Monday, September 24, 2012

Module C: LOL good luck

This module has got to be the strangest of the 3. I mean, History and Memory? Representation? What do they want from us? :(

Hopefully by the end of this I would have clarified SOME points. But until then, red is the rubric

I'm pretty sure most of you already know that Module C focuses on the REPRESENTATION of events, personalities or situations. (OR not and)

Your essays should include the interplay of History and Memory and how it's represented, this is were you being EVALUATING HOW the medium of production, textual form, perspective and choice of language influence meaning. By doing this, you give yourself a personal voice and you kick your self up a few bands :)

So here, at our school, we've been given the situation or the event of September 11. If you were to use the Falling Man as your related text, you'd be exploring the representation of the Event of September 11. If you were to use Levertov's poem, you'd be exploring the representation of the war Situation. You do not have to state these explicitly, however, knowing what you are discussing is always helpful.

Keeping in mind that if you were to use The Falling Man as your related text, the sole image does not possess enough depth. If you were to use this, watch the documentary and have that as your related text because there will be more to talk about. Your related texts should be drawn from a variety of sources in a range of genres and media. So, try not to use another website. The poem is good as there are no poems on the Smithsonian.

Various textual forms and their medium of production offer different versions and perspectives for a range of audiences and purposes. As most of us have discussed in class, there are several perspectives circulating within the Smithsonian. There are the more patriotic curators and there are others who try to remain as unbiased as possible. The exclusion of certain images and the filtering of the stories in the 'Tell your story' section all contribute to the Smithsonian's VERSION of the event/situation. This influences certain responses from the audience. As it is a website and we live in a post modern world, the audience could be practically anyone. These are some of the main points that need to be covered in your essays.

What needs to be understood is that the Smithsonian is from the American perspective and hence themes of heroism, survival, resilience, 'banding together' and overcoming adversity are apparent. This is where the idea of selectivity comes in and I'm pretty sure there are a couple of quotes and artifacts that you can include in your response to support the idea of historical artifacts evoking sentiments of loss etc and thus reinforcing the relationship between history and memory.


ALSO, keeping in mind that they could always throw an interview, journal entry, letter, article, speech etc. at you in any module and in section 2 and 3 of Paper 1. I guess it'd be best if we went through the essentials of different text types too?


Sorry, LOL this is all over the place.

Deliberate selection of information for the manipulation of ideas! What do you think the idea is?


In your body paragraphs, you must mention the composers name as much as possible and you need to fill it with techniques because you are discussing the DELIBERATE REPRESENTATION.

Something like: "The Smithsonian incorporates audio clippings of the Curator's discussion of particular objects to incite _" "Levertov's use of the lexical chain "Bombed ..." highlights..."

Using the higher modality language (there is a word for this LOL, help me out guys) shows that the composer has done something effectively. For example using the word highlights in the sentence "Levertov highlights ..." as opposed to "Levertov shows/portrays/depicts..." This gives the composer more credibility and shows that YOU know that they have purposely done things to influence a certain response. I think it's also referred to as an active voice as it demonstrates to the marker that you are more confident/assertive in your statements. And markers pretty much operate on first impressions.

Highlights, underscores, exacerbates, ... okay I've run out but you can thesaurus these LOL




Okay, now onto History and Memory.

Students explore the relationship between individual memory and documented events. They analyse and evaluate the interplay of personal experience, memory and documented evidence to broaden their understanding of how history and personal history are shaped and represented.

 History is influenced by memory but it is not correct to say that they are essentially the same thing, nor is it correct to treat them as separate entities. You need a good definition here. A few have been circulating like History is the reconstruction of memories recollection. 
Memories are the foundation of History. 
Memory is the root of the tree of history.

And what have you. These are fine, but coming up with your own will set you apart from other students in our grade. I've been told that our papers are distributed in lots of 20 to different marking centres and it'd become pretty mundane for the marker to read 20 similar essays. You'll only be jeopardizing your own mark by not trying to come up with your own definition.


To finish off, I believe the ETA History and Memory booklet is floating around on studywiz so reading that would be highly useful. But in a super simplified (and I do mean super simplified) nutshell, history is able to evoke memories and through these memories, reinforces the importance of such historical events to the audience. Further, memories deepen one's understanding and turn history from some dry and old to something that has personal connections and is rich.

Happy reading, and PRACTICE!

2 comments:

  1. 'this is were you being evaluating how...' -mindfuck

    ReplyDelete
  2. *'This is where you'll be evaluating how...'
    :)

    ReplyDelete