Show
Go ahead and tilt your mobile the right way (portrait). The kool kids don't use landscape...If you are anything like me, the thought of standing up in front of a classroom, or even a small panel of teachers, having to hold the floor for five minutes, and being assessed on your performance is just about as terrifying as it gets. Where other students thrived on the oral presentation SAC, embracing its change of pace in comparison to the other written tasks, I dreaded it. I knew the feeling all too well: legs jelly-like and quivering, breath short and rapid, palms sweating, tongue uncomfortably heavy as the words tumble out too fast to keep up with…essentially (as I, a true master of the English language, would put it) the absolute worst. Fast forward to the present day and, I hate to break it to you, I am still not a fan of public speaking. But guess what? I did my oral presentation and I’m still alive to tell the tale. Plus, as a bonus, it did not involve me passing out, and as a double bonus, I still ended up with a great result. So I am here, my fellow members of the ‘Might Go Ahead and Drop Out of VCE so I Don’t Have To Do My Oral’ club, as proof that it can be done and to help you get through it. What Do We Mean by ‘Overcoming’?As I have already mentioned, emerging triumphant from your oral does not require you to magically become a public speaking fanatic. Let me manage your expectations right now: that probably isn’t going to happen overnight, and likely never will. But you can still be good at public speaking, perhaps great at it, even if it scares you. Trying to figure out a magical formula of preparation that will have you breezing through the oral in total zen-mode is not only going to waste your time, but will likely also make you more frightened when you realise that you can’t completely shake the nerves. So, by accepting the reality that the fear probably isn’t going to go away any time soon we can start to learn how to manage it, at least succeed in spite of it, and hopefully even use it to our advantage. Selecting a ‘WOW’ TopicArguably the best way to improve the delivery, and overall quality, of your oral presentation is to choose a topic and contention that you actually care about. In our eBook How to Write a Killer Oral Presentation we cite the first pillar of the process as being to choose a ‘WOW’ topic and contention. As Lisa says, “an inherently interesting topic means that you’ll showcase your opinions in an authentic way, which is incredibly important when it comes to presentation time.” This becomes particularly significant for someone dealing with a fear of public speaking because of this basic principle: when you care about something it is easier to talk about, even in front of other people. This means that you don’t just need to choose a topic that will engage your audience, but also one that you yourself find engaging. Fear is an intense emotional response to a situation, and as we know it can easily consume us in the moment. If your oral topic is boring and does not interest you on a personal level then what is going to be the strongest emotion you feel when delivering it? Fear. However, passion is another intense emotional response, and so if you are passionate about the arguments you are making then, although your fear will still be there, you will feel another strong emotion that can balance it out. So how do you find a contention that you care about? Often the best place to start is to think about the things that affect your life. We know that your topic has to have been in the media since September of last year, but lots of things are on the news and they don’t only matter to the older generations. Think about issues that relate to schools, jobs, climate change, animals, drug-taking, fashion – these are all aspects of our lives that you might be able to form a personal connection to, and that personal connection will help you find the passion you need to get through the speech, and also get through to your audience. Check out our 2021 Oral Presentation Topics for some topic inspiration, and then learn how to create a killer contention here. More About the Voice, Less About the WordsIt is quite likely that if you know you struggle with the delivery of oral presentations, you might try to compensate by overreaching with your script. For someone who feels more comfortable with written assessments, it can be easy to try to make the oral as close to one as possible by writing it almost as you would an essay – using lots of impressive vocabulary, complex sentences and a formal structure. This approach is all well and good until you try to say it all out loud. This isn’t to say that your command of language isn’t important to the oral, but by trying to craft a safety net of eloquent, written words you are simply distracting yourself from what makes this SAC unique; you can’t avoid the fear by avoiding the task altogether. So, you need to write a speech that you can say, not just one that sounds good on paper. Writing with the wrong sense of tone is one of the points we touch on in 5 Common Oral Presentation Mistakes. During the writing process, you need to make your speech work for you rather than make yourself work for it. This means constantly thinking about what the words will sound like in front of an audience, and not making the performance unnecessarily hard for yourself before you even start practicing. When you’re already nervous about speaking in front of other people, the last thing you want to have to worry about is tripping over difficult language to make convoluted arguments. So, simplicity and punch is always better than verbosity and pretence. Here are some ideas of how to use this strategy:
Remember, when you struggle with a fear of public speaking it is difficult to make what you say in the spotlight sound natural. To overcome this, you want to prepare yourself to almost sound unscripted (as ironic as that sounds). Without slipping into an overly casual or informal voice, it is best if you sound comfortable and relaxed when addressing your audience. This is of course the exact opposite of how you might feel going into the assessment, so you write a speech that will make you seem like you aren’t worried about passing out. The ancient adage ‘fake it ‘til you make it baby’ definitely rings true here. However, that said, really believing what you are saying and caring that the audience believes it too, as we advised earlier, will also help you avoid sounding forced and uncomfortable. Preparation and MemorisationAnother mistake often made when attempting to compensate for a fear of public speaking is to rely too heavily on cue cards in the oral. Having your entire speech on hand when you complete the assessment just in case you get lost might seem like a good idea, but it is most likely actually going to hold you back from giving your best performance. Ideally, you want to have done enough preparation so that you do not need to look at your notes at all. As we discussed earlier, having a script that is as simple as possible, and that mimics your speech patterns, will help you sound less fearful – and will also be easier to memorise. Memorise your speech by practicing it as much as possible. Make sure to get your script written as far in advance as you can, so you have plenty of time to practice without stressing yourself out further. When you do practice, do so standing up, envision an audience in front of you (or practice in front of friends or family), and rehearse how you might move around the space as you talk. You can start by having your whole script with you, but eventually you should work up to only needing a few dot points for each section that can jog your memory if you forget. This strategy might seem to make the speech even scarier, but in reality not reading off a script will help you relax into the performance, and allow you to focus on your movements and voice. Practicing enough to have the speech memorised will also help build your confidence. Making the Most of Your NervesAs much as I would love to tell you that you can be ‘cured’ of your fear of public speaking, it is best to accept that the nerves are going to be there and learn how to succeed in tandem with them, rather than just hoping that they go away. Instead of being convinced that fear is going to be your downfall, try to think about how, as impossible as it sounds, you can use the nerves to your advantage. Apart from making you jittery and uncomfortable, nerves also boost your energy and adrenaline, and with the right attitude you can turn this energy into confidence. Instead of letting your nerves cause you to close up, you can use them to help you open up. Often those of us who fear feeling exposed in front of a crowd have quiet, reserved personalities that we might think of as preventing us from being able to perform. However, when our bodies are flooded with nerves this ‘wired’ feeling can be used to help us project our voices and to take up space, therefore driving us to appear more outgoing. Instead of just making you feel ‘on edge’, a manageable amount of nervous energy can give you an edge that will amp up your performance. Even if all of this sounds completely different to your experience of fear, what I am trying to communicate is that the way you frame the oral, and the nerves that come with it, in your mind makes all the difference. If you convince yourself that you are too scared of public speaking to ever succeed with this task, you are severely limiting your chances of achieving a positive outcome. So, focussing on retraining your mindset in the lead up to delivering your speech is very important. Try not to think of this one assessment task as being a make or break five minutes, and instead view it as a learning experience that you can use to your advantage. After all, public speaking is something most of us will have to deal with multiple times over the course of our lives, so you may as well work on getting better at it. That said, my number one piece of advice about the oral presentation is to…*drumroll please*...not take it too seriously! This might sound unrealistic, and I am definitely not telling you to put in less effort, but the more pressure you put on yourself the more nervous you are going to be. Choose a topic that interests you, believe in your contention, make use of humour and personal anecdotes, and just have fun with what you say! Your fear is probably going to be your biggest obstacle, so make it as easy as you can on yourself and the rest should fall into place…as long as you put in the work. Finally, our Ultimate Guide to Oral Presentations is a must-read for anybody who is doing an Oral Presentation! English & EAL VCE Oral Presentation: A Three-Part Guide to Nailing It We've all been there. You're moments away from having to deliver your 5-6 minute long oral to all of your classmates and your teacher, and you're still trying to memorise that one bit that you just can't seem to get down pat. It sucks. For many VCE English students,
the oral presentation is the scariest part of the course; it’s often also the first. Doing a speech can indeed be daunting— you’re marked in real time, you can’t go back and edit mistakes, and the writing part itself is only half the battle. Nonetheless, the oral SAC can also be one of the more dynamic and engaging tasks you complete in VCE English, and there’s plenty of ways to make it more interesting and also more manageable for yourself. We’ll break the whole process
down into three parts (don’t worry, one of these will be the delivery itself) and have a look at ways to tackle each; hopefully, you’ll feel more empowered to give it a go on your own terms. Don't forget to also check out Our Ultimate Guide to Oral Presentations for everything you need to know for Oral Presentations. Part One: Choosing a good topic(In this section—researching events & issues, topic ideas)For a bit of a head start on this step, be sure to check out our blog post filled with Oral Presentation Topics for 2020. It's one of our best kept secrets! In the study design, the description that’s given for the Oral Presentation is: “A point of view presented in oral form using sound argument and persuasive language. The point of view should relate to an issue that has appeared in the media since 1 September of the previous year.” Besides this restriction on how current/recent your issue is, the expectations themselves for this task are pretty standard (and therefore pretty broad): you
Getting started on this first part can be tricky though, especially if you want to choose something a bit more original or fresh. In any case, the first thing you need is an event. As a reminder, an event in the VCE English context is anything that happens which also generates opinionated media coverage—so, it’s not just an event but it has to be an event that people have published
opinions about, and they have to have been published since September 1. You might wonder why we don’t go to the issue straight away. Here’s a hypothetical to illustrate: if you asked me to name an issue, the best I could probably come up with off the top of my head is climate change. However, if you asked me to name an event, I’d pretty easily recall the bushfires—something much more concrete which a) has generated specific and passionate opinions in the media; and b) can easily be
linked to a wider issue such as climate change. So where do you find an event? If you can’t think of a particularly interesting one right away, you could always try Wikipedia. Seriously, Wikipedia very helpfully has pages of things that happened in specific years in specific countries, so “2019 in Australia” might well be a starting point. The ABC news archive is also really helpful since you can pick dates or periods
of time and see a good mix of news events from then. I wouldn’t underestimate your own memory here either. Maybe you attended the School Strike for Climate and/or you feel vaguely disappointed in the government. Maybe there was something else happening in the news you remember (even though it is often about the environment these days). It doesn’t have to be from the news though—maybe there was a movie or TV show you watched recently that you have thoughts about. You could really do a
speech on any of these, as long as you suspect there might be recent, opinionated media coverage. Only once you have an event should you look for an issue. This will be a specific debate that comes out of the event, and can usually be framed as a “whether-or-not” question. The bushfires, for example, might generate debate around whether or not the Australian government is doing enough to combat climate change, whether or not Scott Morrison has
fulfilled his duties as Prime Minister, whether or not it’s appropriate to discuss policy already when people are still grieving. All of these issues are going to be more current and more focused than just ‘climate change’, so pick one that resonates for your speech. For a list of 2019-20 issue-debate breakdowns (i.e. topic ideas!), give this a read! From there, you might delve a little deeper into viewpoints around your chosen issue, and you’d do this mostly by reading
opinion or analysis articles (rather than hard news reports). Opinion is great to see what other people are thinking, and could help you bolster or reinforce your own arguments, whereas analysis is good to get a little deeper into the implications of and evidence behind the issue. The actual contention itself comes last—even though you might already have an idea what you think about the issue, you’ll be best prepared to articulate it after doing the research first. Part Two: Writing a good speech(In this section—register/tone selection, personas, openings, how formal you need to be, drafting & rehearsing)For this part of the task, I’d keep in mind a specific snippet of its description: the need to use sound argument and persuasive language. To be fair, persuasive language mightn’t necessarily be something you actively think about when you write persuasively—you wouldn’t ever really be like “hey, this is a
great spot to include an appeal to compassion.” However, while you don’t need to start now, it’s good to have in mind a general register for your speech before you start. It’s one of the first things you might analyse in a written essay for good reason—it’s broad and it sets the tone for your argument/s. With the bushfires for instance, you might contend that even though grief is a strong emotion, it should also be a trigger for resolute, permanent policy reform. But
will you come from a frustrated, this-is-what-we’ve-been-saying-for-years register, or a compassionate look-at-the-damage-caused register, or an assertive, we-need-to-bring-the-community-together-first register? Maybe you can incorporate a bit of each, or maybe (probably) there are more options, but in any case, making this decision first will help with stringing together arguments and incorporating more persuasive language techniques (PLTs). Note that most PLTs can be used across a number of registers, but there are some that might work more effectively with some of these. For example:
These are things you’ll have to think about for your written explanations, and might also help you shape future research if you need to shore up the speech a little more. Something you may consider as well is adopting a persona, that is a character and a context for your speech. You don’t have to, but it may help you get started. It can be hard to just write a speech from scratch, but if you’re the mayor of a township affected by the fires and you’re outlining a course of action, it’ll help with your register and outlook. Openings in general can be tricky though. Try to avoid stating your event, issue and contention outright—the audience doesn’t need to know that “recently, Australia experienced a horrific bushfire season and I’m going to talk about why now is the time to act on climate change.” They’ll figure it out. Instead, try to start with something that clearly communicates your register and/or persona (if you have one). If you’re a frustrated climate activist, start by illustrating the historical patterns of bushfires getting worse and worse. If you’re a compassionate community-builder, start with anecdotes of the damage. If you’re an assertive leader, explain who you are, what your experience is and how you want to create change. Don’t worry if you feel like the issue won’t be clear enough—again, they’ll figure it out! The opening also sets the bar for formality in your speech, and it’s honestly up to you how formal you’ll want to be. As a rule of thumb, don’t be so formal that you can’t use contractions (such as “you’ll” and “can’t”)—avoid those in essays for sure, but they’re a natural part of speaking and it’ll feel strange if you don’t use them. I’d also recommend you draft and rehearse in front of others, highlighting areas where you think are the weakest and asking them for specific advice on those sections at the end. Having specific questions to ask, such as “should I include more data/quantitative evidence in x section?” or “is this specific appeal to x obvious enough?”, also means you get better feedback (since these are much easier to answer than “Was that fine?”). Part Three: Delivering an engaging presentation(In this section—body language, eye contact, rehearse rehearse rehearse, tone variation)Most of you probably find this the most
daunting part of the SAC—honestly, me too—but this is the part with the most tried-and-tested tips for success. With regard to body language, stand with your feet shoulder width apart and, more importantly don’t move your legs. Especially if you’re nervous, swaying or shuffling will be noticeable and make you appear more nervous—when you practise, pay attention to the lower half of your body and train it to stay still if possible. That being said, do
use your arms for gestures. Those are more natural and will help engage the audience, though don’t overdo it either—usually, holding cue cards in one hand frees up the other but also stops you from going overboard. And cue cards brig us up to another important consideration—eye contact. Hold cue cards in one hand as high as you can without it feeling uncomfortable. This means you don’t have to take your eyes away from the audience for too long or too noticeably to
check your notes. Of course, knowing your speech better means having to check your notes less frequently. When I did my speech, I’d read it out aloud to myself 3-5 times a day for a week or two in advance, which made me feel like I was going insane but also meant that my speech was basically memorised. The cue cards were there in case of emergency, but I really didn’t need them at all. Absolutely make sure to rehearse your speech. Further, when you rehearse, try to pretend that you’re actually delivering the speech. This means:
This last point is really important—tone variation might come naturally to some but not to others. I always found that building it into rehearsal helped with getting it consistent and natural. Tone variation involves things like emphasising certain words, using pauses or slowing down for effect, or modifying volume. Incorporating some of these elements—even writing them into your notes by bolding/italicising/underlining—will help you break out of monotony and make the speech more engaging as well. Be sure to emphasise things like emotive language and any evidence you might use to illustrate your arguments. And one last thing—don’t speak too quickly! Easier said than done, but often the icing on the cake for a speech that is memorable for the right reasons. Wondering where to go from here? Well, luckily, my eBook, How To Write A Killer Oral Presentation, details my exact step-by-step process so you can get that A+ in your SAC this year. 
Sounds like something that'd help you? I think so too! Access the full eBook by clicking here! English & EAL Oral Presentation Topics 2018 Don't forget to also check out Our Ultimate Guide to Oral Presentations for everything you need to know for Oral Presentations. Here are over 20 Oral Presentation Ideas for you if you're presenting a speech on Australian issues in the media.
See last year's Oral Presentation Ideas here. You might also be interested in Advice for A+ oral presentations here too! Best of luck! English & EAL Oral Presentation Topics 2019 Don't forget to also check out Our Ultimate Guide to Oral Presentations for everything you need to know for Oral Presentations. List of topics1. ‘Implementing a sugar tax to curb Australian obesity.’Premise: Mexico and UK have already implemented the ‘Sugar Tax’ on soft drinks to prevent obesity through the avenue of consumer choices, with this debate being sparked in Canada and Australia as to whether this is a viable solution. The World Health Organization believes this could reduce consumption of sugar by reinvesting the more expensive prices into health initiatives against ‘Childhood Obesity’. The Federal Government is facing this decision in 2019, to introduce these radical changes. Thus, whether or not the sugar tax should be implemented would be the core of your oral. Links: Basis of the tax Young stakeholders Expert opinions, use this for further reading Mexico comparison, who have done this British conversation, opposing views on sugar tax 2. ‘What can Australia do to reduce the dangers of paramedic assault and overtime?’Premise: Lately in the media, paramedic attacks and unreasonable overtime shifts means that the safety of our ambulance staff is compromised. A series of movements and a necessity for awareness has been sparked in Australia, with one paramedic being assaulted every 50 hours, and 147 assaulted in 2018. Whether or not people choose to support ambulance safety on a political front, social front or preemptive front (see Ambulance Victoria’s ‘Help keep our ambos safe at work’), action has been gaining momentum in contemporary news and campaigns. Is Australia doing enough for paramedic safety? This would be the basis of your oral. Links: Ambulance Victoria’s campaign Paramedics’ Union urging Political Parties in 2019 Other factors, overtime shifts Further reading on specific cases of paramedic violence 3. ‘How are our politicians dealing with events of Melbourne CBD terrorism?’Premise: A series of concentrated terrorist attacks on Melbourne’s Bourke Street and around Melbourne’s CBD has led to preventative measures such as 88 concrete blocks and anti-terror speaker systems. With politicians such as Matthew Guy pushing movements such as suspects facing curfews and counselling and drones around the city being put in place to monitor events like Christmas Day and New Years, this issue is being noted. But is enough being done? How effective are these measures, and are the police and government working closely enough to avoid these situations? This would be the basis of your oral. Links: Victoria Police’s response to
terrorism Bourke Street incidents Links to other attacks and opinion article Political movements from Matthew Guy 4. ‘Are loot boxes just gaming, or gambling?’Premise: The question of whether loot boxes being utilised in video games marketed to underage children are in fact exposing them to gambling is currently being debated at a Senate level in Australia and around the world. Whilst opinions are segregated on whether this is harmless or harmful, statistics and experts seem to believe in Europe that the detriment is too high, with 15 gambling regulators pinning game developers and publishers. Similarly, the UK and especially Australia have been making movements to rid the gaming industry of this practice. However, ‘EA Games’ is a big player against this, thriving of their sales in games such as ‘FIFA Coins’ and ‘Star Wars: Battlefront’. Thus, whether it is just gambling or gaming would form this oral. Links: The Senate Inquiry on loot boxes Are loot boxes gambling? Expert Opinions Age restrictions with gambling v. gaming 5. ‘Anti-vaccination movements within Australia.’Premise: The anti- vaccination movement, concentrated in the beachside town of Byron Bay in Australia is claiming more young lives daily, as medical reports are starting to note a greater toll in whooping cough cases and other vaccination related diseases. With campaigns such as the ‘No Jab, No Play’ initiative and other experts stating the way vaccinations are being handled, the situation is not apt in the current necessity for herd immunity amongst young Australians. Whether or not vaccination should be more heavily emphasised would be explored in this oral. Links: Geographic case study for vaccinations Implications and health issues No jab, no play campaign Case studies For vaccination 6. ‘The competition of Uber, Taxis and other ride sharing services.’Premise: The hyper competitive nature of ride-sharing services and transport on the Australian field means that Uber and taxis have a lot more competition with one another, meaning shared business can affect the others customers in a major way. Hence, the Australian approach of lawsuits and the pickup of other services such as Shebah, Gocatch and Ola, means that drivers are facing harder times finding customers and also maintaining a steady stream of income. Whether or not these competing companies escalate the quality of transport or are too detrimental to driver’s livelihood would be explored in this oral. Links: The premise Taxi share zones, official action/recognition The legal aspects For the competitive nature Other platforms that affect
this 7. ‘The drought impact on Australian farmers.’Premise: Communities within Australia, specifically in Queensland, prepare themselves for overwhelming drought this 2019, with as their profits will most probably drop below $13,000 in this next financial year for farmers. Whilst milk companies and other politicians have attempted to rally with farmers, more attention seemingly may have to be put in place to assure the livelihood of these agricultural practitioners. Hence, even with drought relief practices and campaigns with many stakeholders in the government and as owners of business, it may require more of a push on a formal level in these pivotal years for farmers. The necessary movements and activism for greater support of farmers would be explored in this oral. Links: The lack of support for drought What the implications of drought are Campaigns and movements already in place Stakeholders and the issues amongst them The up and coming concerns for drought in 2019 8. ‘Microplastics in the Ocean.’Premise: The rise in plastic consumption on a global scale and also lack of environmental solutions has led sea turtle’s digestive tracts and parts of the deepest oceans to be littered with seemingly minute particles called ‘microplastics’. However, these particles have detrimental effects and often litter foods, water sources and our ecosystem, usually sinking to the bottom of the ocean, with 99% of the plastic the seas contain building on the bottom. Ultimately, how we deal with these microplastics and whether it is important would be illustrated in this oral. Links: Marianas Trench plastics Contamination in foods Actions against microplastics The basics of microplastics Premise: The ‘Close the Gap’ campaign originally focused on integrating the Indigenous people back into modernized society that excluded them wrongly. Objectives were necessary to fulfill educational reforms, social necessities and the favour within employment that needed to be shown in order to “even the playing field”. Over the years, this has been scrutinised and subjected to downfalls, both political and social, with many of these objectives not achieved. Thus, greater attention or movement may have to be incited. Hence, whether enough is being done or more needs to be provoked would inspire this oral. Links: Scott Morrison on the current ‘Closing the Gap’ measures Discussion of the origins of this movement Stakeholders in parliament, Indigenous rights A review of the campaign and its downfalls The new closing the gap campaign and its implications 10. ‘Can we use genetically modified foods in daily life?’Premise: The discussion of GMOs (genetically modified foods) and their ethical, moral and health implications have segregated both consumers and producers alike. Australia’s viewpoint of the scientific practice in modifying foods has been portrayed in the recent elongation to bans in South Australia until 2025, but has also been challenged with groundbreaking research that could double the crop yield in theory, due to the advances in photosynthetic characteristics and other chemical properties of plants. Thus, whether or not they should be refuted or supported would form the basis of this oral. Links: The science behind GM foods Other global players accepting GM crops Advances and what this means for farmers Photosynthesis/scientific endeavours in the field of GM crops The bans in South Australia, and the dangers 11. ‘The wage gap: Women in STEM.’Premise: It is rare to find a career where the exact same work will be paid differently based on sexuality, race or gender. It seems in the contemporary age the real issue is that cultural norms raise more women lawyers, doctors and teachers than engineers, physicists and STEM workers. Rather than a direct percentage of the pay gap, it is made apparent that it is rather a systematic average of less over time because of the careers being chosen. Whether or not the wage gap is due to STEM and what we can do to prevent this would be the formation of your oral. Links: What is the gender pay
gap? Statistics and figures Australian specific pay gap Against the gender pay gap 12. ‘Should we take on Finland’s education system?’Premise: Standardised testing is often a debate that goes without alternatives that truly work. But the core of Finland’s number 1 education system in the world is that they hire so many good teachers, hence independent learning is monitored and possible. The VCE system and IB curriculum does not streamline because students are so pressured they do not take time to explore and ultimately find what they want to do in tertiary. In Finland, it is less about the competition, and more about individual learning up until university so that they excel in different pathways. What would it take to change Australian systems to model this? This would be a key idea within your oral. Links: Australian education reform Study assist packages being released Universities involved, education opportunities amongst Finland school system comparison The National qualifications bureau 13. ‘Should we change Australia day?’Premise: This is a heavily utilised oral topic. The Australia Day debate is a popular one, and this is because it is rich in cultural, social, ethical and political stances within itself. With the date remaining the same in 2019, and with the fireworks of the Perth council still going ahead, more protests and council movement means that these discussions are still very contemporary and readily available online. The bids and failed attempts to change the day to a Reconciliation Week celebration, or any date but ‘Invasion Day’ all form evidence to back up either side. Hence, the question of whether or not the date should be moved would be the primary focus of this oral. Links: 14. ‘Is the National Broadband Network, working?’Premise: The National Broadband Network policy meant that the telecommunications sector was supposed to gain momentum and strengthen itself, however, downfalls of the technicians and rollout of the service have meant public scrutiny and Government blame being laid. Telstra’s work on this with ping and download speeds being effective, but upload speeds suffering means that Australian consumers are not completely satisfied with the service, putting into question the ultimate effectiveness of NBN as an invested infrastructure. The success of NBN would form the base of this oral. Links: New rollouts
geographically New government policies The effectiveness of NBN Does it work as promised? Downfalls of NBN 15. ‘Teaching standards for undergraduates in Australia.'Premise: The teaching standards of Australia have been heavily scrutinised after certain lower ATAR scores were primarily accepted into the fields. Thus, the question of whether the right teachers are being accepted and their skills are being honed is put into the spotlight, as a lower bar for the academic necessity of the career sparks debate on whether the standards for Australian education has fallen. However, with 2 teachers in the Global Top 50 for the education sector means there is still hope, and with lots of regional areas geographically, it can be difficult- So whether or not Australia is doing enough would form this oral. Links: ATARs and their own role in teachers The skills necessary for teachers A lower bar for academics means a lower bar for teachers The consequences for teachers in regional areas Australian teacher’s success stories 16. ‘Is the cost of living rising too high in Australia?’Premise: The cost of living within Australia is inevitably rising, with a spike of homelessness within Sydney and the common retiree locations being in Asian countries forming the basis of whether or not we should start working on this sector of Australia’s wealth. However, some sources argue that our economy is steady and positive, with the perspective gained on this challenging what 2019 seems to hold for the cost of living. It is a contemporary topic as the next generation will have to face these challenges, proving an interesting oral if you focus on the stakeholders in each category (teenagers, workers, government and retirees). Links: The rising homelessness rates Key area in the study of rising prices The perspective of the greater economy in comparison to the cost of living The meaning for retirees and where they have to go The changes in 2019 to the cost of living 17. ‘Are we doing enough to aid beekeepers in Australia?’Premise: The ‘Save the Bees’ campaign begun as we started to realise the necessity and imminent danger we would face if bees were in harm's way. Recently, South Australia faced some strange occurrences with mysterious bee deaths, and younger stakeholders attempting to grasp Australia’s bee population. National Geographic focused on real steps and actions that could be taken within Australia, with measures that could potentially be put in place in order to protect these bees. Hence, this could be a unique oral if presented with the statistics and urgency of this issue. Links: Young stakeholders trying to save the bees The implication of bees dying Bees dying in South Australia The plan to save Australia’s bees Other measures in place that may affect bees 18. ‘The impact of the strawberry needle scare.’Premise: The Strawberry Needle Scare was a 2018 issue, with 2019 implications in the dangers of food tampering, and a case of needles in grapes at a Melbourne store. Moreover, the implications for farmers and the agricultural community meant that many workers were affected by this, as consumers initially feared the worst, affecting Australian livelihood at its core. Thus, in order to do a contemporary oral on this, you would focus primarily on the impact on the farmers, what future fears could arise, (eg. the grape needle scare), and what consumers need to be aware of in future contamination. Links: The grape scare, new to 2019 The Western Australian side of the strawberry scare Food tampering in history, where this fits The effects on farmer that the needle scare has The movement for farmers from consumers to just ‘cut them up’ 19. ‘The epidemic of anxiety.’Premise: In a digital, gratification-desiring age, anxiety and depression are symptoms of the high pressure scenarios within daily life. Recently, new studies proving the dire nature within Australia’s mental health provoked more attention by experts and the population into methods and the ‘epidemic’ we face, as we continue to head down a dark spiral. With case studies, statistics and the current situation within pressurised work situations, this could form a strong oral. Links: The need for instant gratification The effects of employment on mental health Australian statistics on worry and anxiety The
Kids helpline and a case study More statistics/stakeholders in the debate 20. ‘Is the zero road toll possible?’Premise: The concept of the ‘Towards Zero’ campaign is that we would have no deaths on the roads in short. This takes drink driving measures, the hazardous first months of a probationary driver and the zones in which these accidents are most highly occurring into consideration, as the government, younger drivers, and adult drink drivers are all concerned. There are already worrying trends going into 2019 however, as this forms the basis of some concerning patterns, and could be explored either way in an oral of whether or not the ‘zero road toll’ is truly possible. Links: The action plan, released by TAC branch The implications of striving for the road 0 toll What is already in place, is there grounds to
this? Trends and why it may not be possible The official campaign English & EAL Oral Presentation Topics 2017 Don't forget to also check out Our Ultimate Guide to Oral Presentations for everything you need to know for Oral Presentations. There are a plethora of controversial issues in the current Australian media that may be perfect for your 2017 oral presentation! Below are just a few ideas to get you started on your way towards acing that SAC. Remember, pick a topic that you’re passionate and enthusiastic about. Don’t forget that there is no ‘right’ opinion, however, make sure you offer a distinctive argument, even if it means adopting an alternative point of view. Good luck!
Before you start writing your oral presentation, you can't miss our A+ tips that have helped hundreds of students get perfect marks in their SAC. Stand out from others with confidence now. English & EAL 5 Common Oral Presentations Mistakes The oral presentation SAC is worth 40% of your unit 4 English mark and is comprised of two sections: your statement of intention, and your oral presentation. It can be difficult to understand what is expected of you, as this SAC definitely varies from your typical English essay! So, if you need help understanding what’s expected of you, check out Our Ultimate Guide to Oral Presentations. If you’d like an even more in-depth guide on how to approach this assessment, definitely check out the How to Write a Killer Oral Presentationstudy guide! Here, I’m going to dissect five of the most common mistakes students make during their oral presentation, and gloss over ways in which you can improve your marks for this critical SAC. 1. Writing an Unentertaining SpeechWhilst your other English SACs may require you to write in a formal and sophisticated manner, the oral presentation SAC is the one shining exception! Many students fall into the trap of writing a frankly boring and uninspiring speech that does no justice to their academic ability. Here are some mistakes to watch out for: Choosing the Wrong TopicYour school may or may not already give you a list of topics to choose from. However, in the event that you must research your own topic, it is essential that you choose an issue relevant to your current audience. You must adopt a clear contention in your speech. Do not, for example, write a five-minute speech on why one sports team is better than the other, or why murder should be illegal. Choose an issue that you can take a passionate stance on and engage the audience with. Avoid a contention that is obvious and aim to actually persuade your class. Make sure you choose a 'WOW' topic for your VCE Oral Presentation. Writing With the Wrong Sense of ToneThis is one of the biggest mistakes students make when writing their oral presentation. I cannot stress this enough – your speech is not a formally written text response! You are presenting your stance on an issue, which means that you are allowed to be passionate and creative. You can educate your audience on the facts without boring them to sleep. Let’s analyse two sample excerpts on the same issue to see why: Issue: Should the Newstart allowance be increased?Sample 1: 722,000 Australians are on Newstart. Single people receive approximately $40 a day. The Australian Bureau of Statistics recently increased this payment by $2.20 to adjust to price inflation. However, I am arguing that this price should be increased more. Sample 2: As Australians, we pride ourselves on community values, and supporting one another. Yet, the way in which we treat 722,000 of our most vulnerable people doesn’t reflect this. The Australian government recently increased the Newstart payment by $2.20 weekly. But this means that Newstart recipients still live on just over $40 a day. Ask yourself, is that really enough to survive? Samples 1 and 2 have the same information. Yet, Sample 2 engages with the audience in a much more effective manner. Try to avoid an overly formal tone and speak with passion and interest. 2. Presenting Without ConfidencePresenting in front of your class can be a very daunting experience. However, in order to distinguish yourself from your classmates, you must speak clearly and with confidence. Try to avoid making the following mistakes: Reading Instead of TalkingThink back to primary school. Remember when your teacher would read you a storybook, and they would put on voices to make the story more engaging and interesting? The same sort of idea applies to your oral presentation. Simply reading a well-written speech will not get you marks. Rather, you should talk to your audience. Make eye contact, maintain good posture, and project your voice. Confidence is key! Stalling for TimeI’m sure we’ve all been in a situation where we haven’t prepared ourselves for a test as well as we should have. The oral presentation SAC is not an assessment that you can simply wing on the day. Oftentimes, poor scores stem from a lack of preparation which can be reflected in the way students present themselves – and stalling for time is a big giveaway. Save yourself the mental stress and prepare for your SAC by writing out your speech beforehand (or even preparing a few dot points/cue cards). I personally find it helpful to practise in front of a mirror or even in front of pets/stuffed toys. 3. Not Distinguishing Yourself From Your ClassIf you’re gunning for a good mark, you want to stand out from your class. This can be especially difficult if you are presenting the same topic as one of your peers. Avoid: Starting in an Uninspiring WayThis is another big mistake students make when presenting. Let’s just estimate that there are approximately 20-25 people in your English class. Now, imagine if every person who presented before you began their speech with: “Good morning, today I’ll be talking about why Newstart should be increased”. It gets repetitive. You can distinguish yourself by beginning in a myriad of other ways. Here’s an example of how I started my own oral presentation for my SAC: Topic: Should we ban sunscreens with oxybenzone and octinoxate?Imagine you are a foreigner, excited to visit Australia. In your head, you’re picturing our beautiful flora and fauna, our stunning beaches, and the Great Coral Reef. You finally arrive after a long flight, eager to explore the country. You’re expecting the Great Coral Reef to be boasting colour, to look like all the pictures spotted online. Instead, you find what looks like a wasteland – a reef that has essentially been bleached to death. As Australians, we have to wonder what went wrong. If we really loved and cared for our environment, how could we not be protecting the reef, preventing any further damage? Recently, Hawaii banned sunscreens containing the chemicals oxybenzone and octinoxate, reasoning that these chemicals were causing harm to coral. Yet, in Australia, banning sunscreens with these chemicals are seen as drastic and useless measures, which simply isn’t true when you look at the facts. This is an example of an “imagined scenario” starter. How to Write a Killer Oral Presentation outlines other ways to start your speech with examples! If you’re having trouble figuring out how to start with a BANG, definitely make use of this resource. No EnthusiasmI say this to my students regardless of the English SAC that they’re writing – you want your writing/speech to reflect that you are indeed learning and enjoying your education. Your teacher will be able to tell if you choose a topic that you have no interest in, or if you are simply regurgitating information. Use this SAC to learn about an issue and take interest in your learning. Believe me, your grades will thank you for it. 4. Incorrectly Using VisualsWhether you are allowed to present with visuals or not is up to your English teacher. However, it is essential that you do not incorrectly use these visuals, as it can cost you marks. Avoid: Overusing PowerPoint SlidesI’m a bit old-fashioned myself and honestly prefer presenting a speech with no images. That’s not to say that some images can’t be a great addition to your piece. However, PowerPoint can quickly steer you away from presenting your topic in an engaging manner. This is an oral presentation with a stance on an issue, not an assessment where you are marked for presenting information to an audience. Therefore, reading off of PowerPoint slides is a big NO. Using Cluttered InfographicsThe point of focus of your oral presentation should be on YOU – your words, your stance on the issue. This ties into the PowerPoint criticism I made above, but using a cluttered infographic takes away from your well-written speech. Below is an example of an overly cluttered infographic: If your speech was on renewable energy, your audience would be detracted from your stance, and too focussed on reading the information from the visual. If you have any key information that needs to be explained, it is better to embed this into your speech than rely on an infographic. 5. Disregarding the Statement of IntentionIf you’ve finished writing your speech, you may have let out a big sigh of relief. But don’t get too comfortable yet – you still have to write your statement of intention (SOI). This piece of writing is supposed to accompany your speech, and it’s worth 25% of your SAC mark. Do not waste all your hard efforts by not taking the SOI seriously. I like to think of an SOI as a language analysis of your own speech. Essentially, you should be explaining your choice of language, tone, and rhetoric, and justifying why that would make a profound impact on the audience. Make sure you understand what an SOI is. I like thinking of this as a three-step approach:
How to Write a Killer Oral Presentation outlines exactly what is expected of you in this section of your SAC. If you’d like to see an annotated A+ statement of intention, be sure to check it out! I hope that going
through these mistakes will help you when writing your own oral presentation! It’s always best to ask your teacher or English tutor for advice if you’re unsure of where to start. Happy writing! English & EAL Oral Presentation Topics 2019 Don't forget to also check out Our Ultimate Guide to Oral Presentations for everything you need to know for Oral Presentations. List of topics1. ‘Implementing a sugar tax to curb Australian obesity.’Premise: Mexico and UK have already implemented the ‘Sugar Tax’ on soft drinks to prevent obesity through the avenue of consumer choices, with this debate being sparked in Canada and Australia as to whether this is a viable solution. The World Health Organization believes this could reduce consumption of sugar by reinvesting the more expensive prices into health initiatives against ‘Childhood Obesity’. The Federal Government is facing this decision in 2019, to introduce these radical changes. Thus, whether or not the sugar tax should be implemented would be the core of your oral. Links: Basis of the tax Young stakeholders Expert opinions, use this for further reading Mexico comparison, who have done this British conversation, opposing views on sugar tax 2. ‘What can Australia do to reduce the dangers of paramedic assault and overtime?’Premise: Lately in the media, paramedic attacks and unreasonable overtime shifts means that the safety of our ambulance staff is compromised. A series of movements and a necessity for awareness has been sparked in Australia, with one paramedic being assaulted every 50 hours, and 147 assaulted in 2018. Whether or not people choose to support ambulance safety on a political front, social front or preemptive front (see Ambulance Victoria’s ‘Help keep our ambos safe at work’), action has been gaining momentum in contemporary news and campaigns. Is Australia doing enough for paramedic safety? This would be the basis of your oral. Links: Ambulance Victoria’s campaign Paramedics’ Union urging Political Parties in 2019 Other factors, overtime shifts Further reading on specific cases of paramedic violence 3. ‘How are our politicians dealing with events of Melbourne CBD terrorism?’Premise: A series of concentrated terrorist attacks on Melbourne’s Bourke Street and around Melbourne’s CBD has led to preventative measures such as 88 concrete blocks and anti-terror speaker systems. With politicians such as Matthew Guy pushing movements such as suspects facing curfews and counselling and drones around the city being put in place to monitor events like Christmas Day and New Years, this issue is being noted. But is enough being done? How effective are these measures, and are the police and government working closely enough to avoid these situations? This would be the basis of your oral. Links: Victoria Police’s response to
terrorism Bourke Street incidents Links to other attacks and opinion article Political movements from Matthew Guy 4. ‘Are loot boxes just gaming, or gambling?’Premise: The question of whether loot boxes being utilised in video games marketed to underage children are in fact exposing them to gambling is currently being debated at a Senate level in Australia and around the world. Whilst opinions are segregated on whether this is harmless or harmful, statistics and experts seem to believe in Europe that the detriment is too high, with 15 gambling regulators pinning game developers and publishers. Similarly, the UK and especially Australia have been making movements to rid the gaming industry of this practice. However, ‘EA Games’ is a big player against this, thriving of their sales in games such as ‘FIFA Coins’ and ‘Star Wars: Battlefront’. Thus, whether it is just gambling or gaming would form this oral. Links: The Senate Inquiry on loot boxes Are loot boxes gambling? Expert Opinions Age restrictions with gambling v. gaming 5. ‘Anti-vaccination movements within Australia.’Premise: The anti- vaccination movement, concentrated in the beachside town of Byron Bay in Australia is claiming more young lives daily, as medical reports are starting to note a greater toll in whooping cough cases and other vaccination related diseases. With campaigns such as the ‘No Jab, No Play’ initiative and other experts stating the way vaccinations are being handled, the situation is not apt in the current necessity for herd immunity amongst young Australians. Whether or not vaccination should be more heavily emphasised would be explored in this oral. Links: Geographic case study for vaccinations Implications and health issues No jab, no play campaign Case studies For vaccination 6. ‘The competition of Uber, Taxis and other ride sharing services.’Premise: The hyper competitive nature of ride-sharing services and transport on the Australian field means that Uber and taxis have a lot more competition with one another, meaning shared business can affect the others customers in a major way. Hence, the Australian approach of lawsuits and the pickup of other services such as Shebah, Gocatch and Ola, means that drivers are facing harder times finding customers and also maintaining a steady stream of income. Whether or not these competing companies escalate the quality of transport or are too detrimental to driver’s livelihood would be explored in this oral. Links: The premise Taxi share zones, official action/recognition The legal aspects For the competitive nature Other platforms that affect
this 7. ‘The drought impact on Australian farmers.’Premise: Communities within Australia, specifically in Queensland, prepare themselves for overwhelming drought this 2019, with as their profits will most probably drop below $13,000 in this next financial year for farmers. Whilst milk companies and other politicians have attempted to rally with farmers, more attention seemingly may have to be put in place to assure the livelihood of these agricultural practitioners. Hence, even with drought relief practices and campaigns with many stakeholders in the government and as owners of business, it may require more of a push on a formal level in these pivotal years for farmers. The necessary movements and activism for greater support of farmers would be explored in this oral. Links: The lack of support for drought What the implications of drought are Campaigns and movements already in place Stakeholders and the issues amongst them The up and coming concerns for drought in 2019 8. ‘Microplastics in the Ocean.’Premise: The rise in plastic consumption on a global scale and also lack of environmental solutions has led sea turtle’s digestive tracts and parts of the deepest oceans to be littered with seemingly minute particles called ‘microplastics’. However, these particles have detrimental effects and often litter foods, water sources and our ecosystem, usually sinking to the bottom of the ocean, with 99% of the plastic the seas contain building on the bottom. Ultimately, how we deal with these microplastics and whether it is important would be illustrated in this oral. Links: Marianas Trench plastics Contamination in foods Actions against microplastics The basics of microplastics Premise: The ‘Close the Gap’ campaign originally focused on integrating the Indigenous people back into modernized society that excluded them wrongly. Objectives were necessary to fulfill educational reforms, social necessities and the favour within employment that needed to be shown in order to “even the playing field”. Over the years, this has been scrutinised and subjected to downfalls, both political and social, with many of these objectives not achieved. Thus, greater attention or movement may have to be incited. Hence, whether enough is being done or more needs to be provoked would inspire this oral. Links: Scott Morrison on the current ‘Closing the Gap’ measures Discussion of the origins of this movement Stakeholders in parliament, Indigenous rights A review of the campaign and its downfalls The new closing the gap campaign and its implications 10. ‘Can we use genetically modified foods in daily life?’Premise: The discussion of GMOs (genetically modified foods) and their ethical, moral and health implications have segregated both consumers and producers alike. Australia’s viewpoint of the scientific practice in modifying foods has been portrayed in the recent elongation to bans in South Australia until 2025, but has also been challenged with groundbreaking research that could double the crop yield in theory, due to the advances in photosynthetic characteristics and other chemical properties of plants. Thus, whether or not they should be refuted or supported would form the basis of this oral. Links: The science behind GM foods Other global players accepting GM crops Advances and what this means for farmers Photosynthesis/scientific endeavours in the field of GM crops The bans in South Australia, and the dangers 11. ‘The wage gap: Women in STEM.’Premise: It is rare to find a career where the exact same work will be paid differently based on sexuality, race or gender. It seems in the contemporary age the real issue is that cultural norms raise more women lawyers, doctors and teachers than engineers, physicists and STEM workers. Rather than a direct percentage of the pay gap, it is made apparent that it is rather a systematic average of less over time because of the careers being chosen. Whether or not the wage gap is due to STEM and what we can do to prevent this would be the formation of your oral. Links: What is the gender pay
gap? Statistics and figures Australian specific pay gap Against the gender pay gap 12. ‘Should we take on Finland’s education system?’Premise: Standardised testing is often a debate that goes without alternatives that truly work. But the core of Finland’s number 1 education system in the world is that they hire so many good teachers, hence independent learning is monitored and possible. The VCE system and IB curriculum does not streamline because students are so pressured they do not take time to explore and ultimately find what they want to do in tertiary. In Finland, it is less about the competition, and more about individual learning up until university so that they excel in different pathways. What would it take to change Australian systems to model this? This would be a key idea within your oral. Links: Australian education reform Study assist packages being released Universities involved, education opportunities amongst Finland school system comparison The National qualifications bureau 13. ‘Should we change Australia day?’Premise: This is a heavily utilised oral topic. The Australia Day debate is a popular one, and this is because it is rich in cultural, social, ethical and political stances within itself. With the date remaining the same in 2019, and with the fireworks of the Perth council still going ahead, more protests and council movement means that these discussions are still very contemporary and readily available online. The bids and failed attempts to change the day to a Reconciliation Week celebration, or any date but ‘Invasion Day’ all form evidence to back up either side. Hence, the question of whether or not the date should be moved would be the primary focus of this oral. Links: 14. ‘Is the National Broadband Network, working?’Premise: The National Broadband Network policy meant that the telecommunications sector was supposed to gain momentum and strengthen itself, however, downfalls of the technicians and rollout of the service have meant public scrutiny and Government blame being laid. Telstra’s work on this with ping and download speeds being effective, but upload speeds suffering means that Australian consumers are not completely satisfied with the service, putting into question the ultimate effectiveness of NBN as an invested infrastructure. The success of NBN would form the base of this oral. Links: New rollouts
geographically New government policies The effectiveness of NBN Does it work as promised? Downfalls of NBN 15. ‘Teaching standards for undergraduates in Australia.'Premise: The teaching standards of Australia have been heavily scrutinised after certain lower ATAR scores were primarily accepted into the fields. Thus, the question of whether the right teachers are being accepted and their skills are being honed is put into the spotlight, as a lower bar for the academic necessity of the career sparks debate on whether the standards for Australian education has fallen. However, with 2 teachers in the Global Top 50 for the education sector means there is still hope, and with lots of regional areas geographically, it can be difficult- So whether or not Australia is doing enough would form this oral. Links: ATARs and their own role in teachers The skills necessary for teachers A lower bar for academics means a lower bar for teachers The consequences for teachers in regional areas Australian teacher’s success stories 16. ‘Is the cost of living rising too high in Australia?’Premise: The cost of living within Australia is inevitably rising, with a spike of homelessness within Sydney and the common retiree locations being in Asian countries forming the basis of whether or not we should start working on this sector of Australia’s wealth. However, some sources argue that our economy is steady and positive, with the perspective gained on this challenging what 2019 seems to hold for the cost of living. It is a contemporary topic as the next generation will have to face these challenges, proving an interesting oral if you focus on the stakeholders in each category (teenagers, workers, government and retirees). Links: The rising homelessness rates Key area in the study of rising prices The perspective of the greater economy in comparison to the cost of living The meaning for retirees and where they have to go The changes in 2019 to the cost of living 17. ‘Are we doing enough to aid beekeepers in Australia?’Premise: The ‘Save the Bees’ campaign begun as we started to realise the necessity and imminent danger we would face if bees were in harm's way. Recently, South Australia faced some strange occurrences with mysterious bee deaths, and younger stakeholders attempting to grasp Australia’s bee population. National Geographic focused on real steps and actions that could be taken within Australia, with measures that could potentially be put in place in order to protect these bees. Hence, this could be a unique oral if presented with the statistics and urgency of this issue. Links: Young stakeholders trying to save the bees The implication of bees dying Bees dying in South Australia The plan to save Australia’s bees Other measures in place that may affect bees 18. ‘The impact of the strawberry needle scare.’Premise: The Strawberry Needle Scare was a 2018 issue, with 2019 implications in the dangers of food tampering, and a case of needles in grapes at a Melbourne store. Moreover, the implications for farmers and the agricultural community meant that many workers were affected by this, as consumers initially feared the worst, affecting Australian livelihood at its core. Thus, in order to do a contemporary oral on this, you would focus primarily on the impact on the farmers, what future fears could arise, (eg. the grape needle scare), and what consumers need to be aware of in future contamination. Links: The grape scare, new to 2019 The Western Australian side of the strawberry scare Food tampering in history, where this fits The effects on farmer that the needle scare has The movement for farmers from consumers to just ‘cut them up’ 19. ‘The epidemic of anxiety.’Premise: In a digital, gratification-desiring age, anxiety and depression are symptoms of the high pressure scenarios within daily life. Recently, new studies proving the dire nature within Australia’s mental health provoked more attention by experts and the population into methods and the ‘epidemic’ we face, as we continue to head down a dark spiral. With case studies, statistics and the current situation within pressurised work situations, this could form a strong oral. Links: The need for instant gratification The effects of employment on mental health Australian statistics on worry and anxiety The
Kids helpline and a case study More statistics/stakeholders in the debate 20. ‘Is the zero road toll possible?’Premise: The concept of the ‘Towards Zero’ campaign is that we would have no deaths on the roads in short. This takes drink driving measures, the hazardous first months of a probationary driver and the zones in which these accidents are most highly occurring into consideration, as the government, younger drivers, and adult drink drivers are all concerned. There are already worrying trends going into 2019 however, as this forms the basis of some concerning patterns, and could be explored either way in an oral of whether or not the ‘zero road toll’ is truly possible. Links: The action plan, released by TAC branch The implications of striving for the road 0 toll What is already in place, is there grounds to
this? Trends and why it may not be possible The official campaign English & EAL VCAA 2019 Analysing Argument | Language Analysis For a detailed guide on Language Analysis, what you're expected to cover, how to prepare for your SAC and Exam and more, check out our Ultimate Guide to VCE Language Analysis. [Modified Video Transcription] Today we're going to go through the 2019 past VCAA English Exam (grab a copy of the exam here so you can analyse with me). As you probably know, if you've watched my videos before, you always want to make sure you read the background information when it comes to Analysing Argument. I'm going to use Analysing Argument and Language Analysis interchangeably by the way, but I'm talking about the same thing okay? Background InformationThe background information is pretty important because it gives you context for what is happening in this article. Without reading the background information, you might just head in there and possibly even come up with an entirely different context altogether, which might screw over your actual analysis and the author's intention. So, never skip the background information. Make sure that you read it and also pick out the gems that you find in it. What I've always found is background information is great for picking keywords - words I might want to use throughout my own Language Analysis. It also has really good details about the article. In this case, you can see that there's a member of the public who has responded, which tells us a little bit about the author; it's a 'response' as well, so there's going to be two articles; it's an advertorial - an advertorial is a paid advertisement that looks like an article (I'll use the word advertorial as I'm describing the article in my introduction), and, I also know where it's been published. This is already really good information for you to start using in your introduction. Finding Your Own InterpretationLet's move into the analysis itself. By the way, this is my first time doing this analysis, so we're doing it together. What you'll find is that I come up with particular interpretations that you might not have come up with. I might miss something, you might miss something, and what you'll find is my interpretation is not the only interpretation out there. If you come up with something else, it's totally fine for you to go ahead and analyse it, as long as you can back it up. This is what English is all about, so don't stress if I haven't matched up with you in exactly what I'm saying. You can also use my interpretation as a double interpretation. So, what you could do is go into your essay, write your interpretation and if mine compounds on top of yours pretty well, if it's a great addition to what you're saying, add it in and bam! You're showing your examiner that, you're somebody who can look at one particular technique from several different perspectives and that's kind of cool. Moving on to the AnalysisSo, 'A Better, Faster Shopping Experience'. From what I can already see here is there's this sense of convenience already being brought up. Now, at this point in time, I don't know what the point of that convenience is, but I know for me as a shopper, if I can get something for a better experience and I can get it done faster, then hells yeah, I am all for that. Think about yourself in the reader's shoes, after all, you really are the reader reading this article. Think about how it's starting to impact you. I've done a video about the TEE rule previously that goes through Technique, Example and the intended Effect on the audience. Make sure you're familiar with that because I will use a lot of that in today's analysis. 'An open letter to our valued customers. As you know, Hailey's Local Store is not your average grocery store.' Interesting. The 'As you know' is pretty familiar. It's this familiarity that this person is sharing with us (the author's name is Hailey, so I'll just say Hailey). She says 'As you know, Hailey's Local Store is not your average grocery store' and repeating that familiar 'As you know' reminds the audience - us - of our long-term relationship with the store. So, in a sense, she's drawing upon our good will and our trust in the local shop, which creates this differentiation between herself (as somebody who's more proactive and customer-centric) and your bigger grocery stores. 'We're a little bit different - we always put our customers first.' At this point, we start to feel valued. We know that we are her priority. Her priority isn't about profits, which a lot of stores are about, it's about the people, and as a result, we're more inclined to look at her in a favourable way. 'We offer lots of healthy meals, many specials, locally source food and, as you know, we abolished plastic carry bags four years ago - long before the big stores.' This whole sentence is pretty good because it shows us that she is somebody who is forward-thinking and she has actually carried through with her claim that she puts her customer first. We know that because she follows it up with: 'Why did we do those things? Because you told us that was what you wanted and needed.' She's got historical proof of putting customers first, which again, serves to build this rapport and relationship between Hailey and us as her customers. If I look at the first paragraph as a whole, I see that she's building this up, she's setting this up in a particular way and whatever direction she's going to head in next, we're more inclined to follow her, to believe in her and to support her because she's shown us that she has supported us first. She's helped us out, so why can't we help her out? Again, I haven't read the rest of this article yet so these are just the thoughts that are going through my mind as I'm reading this first paragraph - just to give you a little bit of insight into my brain. In this first paragraph, I can see that she's using a pretty welcoming and warm tone. If you have a look at the photograph that's been placed at the top of this article - and remember that with particular images they're strategically placed, so if it's placed at the start of the article versus at the end, think about how that impacts your perception of the photograph - for me, the first thing I see when I look at this article is the photo and I see a smiling happy owner. As you can see, the first paragraph serves to back up this photograph as well, with what she's talking about in terms of prioritising customers and valuing customers. You can also see products behind her, which look fresh and full and her shelves are full, so in that sense, it furthers this impression of the local and grounded nature of the store. It feels homey and this invites that comfort and trust from us. Then, as we move into our second paragraph, I'm seeing a lot of exclamation marks, which gives me the sense of this upbeat, exciting environment, or even tone you could say. I think she's doing this because she wants us to jump on board with cashless payments as well, and to not see them as something that's a burden for us. She ties the advantages of cashless payments directly to the customer’s experience of the store by frequently repeating personal terms, such as 'you' and 'your' throughout these first couple of paragraphs. By the way, I'm not going to write down all the language analysis, because I think there's just not enough space, but me chatting about it with you is good enough. Let's move onto the next paragraph. 'you won't need to go rummaging through your bags for coins. You won't ever have to worry that you don't have the cash to cover your essential food supplies - your card will ensure that you do'. Not only is she highlighting the advantage. Here, she's arguing for the advantages of cashless payments by showing you the inconveniences of having cash in phrases like 'you won't need to' and 'you won't ever have to'. I also like the phrase 'rummaging through your bags for coins'. It gives this sense of how cumbersome the nature of physical money is in comparison to cashless payments. In the next paragraph, she highlights cashless payments with the words 'Simple!' which reiterates her point (from the previous paragraph) about how cumbersome coins can be. She finishes off this paragraph with a 'Welcome to the twenty-first century.', so there's this sense of being forward in her decisions and that we should be as well - because nobody wants to be left behind in history. A lot of us like to think of ourselves as people who are open-minded, open to change and will take up things that are better for us, things that are more convenient for us. So, she's saying that this is it for twenty-first century, join us over here rather than way back when, when we had to use coins. She also highlights 'mobile phone[s]', 'smart watch', 'smart ring' - many things that a lot of people have and this just compounds that idea of, 'yeah, this is a no brainer' essentially. Why shouldn't you move to cashless payments if you're already immersed in this tech world of having mobile phones, smart watches, smart rings, etc.? She moves into talking about the wider economic context of Australia in this next paragraph. That sense of time I was talking about, comparing the now - the twenty-first century - with a decade ago, you can see that link right here. It's very obvious now. She creates a strong impression of societal inevitability of this technological change, especially because she cites statistics - '70 per cent of household spending was in cash; now it's half of that.' I can see in the next paragraph that she uses expert opinion as well - the 'Governor of the Reserve Bank of Australia'. This all connects to this main phrase that we are in a ‘turning point’ now, that cash will be rapidly phased out until we become a cashless society and we should join her; we should make moves on this otherwise we're going to get left behind. I like that she's bringing in Australia because it also brings in this additional sense of pride on our behalf. We're Australians, we're proud that we've been one of the biggest users of electronic payments in the world, we're the ones who are making waves, we're the ones who are putting our feet forward first. So, you could talk about appeal to patriotism here as well. It's interesting because here she says that she's a leader, or 'We've always tried to be a leader in our community and respond to our customer's needs.' What do you think when you think of a leader? Typically for me, I admire leaders. They're somebody I look up to and I want to follow in their footsteps essentially. So by positioning herself as a leader, I think that's pretty interesting because she's telling us, ‘Hey, I've done all this thinking, I have initiative, I am forward-thinking, so come with me, join with me on this cashless payments movement.’ 'you'll breeze through a check-out' I like the word 'breeze through', or just 'breeze' because it connects again, back to this idea of convenience with a faster shopping experience, and it is juxtaposed against that cumbersomeness of 'rummaging through...bags for coins'. Something to think about is: as you analyse an article, you don't just have to analyse it chronologically or talk about it chronologically in your essay either. If you see things that connect later on, connect them in your essay and put them together, because what you're showing your examiner is that you can see not just the minor details - i.e. language techniques in each sentence - but you can actually zoom out and see the overall picture, how the arguments are coming together and how she's structuring her piece so that we walk away with a certain perspective. Think about that in a two-step method. There's the zoom in where we're looking at sentence by sentence and what techniques are there, which is basically what we've been doing, but at the same time, you can zoom out and have a look at how the different techniques all come together and work as a whole. If this is something that you're not too comfortable with just yet, just stick with the chronological order and working through the sort of minor details. And then on your next read, you can read through with the focus of, 'okay, what if I was to look at this from a more holistic perspective?' We talk about this 'zoom in' and 'zoom out' technique inHow To Write A Killer Text Response. Ahh! I didn't even look ahead enough, there are more words and more phrases that connect to the idea of convenience and ease. It’s 'faster', ‘will save you time', 'safer' as well?! There's a new appeal. It's not necessarily new, it's just a different angle you could come from. If you wanted to talk about the sense of security, that appeal to safety, then you could do that as well. 'it means not having to spend hours sorting, storing and securing cash' So, more cumbersome notions. And then in comparison, 'more time', 'We understand the concerns a minority of our customers may have.' I love when they do this, acknowledging the opposition essentially is what she's doing. She's saying, ‘yup, like, I can hear you, not all customers want this. Some of you don't.’ And my assumption is that she's going to back it up with her own rebuttal. This not only pulls along the people who are already supportive of her, but she's also trying to pull along those who are a little bit more sceptical of this idea of cashless payments. So let's see, she says, 'What if you prefer cash, don't feel comfortable using credit or debit cards, or don't have a mobile phone or smart watch? We don't want to leave anyone out. For the next three months we will offer cashless payments, but still accept cash to people to give people time to adjust.' It's interesting because she is again, building up this position of hers, where she is friendly, she is helpful, she is thoughtful and she cares about her community. Something you could also say, and this is if you're looking at things more pessimistically, is that she's doing this more so for herself. By saying that these people have three months, there's this unspoken pressure that's happening as well. She's putting pressure on the minority and emphasising the supposed inevitability of a cash-free shopping experience. Even by just saying 'minority' that's in a way applying pressure as well, because it's saying that you are part of this smaller group, the smaller group of people who won't come with us or have not yet come with us, so join us. There's a very clear expectation that these customers need to adapt and catch up. Want to see these ideas and annotations turned into a full A+ essay?If you want more, I have also got a fully written up 2019 essay based on the articles that we're analysing today in my How To Write A Killer Language Analysis study guide. In that study guide, not only do I have the essay for 2019, I also have a fully written up essay for the 2017 & 2020 VCAA English Exams, and we're always working on adding ones from future years as well. Plus, there's heaps of sample A-plus essays in there already and heaps of information that I think will be super helpful for you before you move into your SAC. So please, go ahead and check that out! It's loaded with value and I know it'll be worth your money. English & EAL The Crucible by Arthur Miller This blog was updated on 23/10/2020. Contents1. Summary 2. Historical Context 3. Character Analysis 4. Themes 5. Symbols and Motifs 6. Quote Analysis 7. Sample Essay Topics 8. Essay Topic Breakdown The Crucible is usually studied in the Australian curriculum under Area of Study 1 - Text Response. For a detailed guide on Text Response, check out our Ultimate Guide to VCE Text Response. SummaryThe Crucible,
Arthur Miller’s 1953 realist play, is based on the historical events of the 1692 Salem witch hunts. Although partially fictionalised, it depicts the very real consequences of false accusations based on blind religious faith, as Miller displays the dangers of such baseless rumours. However, the play was written during another type of witch hunt: McCarthyism in 1950s America. This was a political movement in which Senator Joseph McCarthy attempted to control the spread of
Communism by placing any Communist sympathisers on a blacklist. This resulted in a widespread fear of Communist influences, and a political hunt similar to the Salem witch trials began, as civilians attempted to escape their own charges by accusing other innocent individuals of treason. Thus, given the historical context of the time, Miller uses The Crucible as an allegorical warning for the audience against the dangers of McCarthyism in 1950s America. These
concepts will be fully unpacked later, but it is important to keep these key notions of hysteria, accusation and blind faith in mind as you study the text. These are the fundamental ideas that the play is based upon, and also the elements which make The Crucible hugely relevant in our society today. One could even say that the development of technology has made it easier for false allegations and social rumours to spread - leading to drastic consequences specific to the
21st century, such as the leaking of critical government information and cyberbullying. Not to mention, the anonymity of technology has enabled individuals to start modern-day witch hunts as a nameless, faceless user behind the comfort and security of their screens! Historical ContextIn varying degrees, every work of literature reflects its historical context, or the social and political conditions that shaped its time period. The Crucible is a four-act play, which presents a dramatised and partially fictionalised depiction of the 1692 Salem witch trials. It was also published in 1953, at the height of the Second Red Scare, or the heightened fear of Communist influences in America. As such, the play is not merely a play based on historically accurate events, but also an allegory of the disastrous consequences of McCarthyism. Character AnalysisJohn ProctorProctor
is a strong and hardworking farmer, respected by those in Salem for his power and independence. Possessing a “sharp and biting way with hypocrites”, Proctor is the symbol of autonomous leadership in the play, acting as another source of social authority to the theocratic leaders of the Puritan Church. He is the protagonist of the play, but a flawed individual - while he has great strength of character, he is also presented in The Crucible as an
adulterous husband, who is openly defiant of his church. As such, he is described by Miller as a kind of “sinner” - one who experiences an internal moral conflict within himself. Proctor undergoes much personal growth during the plot of the play, redeeming his name and obtaining “goodness” by choosing moral honesty over freedom. This ultimate act of courage symbolises the importance of integrity and honour, and represents the “shred of goodness” in his
character. Elizabeth ProctorAlthough described by Abigail as a “bitter woman”, Elizabeth is the quiet yet resilient wife of Proctor. Her husband’s affair with Abigail renders her resentful towards the former and jealous of the latter, resulting in a wounded and fragile marriage. Her humility is made evident as she blames herself for Proctor’s infidelity, believing she erred in keeping a “cold house”. In tandem with this icy imagery,
Miller utilises Elizabeth as a symbol of honesty and strict moral justice, despite it often being mistaken as “coldness” by others - Proctor asserts that Elizabeth’s justice “would freeze beer”. Despite this, Elizabeth proves herself to be a caring source of support for her persecuted husband, believing him to be “a good man”, and ultimately breaking her characteristic honesty in the hopes of his freedom. Her extreme courage is ultimately made evident by her
willingness to lose Proctor to the hangman’s noose, rather than for him to lose his moral virtue by signing his name to lies. Abigail WilliamsDescribed as “a wild thing”, Abigail is a beautiful, yet manipulative and deceptive adolescent with “an endless capacity for dissembling”. Still in love with Proctor after their brief affair, she lies to the court and condemns Elizabeth as a witch, in a desperate, jealous attempt
to win him back and take Elizabeth’s place as his wife. Abigail is the ringleader of the girls, and the progenitor of the false rumours that spiral into the witch hunt. Thus, she embodies falsehood, in a stark contrast to Elizabeth, who is a symbol of truth. Her violent nature is made evident in the play, as she threatens the girls with physical violence and “smashes Betty across the face” in an effort to silence her. Despite this, Miller makes clear that
Abigail is a victim of psychological trauma, as she is revealed to have borne witness to the violent death of her parents - partly explaining her disturbed and devious nature. Mary WarrenMary Warren is a sullen, sensitive and easily manipulated servant of the Proctor household. Her volatile nature makes her an easy target for Abigail, who manipulates her into betraying the Proctors by planting a poppet in Elizabeth’s room, which
ultimately becomes the leading evidence in her sentencing. Mary is a symbol of mass hysteria, as her easily exploitable nature and weakness in spirit represent the irrationality of those who are quick to believe rumours, such as the persecutors of the Salem witch hunts, as well as the accusers of the McCarthy era. Susanna Walcott, Mercy Lewis, Betty ParrisReferred to as “the girls” throughout the play, these young
individuals are manipulated by Abigail to falsely convict Elizabeth and numerous others as practicers of witchcraft. All of these girls possess a common fear of Abigail, and carry out her orders in an attempt to evade their own punishment at her hands. Thus, Miller uses them to emphasise his allegory of the McCarthy trials, in which numerous people accused others of Communism based on their own fear of being charged by the Court. ThemesMass HysteriaMass hysteria is one of the most significant themes of the play, as Miller depicts the entire town of Salem engulfed by the superstition of witchcraft and devil-worship. The community-wide fear of consorting with the devil is shown to overwhelm any kind of rational thought. As one rumour created by Abigail and the girls leads to dozens of incarcerations and executions in a matter of days, The Crucible
depicts the “perverse manifestation of panic” that can occur from unsubstantiated fear. Miller uses this illustration of hysteria to show the effects of a strictly repressive Puritan society. Although some residents of Salem manipulate the witch hunt for their own benefit, such as Abigail, the majority of the townspeople are launched into the terror-fuelled “fever” by their genuine belief that the devil is running amok in Salem. The strict theocracy of the
town thus exacerbates the crisis, as joining the accusatory crowd becomes a religious necessity; a virtuous “plane of heavenly combat between Lucifer and the Lord”. As such, the play demonstrates how uncontrolled religious fervour can lead to the collective indoctrination of “black mischief”, where panic clouds all reason. JudgementJudgement in The Crucible encompasses three meanings; the legal,
personal, and spiritual. The legal judgement in the play is depicted as superficial - mainly illustrated through the characters of Hathorne and Danforth, the theocratical Salem court does not carry out real justice due to its dogmatic focus on its reputation. This is depicted by Danforth’s stubborn refusal to free the innocents accused, due to his belief that it would lead to a tainted esteem of the court. Thus, Miller suggests that the
more important judgement is personal - exemplified by the character of Proctor. Believing himself to be a “sinner” against his own “version of moral conduct”, Proctor throughout the play shows limitless remorse and self-hatred for the hurt he has caused Elizabeth by his affair with Abigail. Miller shows the importance of forgiveness through self-judgement, as Elizabeth assures Proctor that there is “no higher judge under Heaven” than Proctor himself, and he
ultimately is able to forgive himself and see the “shred of goodness” within him by the end of the play. Furthermore, The Crucible depicts the town of Salem overcome by the fear of God’s judgement, or what Proctor calls “God’s icy wind”. The events of the play unfold due to the town’s collective fear of the higher power of an “Almighty God”. As Hale proclaims, “Before the laws of God we are as swine!”, Miller showcases the extent of the fearsome “power of
theocracy” in circumstances of confusion and hysteria. AccusationThe events of the Salem witch trials detail various types of accusation. Although all are disguised as the dispelling of witchcraft, the false allegations depicted in the play are carried out with a range of different motives. For example, Abigail’s accusation of Elizabeth as a witch is described to derive from a “whore’s vengeance” due to her passionate
jealousy of Elizabeth’s position as Proctor’s wife, and Abigail’s wish to take her place. Similarly, Rebecca Nurse’s charge of “murdering Goody Putnam’s babies” is due to the Putnams’ resentment and jealousy of her numerous children, while they themselves have lost babies “before they could be baptised”. In contrast to this, the accusation of Martha Corey, Giles' wife, of witchcraft is motivated by Walcott’s desire for revenge, as he resents her for the
unhealthy “pig he bought from her five years ago”. Thus, his actions are calculative rather than passionate - a cruel attempt to get “his money back”. In his employment of the play as a historical allegory, this depiction of the blind following of rampant accusations depicted in The Crucible represents the similarly irrational proceedings of the McCarthy trials, many of which were carried out without substantial evidence. Honour and IntegrityHonour is one of the most prominent themes in the play, as the majority of the characters strive to maintain their reputations in society. Miller depicts a community in which private and public characters are one and the same, and the consequences of the obsessive desire to uphold the esteem of their name. For example, although Proctor has the chance to undermine the girls’ accusations by revealing Abigail as a ‘whore’, he does not do so in order to protect his good name from being tarnished. Likewise, Parris at the beginning of the play threatens Abigail and the girls due to his fear that hints of witchcraft will threaten his already precarious reputation in the church and banish him from the pulpit. Furthermore, the judges of Salem do not accept any evidence that could free the innocent accused, as they uphold a false reputation to honour the Puritan church. Despite this, Miller shows the importance of prioritising personal honour over public reputation through the character of Proctor. As he ultimately makes the valiant decision in Act IV to refrain from “signing lies” and thus uphold his name, he is able to redeem himself from his previous sins and is able to die with righteousness. ______ By the way, to download a PDF version of this blog for printing or offline use, click here! ______ Symbols and MotifsThe CrucibleA crucible is a ceramic or metal container in which metals, chemicals or other substances may be melted or subjected to very high temperatures. As such, Miller in the play employs the violent imagery of a crucible to symbolise the severe and challenging test of the
Salem witch hunts. As spoken by Danforth in Act III, “We burn a hot fire in here; it melts down all concealment”, the motif of the crucible represents the merciless nature of both the Salem and McCarthy court proceedings, and their dogged determination to convict, despite the lack of substantial evidence. Crucibles are often used for the chemical process of calcination, during which particles are heated to high temperatures in order to purify them - removing any
volatile substances from the compound. As such, Miller also suggests that societal challenges such as those depicted in the play can lead to situations in which the good can be separated from the evil; as the town is split into those who are “with this court or…against it”, the witch hunts illustrate the distinction between the individuals who possesses moral integrity and those who manipulate the situation for their selfish pursuits. The PoppetIn Act III, Abigail and the girls plant a poppet, or doll, in Elizabeth’s house, in an attempt to frame her as an individual guilty of witchcraft. As Abigail stabs the doll with a needle in its stomach before leaving it on Elizabeth’s shelf, she is able to pretend that her own stomach is injured from Elizabeth’s practice of voodoo with it. The poppet is a symbol of childhood and girlhood, and the play’s depiction of it as a tool for malicious revenge
represents the loss of innocence and pretence that arises out of the witch hunts. Miller illustrates the danger of mass hysteria, as he depicts the young group of girls, led by Abigail, become manipulated into condemning innocent townspeople to death; thereby losing their innocence and moral virtue. The poppet is also employed as a symbol of deception, as it emphasises the fact that the Salem persecutions are based on
lies and falsehood. As the court ignores Elizabeth’s outraged protests that she has not kept a poppet since she was a little girl, Miller chastises a justice system which values convenient deceit over the cumbersome truth. PaperAlthough traditionally associated with knowledge and truth, the motif of paper in the play symbolises morality and individualism. Paper first appears in the play as the judicial list naming the condemned, then as a document of proof outlining Proctor’s alleged crimes as a practicer of witchcraft and agent of the devil. As such, paper initially symbolises the false accusations that run rampant in Salem, and the destructive consequences of such on the lives of the accused innocents. This idea is furthered by Miller’s depiction of the signed, “seventy-two death warrants” of innocents, illustrating paper as a symbol of the unjust punishment and corruption within the Salem court. It is only when Proctor refuses to sign the testimony or have his false confession “posted on the church door”, that the symbol of paper begins to serve as a motif of heroism. As Proctor ultimately refuses to “sign [his] name to lies”, then “tears the paper and crumples” the document denouncing him as a devil-consorter in Act IV, Miller portrays paper as a mode for personal redemption in the face of blind injustice. This advocating for personal salvation is supported by the character of Hale, who undergoes a similar transformation. Although initially described as an intellectual whose paper “books are weighted with authority”, this religious authority loses its value throughout the tragic events of the play, as the injustices of the court lead him to lose his “great faith” in God. Ultimately, like Proctor, Hale is only able to gain personal redemption through his realisation of the immoral nature of the court and his attempts (albeit unrealised) to save the remaining incarcerated innocents from the fate of the gallows. Quote AnalysisAct I"There are wheels within wheels in this village, and fires within fires!” Ann Putnam speaks this line when she admits to interrogating Tituba about the possibility of witchcraft having caused the early deaths of her
seven infants. The audience can perceive her hysteria, as she begins to fear that the rumours of devil worship in Salem may be true, and that she may also lose her last surviving child, Ruth. Her sense of paranoia works to foreshadow the mass hysteria that is to overwhelm the town. This quote is also a direct reference to the prophet Ezekiel in the Bible, who compares his vision of God in his chariot to a gyroscope - an instrument of
stability and balance. As such, Mrs. Putnam’s allusion to God is a direct reference to the rigidity of the Puritan values in Salem, disguised as a creed of “unity”, when in reality it’s the root cause of social paranoia and resentment. The quote also illustrates that she believes that there are more complex and intricate forces present in Salem - the “deep and darkling forces” as described by Miller - which work to
determine the fates of the townspeople. Combined with its fire imagery, this quote effectively foreshadows the drama that will unfold in the Salem court, in which Abigail and the girls will invent invisible spiritual forces to accuse innocents, in a court of “hot fire”, acting to “melt down all concealment”. “We cannot look to superstition in this. The Devil is precise; the marks of his presence are as definite as stone.” Hale says this to Parris when he first arrives in Salem from Beverley, after he is asked to inspect Betty for signs of witchcraft or possession by the devil. Although Parris is already convinced by the rampant rumours in the town of the existence of the devil and its effect on his daughter, Hale (being a professional “investigator of witchcraft”) is more meticulous in his examination of such a “strange crisis”. By calling the devil “precise”, Hale depicts his true and
unflinching belief in its existence, representing the inflexible Puritan mindset. This quote is integral to understanding Hale as a character, and thus the nature of his disillusionment later in the play, as it reveals that Hale does not believe in witchcraft due to the mass hysteria and paranoia of the town, but because he possesses genuine and resolute faith in every word of the Bible. As this faith is shown to “bring blood” later in the play, Miller
displays the dangerous “power of theocracy”, as the audience perceives Hale becoming radically disillusioned in his religion and world view. Sample Essay Topics1. “For twenty week he preach nothin’ but golden candlesticks til he had them!” Are the leaders of the community misguided in The Crucible? Discuss. 2. Miller uses fire and ice imagery in The Crucible to denounce the nature of humanity. Discuss. 3. ‘In The Crucible, the characters make decisions based solely on their emotions’. Do you agree? Now it's your turn! Give these essay topics a go. For more sample essay topics, head over to our The Crucible Study Guide to practice writing essays using the analysis you've learnt in this blog! Essay Topic BreakdownWhenever you get a new essay topic, you can use LSG’s THINK and EXECUTE strategy, a technique to help you write better VCE essays. This essay topic breakdown will focus on the THINK part of the strategy. If you’re unfamiliar with this strategy, then check it out in
How To Write A Killer Text Response. Within the THINK strategy, we have 3 steps, or ABC. These ABC components are: Step 1: Analyse Step 2: Brainstorm Step 3: Create a Plan Theme-Based Essay Prompt: In a theocracy, law and religion are bound together. What are the benefits and challenges of this depicted in The Crucible?Step 1: AnalyseHere, we are asked to examine the benefits and challenges of a theocratic system, as depicted in The Crucible. Thus, we must consider both the positive and negative aspects of the binding of law and religion. It
is a good idea to delegate two paragraphs to the challenges and one to the benefits, due to the fact that Miller wrote the play with the authorial intention of denouncing the repressive rigidity of its government - this means it is easier to think of negatives rather than positives. Step 2: BrainstormLet’s break down the term ‘theocracy’, as this is the focus of this essay topic. The play shows us various effects of such a system, but what does it actually mean? A theocracy is a form of government in which a religion (in this case, Puritanism) is recognised as the supreme ruling authority. Thus, as mentioned in the essay question, in a theocracy the rules of religion are treated as the law. Now, think of some of the words, phrases or key ideas you think of when you conjure up Salem’s version of theocracy. This may include:
Step 3: Create a PlanWhen planning an essay, it is easy to let yourself go off track, discussing another point that is not quite relevant to the topic
given. To prevent this from happening, always keep the topic firmly in your mind - glance at it periodically throughout your planning if needed, and check that every body paragraph that you are planning directly relates back to the topic and answers what it is asking. So, keeping the topic and its focus on theocracy firmly in mind, I chose to approach this essay with the following structured plan: Paragraph 1: The Salem theocracy leads to the unjust exercise of power, resulting in a tragedy.
Paragraph 2: The town’s theocratic belief in God is exploited by individuals who use it for their own personal gain.
Paragraph 3: However, the theocratic nature of the government allows opportunity for reform, and the ability to distinguish between morality and immorality.
If you find this essay breakdown helpful, then you might want to check out our
The Crucible Study Guide where we cover 5 A+ sample essays with EVERY essay annotated and broken down on HOW and WHY these essays achieved A+ so you reach your English goals! Let's get started. ResourcesDownload a PDF version of this blog for printing or offline use The Ultimate Guide to VCE Text Response How To
Write A Killer Text Response Study Guide How to embed quotes in your essay like a boss How to turn your Text Response essays from average to A+ 5 Tips for a mic drop worthy essay conclusion English & EAL What Does Improving Your English Really Look Like? The idea of VCE
English assessments can sometimes be a bit daunting. Always so much you want to write, never as much time as you need and they always seem to come around sooner than you think. But there is never as much cause for alarm as you think and I’m willing to guarantee that almost everyone reading this is so much better than they think at English. You’ve already come so far from where you started in your high school English journey. I’d like to challenge anyone reading
this to go and find the earliest English essay you’ve got tucked away somewhere. I’ve done this myself and, if yours is anything like mine, you’ll be almost disgusted by what you find. Year-7-me just loved to retell the story, cling to my rigid TEEL formulas and leave my quotes just dangling, write the same basic paragraph three times and call it a complete essay. Not a pretty read and I’m sure a couple of you can relate. But, this exercise does at least prove a very valuable point: you
are capable of improving at English. So let’s start thinking about that essay you’ve got coming up again. You’ve just given yourself a nice confidence booster with that walk down memory lane, reminding yourself that you are a more-than-capable English student these days. But all you now want to do is your very best for this next essay. But how do you keep improving between now and then? After all, if you knew what you had to do to improve your English, you’d already be doing
it, right? So what we’re going to do now is to have a look at what taking your essays to that next level really looks like; how you can improve your writing between now and then, whenever that might be. So to do this, we’re going to take an already good paragraph and improve it together. Take this one, one that I conveniently prepared earlier to a Station Eleven prompt that has to do with the theme of memory/history. Part 1: The Good ParagraphQ: Mandel shows the importance of remembering the past. To what extent is this true? A: In Station Eleven, the characters often find meaning from the creation of enduring legacies. Mandel demonstrates this idea through the naming of Jeevan’s son after his brother, Frank. By creating such an enduring legacy for a character who believes in the power of such legacies - 'they’re all immortal to me' - Mandel implies that characters like this are able to achieve meaning and fulfilment by preserving these legacies. Mandel also uses the character of Miranda to highlight the importance of legacies to provide meaning where Miranda lacks it in her day-to-day life. Even though Miranda’s life is left incomplete by her sudden death, the beauty in the scene of her death suggests that a sense of fulfilment has been achieved despite the emptiness of her life relative to other characters: 'its extravagant sunsets and its indigo sea'. Hence, the meaning in her life comes from the legacy that she creates from the art she makes in her 'independent' life. This is contrasted against the character of Arthur, whose legacy does not influence any events in the post-flu world, because of his failure to create legacy or meaning beyond his day-to-day life. Further, Arthur’s death in the hectic Elgin Theatre has far less beauty than that of Miranda, implying less fulfilment in his life. Therefore, Mandel uses her text to demonstrate the value of creating legacies that allow others to remember the past. Let’s call this our good paragraph. I’ve modelled this off of an essay I found from my Year 10 self, as happy as Year-10-me would have been with this performance, it’s far from perfect. But, it is a very functional paragraph that does all that a paragraph really needs to do. It introduces an idea, justifies it with evidence, links back at the end and doesn’t waste too much time retelling the story. So now we get to the fun bit: we’re going to take this already good paragraph, and turn it into a better paragraph. So how do we make a good paragraph better?Well, for a start, we can integrate our quotes so that the paragraph reads better. You’ll see in just a second how much of a difference this can make. This is something I learnt to do between Years 10 and 11. Other improvements that could be made include answering the prompt more directly and using some of the language of the prompt within our answers. So let’s change this and see now what these small differences do to our paragraph. Part 2: The Better ParagraphQ: Mandel shows the importance of remembering the past. To what extent is this true? A: In Station Eleven, the characters often find meaning from the creation of enduring legacies that allow others to remember the individuals who came before. Mandel demonstrates this idea through the naming of Jeevan’s son after his brother, Frank. By creating this symbolic memorial for a character who believes that such legacies can allow individuals such as actors to become 'immortal', Mandel implies that characters like this are able to achieve meaning and fulfilment through their legacies. Furthermore, Mandel also uses the character of Miranda to highlight the importance of creating a legacy through one’s art to provide meaning where Miranda lacks it in her day-to-day life. Although abruptly killed off in the middle of the text, Mandel imbues her death with a certain beauty through its 'extravagant sunsets and indigo sea'. In doing so, Mandel provides a sense of completion about Miranda’s life and suggests that a sense of fulfilment has been achieved despite the emptiness of her life relative to other characters. Hence, the meaning in her life comes from the legacy that she creates from the art she makes in her 'independent' life. This is contrasted against the character of Arthur, whose legacy does not influence any events in the post-flu world, because of his failure to create legacy or meaning beyond his day-to-day life. Further, Arthur’s death in the hectic Elgin Theatre has far less beauty than that of Miranda, implying less fulfilment in his life. Therefore, Mandel uses her text to demonstrate the importance of creating legacies that allow others to remember the past. There we have it. The paragraph has been rewritten based on the ones I wrote in Year 11 and we have the first signs of improvement. The topic sentence now references the ‘remembering the past’ aspect of the prompt. The linking sentence now uses the ‘importance’ part of the prompt. All of the same quotes are used but are now integrated (check out
How To Embed Quotes in Your Essay Like a Boss if you need more help with this). We’ve made sure not to have more than one sentence starting with Mandel (a small nitpick but still a nice addition). It flows better. It answers the prompt more directly and suddenly we have a better paragraph. Year-11-me has shown improvement and with this
comes better scores and more confidence: something that’s very important for success in English. If you’re confident and proud of what you’re writing, then you’ll have higher marks and, even better, more fun! We haven’t changed much and the paragraph is already better. But it’s not my best paragraph. Between Years 11 and 12, I learnt even more things. I was taught to write about not only the world of the text but also the world around us that we and Mandel
live in: you’ll notice that this better paragraph talks more about ‘characters’ that live ‘in the text’ whereas my best paragraph would talk more about the text in the context of the world you and I live in. I learnt to make my topic sentences more abstract and broad so that they relate more to our own world and less
to the world of the text and remind whoever’s assessing that my ideas apply to everyone and not just within the texts. I learnt to respond more directly to different types of prompts (Discuss, To what extent is this true?, How does Mandel… and others) and I learnt to be more direct in discussing the views and values of Mandel (what she likes, what she doesn’t like, what she wants to see more of in the world) So let’s apply some final changes, and see what our paragraph looks after two more years of refining English. This final paragraph is almost exactly the same as one I wrote in timed conditions before my final exam. The Final Part: The Best ParagraphQ: Mandel shows the importance of remembering the past. To what extent is this true? A: Mandel explores the importance of legacies, not only as sources of meaning for their creators, but also for their roles in allowing others to remember the roles of those who came before. Such an idea is explored through the naming of Jeevan’s son, securing the legacy of Frank. By affording such a permeating influence to an individual who writes of and appreciates the 'immortal[ity]' of long-dead actors, Mandel implies that an appreciation of the inherent value in a legacy and its ability to influence future events is a key quality in individuals. Furthermore, Mandel uses the character of Miranda to highlight the importance of creating a legacy that outlives oneself to provide meaning. Although abruptly killed off in the middle of the text, Mandel imbues her death with a certain beauty through its 'extravagant sunsets and indigo sea'. In doing so, Mandel provides a sense of completion about Miranda’s life and suggests that a sense of fulfilment has been achieved despite the emptiness of her life relative to other characters. Hence, Mandel suggests that the meaning in Miranda’s life comes from the legacy that is the art she makes in her 'independent' life that continues to influence events and allow others to remember the past long after her death. Mandel provides contrast through her exploration of Arthur, whose legacy does not influence any events in the post-flu world because of his failure to create legacy or meaning beyond his day-to-day life. Further, Arthur’s death in the hectic Elgin Theatre has far less beauty than that of Miranda, reinforcing Mandel’s view that individuals who forfeit control of their own legacies, as Arthur does, lead far less completed and fulfilled lives. Therefore, Mandel highlights the immense importance of creating legacies that allow others to remember the past and encourages greater appreciation of the value of legacies in contemporary society. So, two years later, and we’ve got what is still essentially the same paragraph, just brushed
up to an even better, or best, standard. So if we’re using the same evidence, exploring the same characters and introducing the same ideas, why is this paragraph better than the last two? Well, if you study the topic and linking sentences, they discuss the concept of a legacy being a means of allowing others to remember the past and the importance of such a thing and everything in-between links this concept to the text. 'Mandel highlights the immense
importance' represents a subtle but nice nod to the wording of the prompt by giving an ‘extent’ to which Mandel ‘shows’ or highlights. Every piece of evidence is discussed in reference to what Mandel believes about the world around us and how individuals should act in modern society. And there’s something very nice that we can now reflect on. This paragraph has gone from good to much better without having to introduce any new ideas. There are no overly
complex interpretations of the text, we’ve just taken the same skeleton of a paragraph and made it look better without changing its real substance. And one of the wonderful things about making efforts to improve the quality of your writing is all the confidence that comes with this, whether this be from getting better at discussing views and values, learning to
integrate your quotes or any achievement like this. I know that my confidence surged as my English got better and, as I got more confidence in my writing, I got more confidence in what I wrote about. My interpretations of the text became more and more obscure and a bit whacky at times and I had fun writing about these things. If you improve your writing, you’ll improve what
you’re writing about which will mean you’ll have more fun writing and the cycle of improvement will just continue. So to cap off, I thought it might be nice to have a checklist of sorts that you might be able to put against your own writing. What’s the next step I could take in improving my English?
And these are just some of the improvements that could be made. I’m sure each of you could ask teachers and past students and find
many, many more tips on improvement. Just as long as you’re thinking about what the next step in your English might be, then you’re already headed in the right direction. So good luck and happy writing! English & EAL Context and Authorial Intent in VCE English In your English class, you probably feel like your teacher is making stuff up. Moments where you think, “The author can’t possibly have meant that”. To your English teacher, the smallest details have major implications in interpreting the text. In fact, you probably agree with jokes like this: The Book: “The curtains were blue.” What your teacher says: “The curtains represent the character’s depression.” What the author meant: “The curtains were blue.” Or even this one... The disconnect you feel between yourself and the teacher is not just because your teacher is stretching for something to analyse. Whilst the author may have meant something different to what your teacher thinks, this doesn’t mean your teacher is strictly wrong. Context and the author’s intention are two complicated considerations in English, and a whole range of study is dedicated to it. At the VCE level you must consider the context your text was written in, and the author who wrote it, but this shouldn’t hinder your own unique interpretation of the text. Before you begin reading, I'd highly recommend that you check out our Ultimate Guide to VCE Text
Response. Your interpretation is more important than the author's intentionIn 1968, Roland Barthes proposed a theory that has stuck with critics and academics of literature. “The Death of the Author” claimed that the biography, views, or intentions of the author are not a part of the literary object. The text you are studying in English does not belong to its author, but to the reader, and what the reader decides to make of that text is valid,
as long as it is backed up with evidence (as your teacher will say). Barthes’ original essay is complicated, but at a basic level, “The Death of the Author” says that the curtains are not only representative of the character’s depression but could also represent the character’s love of blue orchids. When we read, we automatically apply our own experiences, biases, and understanding of the world to the text. As such, each person is likely to interpret a text in different ways. This is
a major part of studying English, as the critic (you) is more important than the author’s original intention. The fact that a single text can give rise to multiple interpretations is the reason we study English; to debate these interpretations. When you are given an essay topic you are being asked for your opinion on one of these debates, not the author’s opinion on their own work. If you were reading The Fault in Our Stars and claimed it romanticised cancer, you would be participating
in the literary debate, despite going against John Green’s original intentions. In the modern age of mass media, the author is attempting to revive themselves. These are authors who attempt to dictate interpretations of their works after they have been published. The most famous of these is likely J.K. Rowling, author of the Harry Potter series. Rowling’s twitter page adds many pieces to the Harry Potter canon and Rowling offers her own interpretations of the text. To Rowling, her intentions are the only correct ways to interpret her texts, and as such she shares them frequently. This is not true, however,
for any author. Authors are not the be-all-and-end-all when it comes to the interpretation of their texts. Despite having intentions and opinions on their texts, there is also evidence which counters their interpretations. When it comes to the debate surrounding the texts you study, you need to remember that the interpretation of the author is only one part of the debate. It is an opinion equal to everyone else involved in the debate. Imagine the author is on trial. They may have an opinion of the crime (or text), but so does the prosecution. You are the jury and must come up with your own interpretation of the crime. Whether it matches up with the author’s intentions or not does not matter, as long as there is supporting evidence within the text. Context in VCE EnglishBut what about the circumstances in which something was written? Every time you start a new text you are probably asked to research the time in which it was written,
or what major political events may be relevant. Unlike the author, these factors are very important in interpreting a text. For starters, a text may explicitly reference a certain event, and so understanding that event is key to understanding the text. An episode of the Simpsons may make fun of Donald Trump, and the writers assume we have the contextual knowledge to know who Donald Trump is, why he is important, and why the joke is funny. It is easy for us to understand this context because we live in the context. If you’re studying texts from 200 years ago it becomes harder to interpret because we’re unfamiliar with the context. While you don’t have to know the context of your text perfectly, understanding the cultural beliefs and major events will help you consider the text objectively. Researching the context of a text acknowledges that literature is a product of the culture and politics of its time. Its themes may still be relevant in the modern age, but it is difficult to fairly judge, critic, and interpret these texts if we do not consider the context in which it was written. A piece of literature will either follow or criticise the views and opinions of the time, and it is the responsibility of the reader to understand these views and determine where the text sits.
Okay, so the text is a reflection of the time from which it stems, and is separate from the author that wrote it? Not quite. Counter to “The Death of the Author”, the author is also a part of context, and this means certain parts of the author should be considered in interpreting a text. If there is ambiguity in the meaning of a text, the author’s personal beliefs may clear it up. If a character of a certain race is stereotyped and mocked, the meaning of this may change depending on the race of the author. If an author stereotypes their own race, they might be criticising the way other people see them, whereas making fun of a different culture is most likely upholding racist or discriminatory belief systems. If you're studying VCE Literature, read The Importance of Context in Literature for some further info! Deriving Meaning From Texts in VCE EnglishSo, what ARE the curtains?! What do they mean? Well, they're a metaphor, representing more than their literal role as curtains. But also, they’re just blue. The truth is whilst context and the author are relevant, we should try to gain as much from the text as possible before relying on the context to guide our interpretations. While studying your texts, it is reasonable to apply modern standards to your interpretations. Shakespeare’s
plays are a tad sexist, and we’re able to criticise that, despite Shakespeare writing in a different context. For more on studying Shakespeare in VCE, read How to Approach Studying Shakespeare. But it would also be difficult to appreciate the meaning of texts without the context, especially when the text is a response to a major event. At the same time, we’re allowed to expand on what the author has
written. We are not confined to what the author meant to say when we interpret texts. As an English student you have the opportunity to consider what each word may represent for the characters and how it influences your unique interpretation. So, the curtains mean whatever you want them to mean. You can make reasonable assumptions about a text based on the context it comes from and from the author’s life, but you shouldn’t assume that something means nothing. Trivial things like the
colour of curtains may not have been important to the author but allow us as English students to analyse and look deeper into the text, its themes, and the psyche of the characters. In your SACs and exams looking at these small details and deviating from the author’s intentions is an easy way to stand out. Looking to get to that A+ level? Read How to Turn Text Response Essays from Average to A+. So, when your teacher says the curtains are a metaphor, consider what else could be a metaphor, and don’t assume the author has all the answers, or that there is only one interpretation. Video TranscriptionIntroduction to Animal Farm:- Written in 1945 by George Orwell, Animal Farm is an allegorical novella about the 1917 Russian Revolution and the repressive Stalinist period which followed. - As a democratic socialist, Orwell was an adamant critic of Joseph Stalin and his totalitarian dictatorship over Russia. - Thus, Orwell wrote Animal Farm as a satirical fable against Stalin’s tyrannical control, stating that he wrote it with the intention of ‘fusing political purpose and artistic purpose into one whole’. Setting:- The novella is set in Manor Farm, located in Willingdon, England at an undisclosed time. - As the events of Animal Farm symbolise the power struggle of early 20th century Russia, this ambiguity of time is intended to prevent Orwell’s warning against repressive tyranny from becoming dated. - Orwell’s use of a farm as the main setting is also notable, as farms represent nations in Animal Farm; both require a vast amount of work in order to function properly. Thus, the act of the animals cooperating to cast the humans out of the farm symbolises a workers’ revolution against their oppressive leadership. Main Character Analysis:Napoleon (pig): - Based on Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin, he emerges as the leader of the Farm after the Rebellion. - He consolidates his control over the farm with the violent force of his nine attack dogs, having raised them as puppies; these directly symbolise Stalin’s military force. - He never contributes to other animals’ efforts at revolution, as he is only a corrupt individual who seeks to take advantage of opportunities created for him by others. Snowball (pig): - Based on Soviet rebel Leon Trotsky, he challenges Napoleon for control of the Farm after he takes control of the leadership. - Similar to the leader he is modelled after, Snowball is eloquent, charismatic, intelligent and persuasive - thus, he wins the loyalty and support of other animals easily. Boxer (cart-horse): - Extremely devoted to the farm and the Rebellion, Boxer symbolises what Orwell believed to be the best qualities of the proletariat, or the exploited working class, such as loyalty, strength, camaraderie and hard work, perceivable by his personal motto of ‘I will work harder’. - However, he simultaneously suffers from typical weakness of the working class, such as a naive trust in the intelligentsia and a slow-witted oblivion to political corruption, represented by his other motto of ‘Napoleon is always right’. Squealer (pig): - Manipulative and highly persuasive, he spreads Napoleon’s propaganda throughout the farm to intimidate uneducated animals into supporting Napoleon’s ideas and policies. - Orwell uses the character of Squealer to warn against politicians’ deliberate manipulation of mass media in order to gain social and political control. Old Major (boar): - Based on the socialist revolutionary Karl Marx, as well as Russian revolutionary leader Vladimir Lenin, Old Major’s dream of a socialist utopia acts as a major motive for the Rebellion. - Major’s death creates a political vacuum in the farm, leaving Napoleon and Snowball in a power struggle for control of his followers. Themes and Motifs:Tyranny: - By allegorising in Napoleon dictator Joseph Stalin, Animal Farm is first and foremost a satirical critique of politicians’ tyrannical misuse of power. - This is epitomised by the deceitful methods Napoleon uses to gain support, such as lying to the other animals that Snowball is a political traitor in order to banish him from the Farm. Naive Proletariat: - Animal Farm explores the need for the working class to be educated, as the inability of the farm animals to question Napoleon’s authority directly leads to the perpetuation of his oppression. - Thus, Orwell presents to his readership that the working class may suffer not only due to dictators’ abuse of power, but also from their own naive unwillingness to question the intentions of the authority. False Allegiance: - Orwell accurately exhibits treacherous aspects of the human condition in his portrayal of dramatised relationships between humans and animals. - Just as the pig rulers of the rebellion eventually betray their own idealistic visions, the theme of alliance is shattered between Frederick and Napoleon when the latter learns that the former has been forging banknotes while buying firewood from him. - Thus, Animal Farm depicts the idea that alliances formed in a tyrannical dictatorship are merely veneers of camaraderie, which hide each person’s capability to destroy others in their path towards control. Analysis of Quotes:‘Four legs good, two legs bad.’ - From Chapter 3, this slogan is based off of Old Major’s speech before his death about the need for animals to unite in the face of human oppression and tyranny. - The quote is a noteworthy example of propaganda in Animal Farm, as the leaders utilise language in order to essentially brainwash the working class animals. - Although it initially helps the animals to remember their goals, the phrase later loses its meaning of solidarity as it becomes a nonsensical noise made by sheep when used to drown out the voices of challengers to the regime. ‘All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others.’ - This quote exemplifies the pigs’ abuse of logic and language to keep their power over their followers. - The evidently senseless and illogical meaning behind this phrase is an example of the methods that the leader of the Farm takes in order to brainwash his followers. - The quote also suggests that the pigs’ real intention to create an animal utopia is not, in fact, to rise up against the oppression of the humans, but to become part of the elite; the ‘some’ that possess greater rights and power than the rest of the underprivileged society. 5 Types of Essay PromptsYour approach to each essay will depend on what type of prompt is being asked. Be aware that not all essay prompts are the same, which means that sometimes your preferred essay structure simply won’t suit the type of prompt asked. That's why it's important to be aware of the 5 types of essay topics – what you should watch out for and how you could approach your essay writing. The topics used in this blog post have been curated by Lisa's Study Guides. 1. Theme-based prompts : Animal Farm is first and foremost a satirical critique of politicians’ tyrannical misuse of power. Usually your paragraphs will be based around particular themes. For example in this case, paragraphs may be based on ‘love’, ‘escape’, ‘horrors of war’ etc. These paragraphs can have character discussions embedded within them in order to demonstrate how the characters represent each theme. Discussion of the author’s choice of language such as symbols or imagery can be essential to the analysis of a theme. 2. Character-based prompts : Boxer is the only animal with redeeming qualities. Do you agree? These prompts focus on one or more characters. In this case, you can structure your essay paragraphs based on particular characters or something in common with a set of characters. Essays can become quite repetitive if each paragraph is based around one character so try to add in discussion about themes or the character’s relationships with other characters. Remember that minor characters can be just as important as major characters. 3. How-based prompts : How does Napoleon exert control over the farm? These prompts are usually structured, ‘how does the character do this,’ or 'how does the author do this'. In this case, since the prompt is focused on one main character, try to weave in the main character’s interactions with other characters and how other characters influenced them. 4. Metalanguage-based prompts : The language in Animal Farm is crucial to Orwell's storytelling. These types of prompts are the rarest of the 5 prompts but don’t be surprised if you’re asked one. They focus more on the language part of the text; rather than the plot, themes or characters. Your discussion will revolve around the author’s use of language (metaphors, prose, syntax etc.). These discussions are typically viewed as ‘harder’ prompts because you need to think about how the author achieves a particular message about character or theme through their choice of words. Check out our blog post on metalanguage and what you need to look out for. Extra helpful resource by the BBC: Form, structure and language in Animal Farm. 5. Quote prompts : 'All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others.’ How is this true in Animal Farm? These prompts can be character- or theme-based. However, it differs from other essay topics because it includes a direct quote from the text. Remember that the quote is part of the prompt, so ensure that you address it. One of the best ways of doing so is to incorporate the quote into the essay itself. When faced with unknown prompts in a SAC or your exam, it's reassuring to have a formulaic breakdown of the prompt so that your brain immediately starts categorising the prompt - which of the 5 types of prompts does this one in front of me fall into? To learn more, I discuss this and offer you practical strategies (so you never mind-blank again!) in my ebook, How To Write A Killer Text Response. Feel free to check it out, and good luck! Why do most people try to avoid public speaking?Fear of public speaking is a common form of anxiety. It can range from slight nervousness to paralyzing fear and panic. Many people with this fear avoid public speaking situations altogether, or they suffer through them with shaking hands and a quavering voice.
What causes fear of public speaking?Causes of Glossophobia
A phobia may arise because of a combination of genetic tendencies and other environmental, biological, and psychological factors. People who fear public speaking may have a real fear of being embarrassed or rejected.
What is the most common cause of public speaking apprehension?By now, the main cause of public speaking anxiety is thought to be related to negative self- image. Besides, the unfamiliarity towards words, the lack of experience, unfamiliar environment, new audience, status difference between speakers and listeners, and the position of speakers and audiences etc.
What is the fear of speaking in public called?Glossophobia is a very common phobia characterized by a strong fear of public speaking. Individuals with glossophobia may avoid speaking in public, as they typically experience fear and anxiety when speaking in front of a group of people.
|
Which of the following is most likely to cause someone to avoid public speaking altogether?
zusammenhängende Posts
Urheberrechte © © 2024 ketiadaan Inc.
