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Section 1 - What does it mean to respond to a text?
Section 1 - What does it mean to respond to a text?
- To respond to a text means to discuss how it made you think and feel.
- These feelings/thoughts might be opinions, ideas or simple things you found interesting.
- There is no way that you can be "wrong" as this is about YOUR RESPONSE.
- For this assessment, your job is to look at 6 different texts and respond to them.
Section 2 - What does the task look like at Level 1?
Section 2 - What does the task look like at Level 1?
- On the left, is the document that tells you want to do but basically you need to:
- You MUST choose 6 texts for yourself and they have to include:
- 2 x extended written texts (novels, autobiographies, non-fiction texts)
- 2 x written texts (these could be short stories, articles, poems or two further extended texts)
- The final 2 can be written OR:
- Visual texts (films, documentaries, short films, advertisements)
- Oral texts (speeches, songs, podcasts)
- ALL of your texts MUST be APPROVED BY YOUR TEACHER.
- On the RIGHT you will find some exemplars that some students have written for this assessment.
- You will notice that they have different grades.
- NOT ACHIEVED means they did NOT meet the criteria
- ACHIEVED means they met the criteria
- MERIT means they met the criteria in a CONVINCING way (really sold their response)
- EXCELLENCE means they met the criteria in a PERCEPTIVE way (really sold their response and applied their ideas to the real world around them)
- Your mission: Make a list of the things you will need to write about in order to get an Achieved, Merit and Excellence grade for this assessment.
Section 3 - So what kinds of texts can I do my responses on?
Section 3 - So what kinds of texts can I do my responses on?
To the LEFT here, I have created a document that gives you some ideas of the texts that you can choose to do your responses on. It is VITALLY important that:
- YOU make the choice
- You check it with your teacher :-)
- If you are unsure about anything regarding text choices, just ask away :-)
Section 4 - What are the important parts of the response?
Section 4 - What are the important parts of the response?
It would be useful as you are reading/viewing/listening to your texts to make notes as you go. These only need to be in bullet point form as you can easily go back and find the specific evidence later. The questions you should consider answering when making notes are:
- What ideas and issues were presented in the text? (This question is all about the message you got from the text, what the text made you think about or realise)
- Which events in the text emphasised the message that you wrote about for question 1? (give quotes from the text to back up what you are saying)
- How did the characters in the text react to these events? (give quotes from the text to back up what you are saying)
- Why did the author wrote this text? (You need to think about the author’s purpose, what kind of message they were trying to get across and why, quotes may be needed)
- What do you personally think about the idea/issue that is emphasised in the story? (This is all about you, there are no right or wrong answers)
- What have you viewed/read/heard about that relates to the idea/issue in this text? (This could be a link to another text, it could be a link to something that has happened to you or someone you know etc.)
Helpful definitions:
Idea = something you can learn about life
Issue = something that is problem, we need to do something about it
Purpose = the author’s reason for putting their message across
Events = stuff that happened
Emphasized = how the stuff that happened made the message really obvious
Section 5 - I've done my notes, now what?
Section 5 - I've done my notes, now what?
You create your response, it is important that you do this one text at a time so that you don't forget any important details. After you have made notes from your text on the above questions, you need to go back and find some evidence that backs up what you are saying, for example:
- Quotes/language features from books
- Quotes/film techniques from films
- Quotes/language features/tone from articles/short stories
- Lyrics from songs/changes in tempo or style of music
- Lyrics/language features from slam poetry/changes in tone or volume
- REMEMBER: A quote does NOT have to be something a character said, it can be taken from any part of a text as long as it proves your point.
- HELPFUL HINT: Write your evidence on your notes in a different colour to check that you have got enough and that it is in the right place :-)
Section 6 - How do I structure and present my response?
Section 6 - How do I structure and present my response?
- You can present your response in a few ways. You could:
- Write an essay
- Record a verbal response
- Create a website with your responses
- If you choose to write a WRITTEN response, you need to use the SEXY paragraph structure which if you click on the link, it will take you to the Google slide presentation for.
- Your essay will not necessarily need an introduction and a conclusion but it will still need paragraphs. Below are some sentence starters that could help you with what to discuss in each paragraph. You can put some together in one paragraph or change them slightly if you feel it would make more sense to do so:
- The ideas/issues presented in this text were...
- The events that emphasized these ideas/issues were when...
- The characters reacted to these events by...
- The author wrote this text to...
- I believe that this...(you could be talking about the ideas/issues in the text or the author's message is)
- An action we should take around this is...because...
- This relates to when...because...
- FINAL NOTE: Please hand these in and get them ticked off one at a time, it makes it easier on both you and the teacher.
Section 7 - What if I want to present my responses differently?
Section 7 - What if I want to present my responses differently?
- For verbal responses you would simply make notes the same way and then discuss these with your teacher using the sentence starters OR you could record it at home.
- If you choose to do it at home, your teacher will need to see your notes first.
- If you choose to do it with your teacher, it will need to be voice recorded.
- For a website we could use Google sites.
- You can use online presentation tools such as Microsoft Sway as well, just be sure to check with your teacher about what you are using so that it is accessible.
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