'Discoveries can be transformative and/or far-reaching for an individual'
The emotional, intellectual and physical discoveries can act as the foundations for an individual what do you mean by this? Foundations for what? Their identity? Their lives? Their sense of self? I know the prompt is quite broad, but your answer should be specific! and can have a transformative effect on their awareness of human experiences and the wider world. The discoveries can be carefully planned, so much that the composer word check - 'composer' is usually used to refer to authors of musical pieces, and even then only really for classical pieces (e.g. Mozart) can place an individual in unauthentic situations, even without their knowledge. In the 2011 documentary series ‘Go Back To Where You Came From’, the participants are taken on the migrant journey in reverse and the experiences of Adam Hartup and Darren Hassan show many emotional ramifications that are impacted by their awareness of the influence of the media on this political issue. The producers have seemingly composed many of the experiences to exaggerate the extent of their discoveries, this feels a bit like you're evaluating the show, saying that they exaggerated things or made them up in order to get their point across, and this isn't really your job in this piece. Try to reserve judgement and just comment on the meaning being created making the responders question the far-reaching impact of the emotional responses of the participants. Similarly, in the 1963 poem ‘Mid-Term Break’ by Seamus Heaney explores the transformative careful with sentence structure - read this again and you'll likely see the issue ('in the poem by the author explores...') discoveries of his own childhood, having lost an infant in a traumatic accident. He focuses on how this impacted the people around the protagonist, as well as the reader. He uses carefully planned literary techniques in order to provoke an emotional response from the reader. Of course he does! That's what poets do. Sentences like these, accurate though they may be, are often not given much credence because they're too generic. It'd be like saying 'The author of this novel has explored a vast array of complex and multifaceted ideas through the use of complex literary devices and structural features.' Sounds nice, but I've said nothing in that sentence other than 'there are things in this novel that are explored in a novel-y way' Both texts explore how discoveries can be influenced by the composer by making the audience As much as I like that you're focusing on both the characters and the audience, you seem to be dodging the prompt a little bit. Your task is not to comment on how the texts might manipulate the audience to help them discover things, but instead to examine how the authors/creators present the idea of discoveries being transformative for those in the texts (i.e. the people on 'Go Back' and the speakers/personas in the poetry.) and protagonist aware or unaware of these influences. This seems like an odd, slightly fence-sitting statement - the author either makes them aware or unaware - is there not something more definitive you could say other than 'it's either one or the other?'
The foundations of transformative discoveries can be affected by the authorial presence and careful planning of a reality TV series, and ultimately the participants are unaware of this presence You're zooming into the text too quickly here. Try and make a broader statement about discovery and your sub-argument first, and then bring up the idea of authority, reality tv, and the show itself. It's like if you said 'The nature of complicated discoveries is often caused by Adam when he says "..." ' - you can't go from a zoomed-out comment on something abstract all the way into the text too soon, or it's jarring for your reader. During Episode 2 of ‘Go Back To Where You Came From’, the participants take part in a police raid on a construction site. On the ride to the site, Adam comments, “if it’s the Chins haven't seen this particular episode, but what does this mean? Why is this quote significant? I’ll lose my shit… I won’t be able to handle it.” The non-diegetic music builds into a suspenseful tone adds to the suspense and the camera shows Adam in a close-up shot. This shows Adam’s unawareness of how his reaction to this confronting event can be manipulated by the producers. How does it show this?? The emphatic language what language? Are you talking about the quote from three sentences ago? What language in particular was emphatic? And what was it emphasising? shows the growing attachment and understanding Adam has developed through the emotional discoveries. Throughout the raid, Adam doesn’t say much, but his body language expresses his confusion and confrontation Firstly, how does his body language show this? What does 'expressing confusion' look like in this context? BE SPECIFIC! Secondly, if you reverse the order of these two words, you'll see that confrontation doesn't really belolng here: 'his body language expresses his confrontation and confusion' - see how 'his confrontation' sounds a little odd?, unaware of how to act in retaliation to the site of arrested refugees. As new discoveries are made, it becomes clear to the participants and audience how an authorial presence can shape material into their preferred ideal. So are you arguing that Adam wasn't actually discovering anything and that the show's creators were just 'shaping the material?' I'm a bit confused as to what you're trying to argue here - you start by saying 'As discoveries are made...' but what discovery are you talking about? That should be your focus here, not the notion of 'authorial presence.'
For the reader, transformative discoveries and their foundations are affected by the author of a text through their careful use of literary techniques, with which allows the reader to emotionally respond to the text you're still zooming in a bit too quickly here. Focus on discovery and the prompt for at least a sentence before you do this. In the poem, ‘Mid-Term Break’, many techniques are used to convey the story of the death of an infant, although the reader doesn’t discover this until the end of the journey. The title itself “Mid-Term Break”” leads the responder to think the poem is about a happy event of the end of the school year, making them unaware of the poignant and traumatic story that lay ahead. It is the end of the first stanza that the reader suspects that something unusual is about to occur, though still oblivious to the traumatic event. “At two o’clock our neighbours drove me home.” This unusual event of the neighbours taking the protagonist home allows the reader to prepare themselves for the death of the four-year-old boy this is a bit of a leap :/ The step-by-step logic of your discussion is excellent, but this one is quite a stretch - the neighbours drive a kid home, which prepares readers for the death of a 4 year old?, building the morbid mood. They are still unaware of the emotional consequences of the death. You're resting this whole paragraph on one point, which is quite risky. What about all those 'many techniques' you talked about earlier? You could use a bit more evidence in this paragraph. Far-reaching discoveries can be impacted by the author’s manipulation of words examples? to lead to greater the impact of the responder’s emotional and what emotions would these be, exactly? What kind of response is being evoked? And most importantly, how is this transformative and/or far-reaching? response.
As new understandings and perceptions develop from discoveries, it becomes clear how constructed the media is in order to portray a particular side of a story. The producers of ‘Go Back To Where You Came From’ have aimed to emphasise their pro-humanitarian motivation to provoke an empathetic response by the audience again, I feel like you should be focusing on the nature of the people in the show's discoveries about the world and the suffering of refugees, rather than subtly criticising the show and saying that they're manipulating the facts for their own agenda or anything like that. At the end of Episode 1, the participants are placed on refugee boat, and are forced to travel into the open sea without knowledge of their destination. After experiencing this unauthentic how is it 'unauthentic?' Surely this is one of the most realistic moments since when refugees seek asylum, the process of travelling is often risky and uncertain, especially if they're paying some dodgy people smuggler - they have no way of knowing for sure where they'll end up either situation, the live camera captures Darren, the most opposed to boat people, express his concerns that the media is “…emotionally involving us without our consent.” The collective terms used in his language shows that he is talking not only about himself, but the Australian public. Darren’s body language and tone describe these in more detail - what is it about these things that betray his agitation also shows his agitation by the experience, and shows his awareness of how the program has constructed these ‘transformative’ experiences in order to provoke an emotional response by the participants. He also explains that the media wants “you should feel bad, you should feel empathy.” Darren is placed in a mid-shot, and uses high modality language why is this important? How does it highlight antything? to highlight his feeling of manipulation by the media. The awareness of constructed discoveries that an individual may undertake can therefore influence their shift in perceptions, or even affirm their previous understandings. Good, but you need to focus more on Darren. What happens to him throughout the show, for instance? Does he change his mind, or is he completely cynical about the emotional manipulation that he thinks is taking place? Do his perceptions shift at all?
The new understandings and renewed perceptions that derive from the foundations of discoveries are impacted by the author’s choice of form and stylistic elements of their writing. In the poem ‘Mid-Term Break’, Heaney explores the parents' apostrophe after the s if it's plural and possessive reactions to the death of the infant, before the protagonist’s is discovered. In stanza 2, the father’s reaction is distinguished word check. “… I met my father crying…always taken funerals in his stride…” This quote isn't integrated at all; try and fit this into one of your sentences. In the 1950’s, the thought of a man crying was against the society’s stereotypical man, and the use of this emphasises the lasting impact of the death of a loved one, especially an infant. The mother’s reaction to this terrible news is expressed in stanza 5. “…coughed out angry tearless sighs.” see above The silence of “tearless sighs” accentuates the idea of the reverence of death. At this stage, it is still unclear to the audience of who is dead, though the characters portrayed have already discovered this.<-- I'm not seeing the link between that previous statement and this one --> The awareness of the characters show how discoveries build to the transformative foundations of the audience and their new understandings. What discovery? What transformation? What foundations? What new understanding?
In conclusion, both the SBS documentary series ‘Go Back To Where You Came From’ and the poem ‘Mid-Term Break’ explore how the audience and participants are aware or unaware of how the composer influences the discoveries they make. This conclusion is a bit of a weak spot as you're just restating a line from your introduction without much development. You could do a lot more here in terms of linking this to the prompt and saying something about the nature of discovery overall, which should ultimately be your focus here.
I think there are some inconsistencies with your approach in this piece, because there were sections where your analysis was highly accurate and impressive, but others where you seemed to veer off course and talk about the manipulation of authors, particularly in your paragraphs dealing with 'Go Back.' Perhaps it was just a one-time issue that came about because of the breadth of the prompt, but you need to ensure your sub-arguments are always on track.
If you're talking about discoveries being transformative and far-reaching, then that's the concept you should be exploring in the text. Don't think about how the author might be 'faking' these ideas, or whether the audience are the ones making the discoveries - you have to analyse what the author does and explain how textual evidence supports those points.
In other words 'what does this show tell us about discovery?' Or, more applicably for this essay 'How does 'Go Back' + Heaney's poem show us that discovery can be transformative and far-reaching?' THAT'S the question that needs answering here.
Which leads me on to my next point - you don't really ever explain what 'transformative' means, and you hardly touch on the whole 'far-reaching' thing at all. Those key words in the prompt should be the crux of your piece, and you need to prioritise these.
Your essay structure was pretty good, though the starts and ends of your paragraphs could use a bit of tightening up. Your topic sentences were a little bit too specific to the texts, and I think you'd benefit from a more abstract point to start off with before then linking this idea to whichever text you wanted to look at. Also, (and again, there's more advice on this in previous feedback posts) there isn't much of a link between your two texts because you're only ever looking at them in isolation. Thus, instead of going for one alternative paragraphs on each, you could instead try:
Paragraph 1: 75% focus on 'Go Back' + 25% on a related idea in Heaney.
Paragraph 2: 50% on 'Go Back' + 50% on a related idea in Heaney
Paragraph 3: 75% on Heaney + 25% on a related idea in 'Go Back'
or something like that. Basically, find a concept like 'discovering new things can transform us for the better,' and link that to one of the texts. For instance, some of the participants in 'Go Back' gained a more enlightened and more informed view of the refugee experience, resulting in a more empathetic stance on related political issues. Then, we can connect this to the second text by either finding a point of similarity or difference. If I wanted to find a point of difference here, then I might say that in Heaney's poem, the parents discover something that will inevitably change their lives, and have overtly negative ramifications on their relationship and their mental state. Thus (getting to the end of the paragraph now) we can conclude that although certain discoveries can be very advantageous for one's psyche, they can also involve a great deal of suffering.
Then you move on to the next idea, finding points of similarity and difference as you go.
In short:
1) Know what the task is asking of you, and keep that in mind while writing. If it helps, write out a series of questions that you need to answer per paragraph so that if you ever do lose focus or forget where you're going, you've got that framework there as a reference point.
2) Forge links between your set texts so that you're able to use both of them in order to say something about discovery. It's kind of like your goal is to paint something purple, and you have a tine of blue paint and a tin of red paint. At the moment, you've painted half the thing blue and half the thing red... so your approach is theoretically good and you're using the right materials, but ultimately it's not going to result in the purple that we're after. Only by combining your ideas through comparison and contrast can you get that desired effect.
3) Make sure the first and last line of your body paragraphs are just about discovery, not about the texts. This isn't a hard-and-fast rule, and if you read some of the other essays in this thread, you'll likely notice they can disobey this but still do things well. For now though, if you can impose that restriction on yourself, you'll be able to better adjust to the zooming in and out process that's necessary for success.
4) Give yourself enough ammunition throughout your essay so that by the time you get to your conclusion, you're confident enough to shoot your target. If you haven't build up a good range of sub-arguments, it can be very difficult to do all that work in the final few sentences, so each time you conclude a paragraph, take things back to the prompt and question how what you've been discussing pertains to the prompt's focus. Then, answer that question directly and unambiguously so that the assessors will have no choice but to give you marks for relevance.
5) Sentence structure and vocab are mostly good, though there are a few instances where your word choices let you down a bit. As I've said before though, the more risks you take now means the more opportunities you have to correct your mistakes, so keep experimenting with expression in order to further enhance your writing.
Best of luck!