VCE English
Units 3 and 4: 2008 Support Material
Area of study 2: Creating and presenting
Selected context: Whose reality?
Selected text: Ian McEwan, Enduring Love
Introduction
The focus in this area of study is on reading and writing and their interconnection. The key
aims of this support material are to encourage students to:
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reflect on the ideas and/or arguments suggested by a text selected from List 2 of the Text
List published annually in the VCAA Bulletin, as well as some additional shorter texts
explore the relationship between purpose, form, audience and language, and examine the
choices made by authors in order to construct meaning
draw on the ideas and/or arguments they have gained from texts to construct their own
text for a specified audience and purpose
draw on their experience of exploring texts in their explanation of decisions they have
made in their own writing about form, purpose, language, audience and context.
Student writing tasks should draw on the study of selected texts, and give opportunity for
students to create texts that explore ideas developed as a result of their reading and discussion
of the Context.
Refer to pages 25–26 and 30–31 of the VCE English/ESL Study Design, for full details of the
focus of the area of study, a description of the outcome and key knowledge and skills.
The following is not intended to outline a plan for teaching the entire area of study. Teachers
may wish to select from some of the suggestions, activities and assessment tasks outlined
below. The ‘Advice for English teachers’ and ‘Advice for ESL teachers’ sections in the VCE
English/ESL Study Design also provide examples of learning activities for this area of study.
VCE ENGLISH/ESL UNITS 3 AND 4
2008 SUPPORT MATERIAL
Overview of a range of possible activities
Students should be provided with the opportunity to undertake a range of activities. They
should also be provided with the opportunity to read a range of texts and write in a range of
forms, choosing a form or forms appropriate to the audience, purpose and context of the text
or texts they are creating and presenting.
Suggested activities outlined below include opportunities for recording observations and
discussions about:
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the ideas and/or arguments associated with their chosen Context, informed by reading
and viewing a range of texts
how and why authors make language choices, using appropriate metalanguage
as well as:
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writing a range of responses including narrative, analytical and persuasive texts, or an
extended piece that combines several of these text types in a hybrid form, like the
combination of letters, first and third person narrative, and research paper in Enduring
Love
consulting with teacher during the text creating and presenting process.
Text selection
For the achievement of Outcome 2 in each unit, English students must read and study at least
one text from Text List 2, selected for the relevant Context from the English/ESL Text List
published annually in the VCAA Bulletin. In addition to the two texts selected for the
achievement of Outcome 2 in Units 3 and 4, students may also wish to refer to other texts
listed in Text List 2 for their Context.
Teachers are also encouraged to consider student interests and to support the outcome by
providing students with opportunities to read other texts – print, non-print and multimodal –
that explore ideas and/or arguments associated with the selected Context and provide a range
of language techniques and strategies that students may draw upon to inform their own
writing.
Additional reading could be suggested by individuals or groups of students in preparation for
assessment tasks.
Activities: Reading, creating and presenting text/s
Reading, writing and recording
As an on-going activity students should be encouraged to keep notes about their reading and
writing, and on the inter-relationship between the two. These notes can then be referred to as
students create and present their own text/s and develop the written Explanation component of
the Outcome.
Students could organise these on-going notes in a variety of ways. For example, they could
record:
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ideas and arguments inspired by and explored during their reading of a range of texts
observations on how and why authors have made particular language choices
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VCE ENGLISH/ESL UNITS 3 AND 4
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2008 SUPPORT MATERIAL
ways they have explored and expanded the sort of language choices they make as writers
themselves
vocabulary that relates to their Context, or to their writing about language.
Introductory activities
Wide ranging discussion could begin with consideration of a range of ideas and/or arguments
associated with the selected Context. Students could explore the following ideas in discussion,
either as a whole class or in small groups:
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What is reality?
Is there such a thing as objective reality, or does every individual’s perception of reality
differ – a subjective reality?
How might we become aware that our perception of reality is not the same as another
person’s?
When might we become concerned that someone else perceives reality in a way that is
different from our own?
When does it matter whether or not different people share the same perception of reality?
In such cases, how might those concerned try to establish ‘the facts’?
Whose version of ‘the facts’ is likely to prevail when there is a dispute?
What does it take for someone to keep believing that their version of reality is accurate,
even though other people question it or deny it?
What qualities or characteristics does writing need to have for us to ‘suspend disbelief’
and enter into an imaginary world created by the author?
What qualities or characteristics of a text might make it harder for us to ‘suspend
disbelief’?
Students might then discuss texts that explore ideas and/or arguments associated with the
selected Context with which they are familiar, such as some of the many texts that present
different views of the same event, or those that create alternative realities.
There are many Internet sites that feature perception puzzles, such as the one listed at the end
of this material. Students could spend time exploring this site and discussing with a partner
the differences in the ways they perceive the images, and the strategies used to make the
images ambiguous. What does it take to make you accept that seeing is not the same as
believing?
Common sayings reflect the fact that people view the world in different ways. For instance,
are you likely to say that the glass is half full, or half empty? Do you look at the world
through rose-colored glasses? Are you a Pollyanna? Do you indulge in wishful thinking?
Do you see the wood (forest) or the trees? Are you a big-picture person or do you have an eye
for detail? Is your head in the clouds?
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VCE ENGLISH/ESL UNITS 3 AND 4
2008 SUPPORT MATERIAL
Activity: Introduction to the Context
Students could explore how some of the ideas and arguments associated with the Context
relate to their own lives. They could consider, for example:
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whether different members of their extended family remember past family events
differently
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occasions when they have found themselves in a situation where they wanted to
challenge someone else’s version of an incident or occasion
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occasions when, in an argument with somebody, discovering that in fact they were on
the same side, but using different words to describe the same thing, or emphasising
different aspects in the debate.
Activity: Concept mapping
Develop a concept map about Whose reality? as a ‘work in progress’ throughout the Unit for
Area of Study 2. Collect useful vocabulary and expressions and decide where they sit in
relation to other ideas that seem related to the Context. For example, how do the following
ideas and expressions relate to one another and the selected texts:
Fact, fiction, reality, virtual reality, realist, idealist, subjectivity, objectivity, science,
faith, data, statistics, analysis, impression, self-confidence, self-belief, strength of
character, suggestibility, impartiality, self-interest, empathy, sympathy, credibility,
plausibility, empiricism, imagination, persuasion, suspension of disbelief, rationality,
insanity, delusion, self-deception.
Find and include synonymous and antonymous words and phrases for these terms in the
selected texts.
Activity: A collection of aphorisms
Collect quotations about reality, such as those that follow:
‘Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, doesn’t go away.’
Philip K Dick
‘Reality is merely an illusion, albeit a very persistent one.’
Albert Einstein
‘Are you really sure that a floor can’t also be a ceiling?’
M C Escher
‘There is an objective reality out there, but we view it through the spectacles of our beliefs,
attitudes, and values.’
David G Myers, Social Psychology
‘There are no facts, only interpretations.’
Friedrich Nietzsche
Group these quotations into categories, such as those that seem to accept that there is an
objective reality as opposed to those that dispute this possibility. Are there subgroups within
these categories?
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VCE ENGLISH/ESL UNITS 3 AND 4
2008 SUPPORT MATERIAL
Activity: Using appropriate metalanguage to explain the effect of the writing
Read the following passage on page 28 of Enduring Love: ‘We hadn’t said much in the car …
incantations also.’
This section recounts the way that Joe and Clarissa spent the evening at home after the
accident. Joe’s first person account describes the ‘post-mortem … reliving … rehearsal of
grief and the exorcism of terror’ that he and Clarissa shared. His voice is assured and
authoritative. Consider for instance the following long and complex sentence, so densely
packed with information:
There was so much repetition that evening of the incidents, and of our perceptions, and of the
very phrases and words we honed to accommodate them that one could only assume that an
element of ritual was in play, that these were not only descriptions but incantations also.
The assurance and authoritativeness is suggested because the voice is so eloquent and
controlled as it moves through this sentence. The sentence’s main statement, ‘There was so
much repetition that evening of the incidents, and of our perceptions and of the very phrases
and words we honed to accommodate them …’, sets up a repetitive, incantatory rhythm and
emulates the effect that Joe identifies, ‘… that these were not only descriptions but
incantations also.’ Joe’s implicit claim is that, even as the pair talked, he was aware of this
‘element of ritual’ and thus, that he was present in the situation both as an objective observer
(‘one could only assume’) and as a subjective participant.
Joe’s understated assumption of his capacity to be objective is a constant factor as McEwan
builds the narrator’s character: one of the most startling things about Joe is the extraordinary
level of self-belief that he maintains when Jed and Clarissa and the police all challenge his
version of events and circumstances. But how could Joe recall this evening so precisely? In
reality, he could not. However, the reader is carried along by the voice that McEwan
constructs and accepts Joe’s analysis of the conversation as fact.
Read chapter 9 or selected parts of it, where McEwan has Joe put forward a third person
account of Clarissa’s experience. How does this chapter add to the impression of Joe as an
objective observer? Is it significant that the reader might forget that this is Joe’s version of
Clarissa’s experience?
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Activity: Contextual understandings I
One of the features of McEwan’s novel is that it is a hybrid form. The overall meaning is
achieved by the combined effect of the different, separate texts within it, such as letters from
Jed and one from Clarissa, Joe’s first person narration, Joe’s rendition of a third-person
account from Clarissa’s point of view (see earlier activity), and Appendix I, a research paper
about de Clérambault’s syndrome.
Compare the way language is used in Jed’s letters with Joe’s first person narration so that the
voices in these different parts of the text are quite different.
Read Ian McEwan fools British shrinks at
http://www.salon.com/books/log/1999/09/21/mcewan/
One of the people quoted in this article says that Appendix I in Enduring Love is ‘a
convincing facsimile of academic journalese’. What structures and features of the writing in
the Appendix make it ‘a convincing facsimile’?
Activity: Contextual understandings II: Reading Guide for Enduring Love
www.readinggroupguides.com/guides/enduring_love.asp
The purpose of this guide is to whet readers’ interest in the novel and to offer reading groups
support and encouragement to use the book as the focus text for one of their meetings.
1.
2.
3.
How is the information included in ‘About this Book’ intended to help the publishers to
market the novel?
Identify and explain the differences in the structures and features of each of the three
sections in this text: the blurb; the support questions; and the critical praise.
How are these different sections shaped by the Guide’s purpose/s and audience?
Activity: Contextual understandings III: Manipulating Memory
Download the transcript of Manipulating Memory, at
www.abc.net.au/rn/scienceshow/stories/2005/1325644.htm
Using hyperlinks or text boxes, annotate the text so that the following questions are answered
and evidence for the answers provided.
1.
This is a transcript of a spoken text. Identify some of the structures and features of the
language that suggest this text is designed to be listened to rather than read.
2.
What are the purposes of this text?
3.
Identify scientific jargon used in the text? Why is it used by the presenters? What
strategies are used to help listeners understand the scientific jargon?
4.
How does the text seek to gain authority and credibility for the ideas being presented?
5.
How does this [spoken] text seek to maintain the listener’s engagement?
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VCE ENGLISH/ESL UNITS 3 AND 4
2008 SUPPORT MATERIAL
Activity: Looking at the Context through the lens of a particular text
Tease out the ways in which this selected text suggests, or frames, ideas relevant to the
Context: Whose reality? For instance, how does Enduring Love explore the following ideas:
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Reality is not an absolute.
Reality is not the same as ‘objective truth’.
Different people experience and remember things differently.
At different times a person can remember the same occasion differently.
There are circumstances when accepted reality becomes a bitter contest between
different people’s versions.
The truth about the past is always open to question.
Whether or not memories are accurate can be a very important thing.
When people discuss the past it is always fictional.
Memories can matter in ways that are surprising.
It is not easy to maintain one’s self belief when one is doubted by others.
Creating and presenting assessment tasks
Outcome 2
On completion of this unit the student should be able to draw on ideas and/or arguments
suggested by a chosen Context to create written texts for a specified audience and purpose;
and to discuss and analyse in writing their decisions about form, purpose, language, audience
and context.
Assessment tasks for each of Units 3 and 4 Outcome 2 are as follows:
For English students
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At least one sustained* written text created for a specific audience and context, with a
written explanation of decisions about form, purpose, language, audience and context;
Or
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Three to five shorter texts†, created for a specific audience/s and context/s, with a written
explanation of decisions about form, purpose, language, audience and context.
Suggested word lengths could be:
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*900–1200 words for a sustained written text or
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1000–1500 words in total for three to five shorter texts.
Teachers should decide on the recommended length of the written explanation.
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VCE ENGLISH/ESL UNITS 3 AND 4
2008 SUPPORT MATERIAL
Written explanation: discussing and explaining decisions about
writing
Outcome 2 in Units 3 and 4 requires students of English to provide a written explanation
discussing and analysing decisions made about form, purpose, language, audience and context,
and reflecting on the ways their writing has been informed by discussions of their reading.
Drawing on their notes, students could reflect upon the language choices they have made in
their own writing, for example:
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narrative voice, including first person and third person narration
vocabulary choices, including synonyms
use of metaphor and imagery
sentence structures and clauses
verb tenses
ways of naming characters
use of dialogue
speech making strategies, including repetition of clauses, phrases, words.
They might also reflect on the process of creating their texts, for example:
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decisions about effective introductions
selecting key ideas in developing an argument
using of other texts as models for their own writing
rewriting texts after receiving feedback from audiences
decisions to omit parts of a piece, or to change its focus.
Sample assessment tasks
The following are suggestions for ways students might draw on the knowledge gained from
this study to create and present their own texts exploring the Context: Whose reality?
Sustained response: Contesting conventional forms – writing a hybrid text
You have decided to enter a writing competition for unpublished authors, sponsored by the
Society for the Exploration of Ideas through Hybrid Forms. A collection of the best
entries will be published in the Society’s quarterly journal, which boasts a general readership
of several thousand people who are members of the Society. The topic you choose is directly
related to the ideas explored in the Context.
Construct an extended piece of writing that combines several different texts or excerpts from
them, such as letter/s, news item/s from a newspaper, document/s from a police file, a
transcript of a conversation, excerpts from a research paper.
Refer to Enduring Love as an example of this sort of hybrid form, or other texts that combine
several different forms of writing, such as The Dangerous Girl by Catherine Bateson,
Possession by A S Byatt, Strange Objects by Gary Crew, or Arcadia, by Tom Stoppard.
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Shorter text: Imaginative, reflective, descriptive writing
A journal or diary entry: writing for oneself
Write a brief account of a time when you (or a character that you create) realise that your
perception of a situation, or an incident, is different from someone else’s. What are the
differences? How do you become aware of the differences? Does it matter that there are
differences? What is the resolution?
Shorter text: A Reader’s Guide
Construct a guide to the text Enduring Love for students of this Context, including focus
questions, using as a model the reading groups’ guide at
www.readinggroupguides.com/guides/enduring_love.asp
Shorter text: Letter/s to the editor
Write a letter or a series of letters to the editor of a daily metropolitan newspaper in which
you dispute the facts of a reported incident, or the conclusions reached about a particular
investigation.
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Additional texts referred to in this sample unit
Novels
Crewe, Gary, Strange Objects
Byatt, A S, Possession
Verse Novel
Bateson, Catherine, A Dangerous Girl
Play
Stoppard, Tom, Arcadia
Websites
www.readinggroupguides.com/guides/enduring_love.asp
This electronic text offers reading groups focus questions for their discussion.
www.salon.com/books/log/1999/09/21/mcewan
Ian McEwan fools British shrinks
This text reports on a hoax that Ian McEwan, author of Enduring Love, purportedly
perpetrated on psychiatrists in Britain.
www.scientificpsychic.com/graphics/
This site offers a large range of visual perception puzzles with an account of the
reasons why different people perceive them in different ways. Note particularly the
ways that these phenomena are discussed in the accompanying text.
Manipulating Memory – a discussion of a memory experiment
www.abc.net.au/rn/scienceshow/stories/2005/1325644.htm
www.quotegarden.com/reality.html
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