Attached below is a study guide for The Dressmaker. You will need to read this and familiarise yourself with this information prior to viewing the film.
Remember- It is essential that you view each of these texts repeatedly prior to your Semester 1 examination and prior to any assessments which might require you to respond to these texts.
The next module of work concerns studying a particular genre. We will study two films; High Noon and The Dressmaker. High Noon can be considered a film in the Western genre. It depicts the ‘Wild West’ in uncompromising terms. The Dressmaker is more a revenge drama which borrows from the Western genre and is a more contemporary film set in Australia.
Here is a study guide to The Dressmaker. There is plenty of information on both films on the internet and you’ll need to ensure you conduct detailed research on both the Western genre and the films we’ll be studying closely.
The next text we will study in Year 12 ATAR English is the documentary film Murderball. The text follows the USA quad rugby team as they prepare for the Athens Paralympic Games. The chief protagonists are Mark Zupan (a USA quad rugby player) and Joe Soares (the coach of Team Canada who once played quad rugby for the USA). We will explore the text for constructions of masculinity, how disability is constructed within a sports’ narrative and how we are positioned to respond to hegemonic masculinity, particularly in the treatment of the female characters who appear- briefly- throughout the text.
Please note that this text is studied for Section B (Responding) of the ATAR examination and it is a text you will be expected to know in significant detail. While we will watch this documentary in class (and analyse it), you will also be expected to watch this text through in your own time and build your understanding through independent research.
Here are a range of resources which will compliment your study of this course text:
Structure- Opening two sentences offer a thesis statement and a reading of the image. There is a clear reading/interpretation of the image.
The body paragraph starts with a topic sentence.
There is a clear attempt to link the conventions explored in the response.
The response is succinct and coherent.
It offers a clear and consistent reading.
Key words from the question are used to reinforce the main reading of the text.
There is an attempt at using sophisticated language.
The annotations in black show where the assessment criteria has been met.
The annotations in green are where I’ve explicitly linked conventions and reading of the text.
The annotations in red are where I’ve analysed the text in a sophisticated manner.
The image can be downloaded. It uses the modelled response from the archive (October 2017) as its basis which in turn was taken from the ‘Good Answers’ guide.
Please make sure you understand the assessment criteria and that you practice the structure in advance of your assessment on Friday.
I’ve not only identified the ways in which the image has been constructed, I’ve explored HOW each convention MIGHT have been used to construct the image in a specific way.
In a short answer response, I wouldn’t be able to write about ALL of these image conventions. I would need, as part of my planning process, to identify which 3-4 conventions work BEST to answer the question in a clear and concise manner.
In tomorrow’s lesson, we will look at how the question might be answered.
When listening to this song (released in 1966), consider the following:
How is gender constructed in the lyrics of this song?
What words are used to describe women in the lyrics?
What is your personal response to this song?
Has anything changed in over half a century since this song was released? Out of interest, view ‘(I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction by The Rolling Stones for a construction of masculinity… Quite an interesting contrast between the two songs…
It’s worth considering both the context of production and the context of reception for a text like this.
Image Analysis
For your next assessment, next week, you will need to respond to two questions; one on narrative fiction, and one question on image analysis.
Here are the things to look for in analysing images:
In today’s lesson, we will be exploring the attached short story called ‘Mother Says’. It’s written by Craig Ensor and I’d like you to explore the following ideas:
How is gender constructed by the text?
How does the text reject a stereotypical construction of gender?
Arriving at a thesis statement/writing an effective thesis statement requires a lot of preparation, planning and thinking before you’re able to write one.
The screenshots below take you through this process:
In this image, you can see that the question has been deconstructed and that I’ve STARTED to apply my chosen text (The Road) to the question.
I’ve started to think about what my essay might be about…
In this image, I’ve applied the text more directly and gathered my evidence base together. I’ve chosen a few RELEVANT quotations and made sure that I’ve applied my question deconstruction to my annotations. Please note that I’ve referred to ‘the ways’ and my annotations in green demonstrate my thinking around the ‘attitudes’. I’d already defined ‘particular groups’ as parents- motherhood and fatherhood.
My final image is two versions of my thesis statement. Both work equally well but you can clearly see that they have been constructed out of my planning, my collection of evidence and my question deconstruction.
Make sure that you use these processes in planning for your next in-class assessment, your Semester 2 examination and your terminal examinations in the summer.
