Common Module: �Texts and Human Experiences��Rainbow’s End

HSC ENGLISH STUDY DAY

ETA PEEL VALLEY NSW

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT OF COUNTRY

Overview

Structure �& Language

HSC Examination

Thanks

Approaching the Module

Context �& background

Concepts

Slide 17-24

Slides 25-31

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Slide 32

Slides 4-5

Slides 6-8

Slides 9-16

The Common Module: �Texts and Human Experiences

• Key Understandings
• Individual and Collective human experiences
• Universality of Experiences
• Insight into behaviour and motivations and how this might challenge us (though the anomalies, paradoxes, inconsistencies identified)
• Key Skills
• How does context shape the text and its depiction of experiences?
• How is language used to represent experiences?

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Approach to Learning

Context

Examining context will give you an understanding of the society that Harrison is presenting in Rainbow’s End.

Also need to consider the context that Harrison was writing in and the real life events that shaped the need to discuss certain themes.

Close Examination

Experience Rainbow’s End in one sitting – read through with some peers if you aren’t able to experience a full production.

Annotate some scenes on your own – examine individual lines and the themes they reinforce. Lines you identify and analyse yourself will remain in your memory much easier.

Link to ‘Human Experiences’

Use the universal, individual and collective human experiences as focal points for your responses.

Everything you learn needs to be reconstituted using human experiences as the thesis.

Context of Time Period Depicted

Cummeragunja

Walk-Off

Early major Aboriginal protest in 1939 – broke laws by crossing state lines to re-settle in Victoria.

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Stolen Generations

Approx. 1870 to 1970 – removal of any mixed race children from Aboriginal families by govt.

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Assimilation

Policy of govt from 1937 – 1960s to ‘absorb’ Aboriginal people to make the ‘Aboriginal problem’ disappear.

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Aboriginal Citizenship

The play foreshadows the 1962 right to vote and the 1967 referendum to grant Aboriginal people citizenship.

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Context of Time Period Depicted

Jane Harrison

Muruwari Aboriginal playwright, grew up in rural Victoria. Her play Stolen has been performed internationally.

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Bringing Them Home

1997 Report commissioned on Stolen Generations – Harrison wrote Stolen the year after.

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Reconciliation

March across Harbour Bridge in 2000, creation of official Reconciliation Movement in 2001.

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Ibijerri Co-operative

Harrison commissioned by Ibijerri Theatre to write about Aboriginal history particular to Victoria.

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Some Other Contextual References…

• Que Sera, Sera – A 1955 song sung by Doris Day in a film, Spanish for ‘What will be, will be’.
• The Radio – Television didn’t start broadcasting in Australia until 1956; most people relied on the radio for entertainment.
• The Queen – Young Queen Elizabeth II visited Australia for the first time in 1954.
• Rumbalara – An Aboriginal housing project in Shepparton. Approx. 5 km from Mooroopna.
• Women’s Business – Traditional lore held by women within Aboriginal cultures.
• Flooding – There were two major floods in this region around this time: the Big Flood of 1953 and the Murray River Flood of 1956.
• Encyclopedia Britannica – A multi-volume set of books said to hold information on everything. The next best thing to the internet!

Concepts and Ideas

If we draw upon the Module Descriptor, there are approximately SEVEN different concepts that could underpin your understanding of the text and the experiences it features:

• Challenges
• Individual Experiences
• Collective Experiences
• Human qualities and emotions
• Anomalies, Paradoxes, Inconsistencies
• Storytelling
• Universal Themes

Concepts and Ideas

Challenges

Individual and Collective Experiences

Human Qualities and Emotions

Human experiences in texts will always deal with conflict in some way; this is an expression of challenges humans face.

Does the experience affect one character or is it a reflection of an experience that affects an entire category/group of people?

Very broad – this covers the full spectrum of human responses to experiences.

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Concepts

Concepts and Ideas

Storytelling

Anomalies, Paradoxes,�Inconsistencies

Universal Themes

What stories do characters tell themselves and each other, and why? What things are unsaid? What narrative or trajectory are their lives following?

Anomalies = outlying behaviours that don’t ‘fit’.

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Paradoxes = things that should not be true, but are

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Inconsistencies = failures in human behaviour.

Beyond collective categories – what experiences affect all humans equally? What ideas transcend context?

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Concepts

Conceptual Understanding

• The concepts act as a ‘big idea’.
• Themes and contextual aspects

exist as smaller ideas within this.

• This is just one possible approach

to achieving a conceptual understanding.

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Use concepts as a ‘jumping off’ point to talk about more specific things in response to the essay question. Essay questions can be very specific sometimes and will need you to move beyond just the big ideas.

Concept

Ideas

The Human Experience of Hope

GLADY: Well then, Dolly – haven’t you got sums to do?

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DOLLY: Yeah, so I can be a bookkeeper… in the laundry.

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NAN DEAR: And what bloody good would that do? Daydreams!

The Human Experience of Hope in the face of Hardship

• Human Experience - Hope
• Concept: Individual experiences – Dolly, Gladys, Nan Dear all have difference perspectives.
• Context: What role does Assimilation play in influencing these characters within the context of their 1950s environment?
• Context: Or what role does reconciliation play in Harrison’s desire to explore this concept?
• Plus: …evidence.

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The Human Experience of Prejudice

DOLLY: It’s me that gets stones thrown at her when I walk down the street. It’s me that gets snide remarks.

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GLADYS: You think I haven’t had my fair share? Or Nan? Even Papa Dear – not even he escapes it.

The Human Experience of Prejudice and Marginalisation

• Human Experience - Prejudice
• Concept: Collective experiences – Dolly, Gladys, Nan Dear, Papa Dear all experience prejudice against them due to their shared Aboriginality.
• Context: Consider the Stolen Generations and how they were a means of solving ‘The Aboriginal Problem’. Why were the Aboriginal people seen as a ‘problem’ in the 1950s?
• Context: Or how did Harrison’s brief to explore the era’s unsung ‘heroes’ influence her depiction of these three women and their resilience in the face of such discriminatory attitudes?
• Plus: …evidence.

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Dramatic Structure

Rising tension from external factors – driving questions

Introduction of Dolly, Gladys, Nan setting

Errol, Gladys and Dolly’s dreams, building context

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Act One – Climax

Flood, Dolly’s Abuse, Encyclopedias

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Act Two – Falling Action: Defeat, Survival? Move to Rumbalara

Errol’s quest for re-acceptance,

Climax: The Petition

Language Devices

Language that Shapes Representations

Look out for:

• Allusions, Antithesis, Bathos, Colloquialism, Contrast, Dialect, Dramatic Irony, Euphemism, Foreshadowing, Hyperbole, Malapropism, Metonymy, Motif, Metaphor, Pathetic Fallacy, Rhetorical Question, Simile, Stage Directions, Symbolism, Truncated Sentences,

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Think about how these devices/techniques reinforce your chosen thesis; the concepts related to the module descriptor and human experiences.

Language Devices

Allusion: An allusion is a referece to something outside of the text. Allusions can be categorised in different ways, EG. Historical allusion, Literary allusion, Cultural allusion.

Examples: Rainbow’s End is full of allusions to historical events, details and people that establish the play’s 1950s setting. There are also references to aspects of Aboriginal culture, such as Women’s Business, kinship, and respect for Elders.

Language Devices

Bathos: An anticlimactic effect that occurs when the mood suddenly shifts from serious /poetic to something humorous/colloquial. Can be used to create a comic effect, undercut tension, or build characterisation.

Examples: Dolly, Gladys, and Nan Dear all provide moments of bathos – demonstrating their resilience and practicality when faced with awkward or discriminatory situations.

Language Devices

Colloquialism and Dialect: People regularly ‘code switch’ by shifting from one type of speaking to another, depending on the context. This includes formal English, informal English (colloquialisms), Aboriginal English (a blended dialect), and Aboriginal languages.

Examples: The informal language used by various characters communicates the 1950s context of rural Victoria. Nan Dear in particular occasionally uses Yorta Yorta language, the ancient language of her people – now an endangered language due to assimilation policies.

Language Devices

Euphemism: Use of polite or indirect wording to replace a harsher or more unpleasant truth. Can sometimes take the form of understatement.

Examples: In a world of racism and social hardship, euphemisms are used by both Aboriginal and white characters but for different purposes. For Nan Dear, it’s a means of survival, for the Government it helps to cover up the racism within their policies.

Language Devices

Foreshadowing: The construction of a cohesive plot is often reliant on setting up ideas and dialouge that indicate the direction the story is going in. A ‘payoff’ for foreshadowing occurs when the audience realises that earlier moments hinted at later events.

Examples: Foreshadowing includes repeated mentions of the cork trees, Nan Dear’s explanation of what she will do when she senses her death is near, and Nan Dear’s initial reaction to the name ‘Fisher’.

Language Devices

Motif: An image, sound, action, idea, phrase, word or anything else that repeatedly occurs throughout a poem. Used as a form of symbolism that suggests a message the author wants to convey.

Examples: Motifs include the song Que Sera, Sera as symbol of fate, the dream sequences as representative of hope, the Encyclopedia Britannica set as a symbol for Western knowledge and agency, and the radio as a symbol of Western culture.

The HSC Examination

Preparing for the HSC Exam

Types of Questions

The Common Module Essay Question can be sorted into one of three categories.

1. Specific to your Prescribed Text

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2. Specific to Text Type

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3. Generic (applies to all Prescribed

Texts)

PAST PAPERS: https://educationstandards.nsw.edu.au/wps/portal/nesa/11-12/resources/hsc-exam-papers

Potential Skills / Understandings Needed

Strong responses to previous questions demonstrated:

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• A strong understanding of Rainbow’s End that draws upon appropriate examples.

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• A relationship between the text and a human experience.

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• A clear thesis sustained through essay structure.
• More specifically, depending on question, being able to link Rainbow’s End to:
• Collective and Individual nature of human experiences as demonstrated through stories.
• The use of Drama as a text type to convey ideas.

Random Human Experiences

• 2019 Question focused on the Human Experience of Acceptance – how would we approach this without prior preparation for this experience?

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• The expectation here is that you would already have an awareness of key experiences that all humans face – whether that’s acceptance or love or ageing or whatever.

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• Need to be able to think on your feet – knowing the text and knowing what ‘acceptance’ means, then highlighting connections between these things to create a thesis that draws upon what you have prepared.

Practising Thesis Writing

Question Example

Concept + Question = Thesis

Concept Examples

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Challenges

Individual Experiences

Collective Experiences

Human qualities and emotions

Anomalies, Paradoxes, Inconsistencies

Storytelling

Universal Themes

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It is due to the human quality of resilience that the characters in Rainbow’s End experience differing degrees of acceptance.

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Acceptance is a positive state of mind for all humans even when they face times of great hardship.

In what way does Rainbow’s End convey the human experience of acceptance?

The society depicted in Rainbow’s End is only able to reach a state of acceptance due to the efforts of anomalous individuals.

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The characters in Rainbow’s End are able to rise above individual challenges to accept new situations.

Further Revision

• In regard to their Aboriginality, how do each of the three protagonists deal with the way society treats them?
• What is the purpose of the character Errol? What does he represent and why do you think Harrison included him in her story?
• To what extent is the play a tragedy and/or a comedy?

Practising Flexibility

Synthesise

Discuss

Invent

Use pre-written quotes + analysis + ideas and rewrite into essay form to practise your ability to reconstitute information.

Debate whether your thesis is the truest meaning of the text with your peers – use examples to support your position.

Use Module C to explore the concepts and language features of Haddon’s writing for your own discursive, persuasive and imaginative pieces.

7 Minute Paragraphs

Take past HSC questions or concepts from the text and write as much as possible in just 7 minutes.

THANKS!

Go to Lukebartolo.blogspot.com for a copy of this PowerPoint.