There is no word limit you must reach. Your grade will depend on how convincing or perceptive your response is, rather than its length. You must complete 6 responses. Your final grade will be based on a holistic assessment of your most achieved grade for all 6 responses.

Use quotes or specific details from the text to support why you found that aspect interesting/disturbing/funny, etc and explain why you reacted that way.

One way to develop your ‘reasons for your reaction’ is to explain HOW you related to it. E.g. perhaps something similar happened to you or you identify with it somehow. *

*PLEASE NOTE: it is usually highly unlikely that the events from a film or book will be similar to your life or real life in general – but it is NOT about finding similar events and making a ‘match’. It IS about recognizing the lessons or truths about life in general. And we understand LIFE because we have lived bits and pieces of it. So if you can connect with a story it is usually because you have had enough experience in the world to have an understanding of what a story is trying to say to you.

Awesome links to some interesting texts suitable for this standard!

maya angelou poems

William Shakespeare

The Veldt by Ray Bradbury (Short story)

http://www.veddma.com/veddma/Veldt.htm

The Lanyard by Billy Collins (Poem)

http://writersalmanac.publicradio.org/index.php?date=2008/01/26

The Solipsist by Troy Jollimore (Philosophical poem)

http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poetrymagazine/poem/180541

Homer by Troy Jollimore (Philosophical poem)

http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poetrymagazine/poem/247152

Rain by Hone Tuwhare (NZ poem)

http://nzpoems.blogspot.co.nz/2011/05/rain-hone-tuwhare.html

Heaps of beautiful poems by Glenn Colquhoun!! (He is a NZ poet and a GP) (Poetry)

http://nzetc.victoria.ac.nz/tm/scholarly/tei-Ba25Spo-t1-body-d1.html

Clarifications from NZQA: Selection of texts

The standard requires students to read texts that are at curriculum level 7 in terms of complexity of language and ideas. This means that children’s texts, novels and short stories commonly taught in junior programmes are not suitable selections. Searches of major public library catalogues will frequently provide a reading age for texts. Those texts categorised as ‘children’s’ are not suitable.

Feature articles such as those from The Listener, North and South, Metro, National Geographic, meet the text level required for 91106. This should be used as guidance when students are selecting short written texts.

Students must select and read texts independently. Novels, short stories, poems, etc. that have been studied in class, cannot be included. This includes texts studied in previous years and in other subjects. Students may respond to a film shown, but not studied, in class.

Developing personal response

• Responses need to demonstrate personal engagement rather than close reading of text.

• Students must demonstrate their engagement with the text by, for example, expressing a point of view or discussing an issue in the text that has some personal relevance or meaning for them. Links need to be made between the text and the student him/herself and between the text and a wider social context.

• The best responses tend to focus on one main aspect (purpose and audience, ideas, language features, structure) where this aspect has sufficient scope for depth and engagement with the text.

• Plot summaries and lengthy description not linked to the response are not required and do not gain any credit.

• Specific and relevant details from the text are needed to support the explanation of the response. Details can include quotations or specific description, and must be directly linked to the reaction and explanation.

• Responses need to be text based. Students respond to aspect/s in a text, supported by evidence from the text. Identification of an issue in a text followed by the student’s opinion/viewpoint on the broad issue itself does not meet the standard.