising your writing.

Remember the keys to success: prompt + film + good writing = a good piece.

There are lots of models. I’ve posted 2 so far. (You can use the categories on the sidebar to search out the “exemplars” which are 2 student responses.)

Also,

page 128 Insight: Expository writing (Essay) with a model Written Explanation on “Whose Reality” (different text than we have studied, but same idea)

page 132-134 Insight: Imaginative Writing (fable) has a very good Written Explanation/Statement of Intention

Someone in Ms. Duffy’s class wrote a piece “Be careful what you wish for….” a fable that uses idea from P 133-34 Insight.

The student’s piece was based around (more…)

Eloisa to Abelard
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Abelard and his pupil, Heloise by Edmund Leighton.

Published in 1717, Eloisa to Abelard is a poem by Alexander Pope (1688–1744). It is an Ovidian heroic epistle inspired by the 12th-century story of Eloisa’s (age 19) (Heloise’s) illicit love for, and secret marriage to, her teacher Pierre Abélard (age 51), perhaps the most popular teacher and philosopher in Paris, and the brutal vengeance her family exacts when they castrate him, not realizing that the lovers had married.
(more…)

ETERNAL SUNSHINE OF THE SPOTLESS MIND (2004)
starring Jim Carrey, Kate Winslet, Elijah Wood, Kirsten Dunst
screenplay by Charlie Kaufman
directed by Michel Gondry

Here is an insightful film review from:

http://filmfreakcentral.net/screenreviews/eternalsunshine.htm

“…But it’s Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind that completes Kaufman’s emergence into an emotional world with what is essentially an ode to one of my favourite ideas and phrases: the madness of love in a temporary world.

…. The film is told as a montage of Joel’s reflections of love at the moment of their erasure, and it’s every bit as melancholy and romantic as the conceit would imply.

… the picture is a cascade of thoughts that rejects traditional narratives while holding fast to recognizable strictures of storytelling. Joel is the hero, attempting to rescue his damsel from the dungeon of his mind and bad decisions.
Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind revolves around two quotes.
(more…)

Some questions to consider:

1. What is reality?
2. Is there such a thing as objective reality, or does every individual’s perceptions of reality differ – a subjective reality?
3. How might we become aware that our perception of reality is not the same as another person’s?
(more…)