2019 HSC Revision Lectures

[angewina_naguen]

Hey, everyone!

This thread here is for those who attended my English Standard HSC Revision lecture at Macquarie University  Any short answer responses posted in this thread within a week's time will receive feedback from me! If you have any questions from the lecture, feel free to ask below, and I will also endeavour to help you out  Keen to see lots of responses!

Angelina 

[Claytonoh]

Both the text explore hardships through the variety of human experiences conveyed by individuals or collectively. Seen in the dialogue between the mother son, where she recounts her life as been "no crystal stair." metaphorically indicating to her son life was not simple and had endure the hardships.  The notion of hardship is further reinforced by the mother through her anecdote having "splitters…boards torn up…places with no carpet on the floor-Bare."  Hughes' enlistment of  imagery provides the visual sensory towards the audience of her struggle, where the hardships were aligned in her home describing her living conditions as poor. Her aspect of human experience is further elaborated through her motivation towards her son calling, "I'se been a climbin'…reachin landins…turnin corners…sometimes goin' in the dark". The employment of rhyme and slang of "ins" exhibits the variety of ways the mother has experienced hardships in her life.  Her continuous motivation of "Don't you turn back…Don't you fall now." Hughes utilises the inclusive language of creating a sense of involvement to the audience to feel that the motivation to overcome hardship is not just targeted to the son but to audience in a way as well. The repetitive use of  "no crystal stair" is to remind the notion of life is not going to be easy and part of the aspect of the human experience to endure. Hence, text 4 has explored the hardships through the anecdote of the mother and son as an aspect of human experience.

Didnt answer text 5 as cannot read the text.

[Benicillin]

https://www.theguardian.com/education/2019/jul/15/students-struggle-to-support-themselves-as-university-rent-costs-rise

https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/47559/mother-to-son

[max.griffin]

Both texts emphasise the hardship of human experiences in different ways, text four uses figurative language in “And splinters And boards torn up And places with no carpet on the floor- Bare” Anaphora is used to help create rhythm in the lines as it metaphorically compares the stairs with her life to challenge assumptions that people are able to live with out the aspect of hardship in the human experience further supported by the slang “I’se still climbing” showing how the Mum is telling her son with out any pretences the reality of the human experience. Text five explores the aspect of hardship through emotive language and visuals, lots of high modality words are used within the colloquial language and a few are highlighted in read drawing the readers eye. The image has your average grey sky and building but the signs relating to the hardship of the human experiences are bright and coloured. This is done to explore and ignite the idea that hardship is key part of everyday life. Both texts use different techniques to highlight and explore hardship as an a key aspect of the human experience by highlighting the hardship in each text 4 breaks the anaphora with the word “bare” and text 5 has in huge highlighted text “Students struggle”.

[Jacob.123]

Both texts explore hardships as a human experience; collectively and individually. In text 4) the mother explains to the son that life is “no crystal stair” instead had “tacks… splinters...boards torn up” which metaphorically represents the experiences of hardship that the mother individually had to undergo. She collectively tells the son this with a purpose and warning for him to keep going when times are hard. As the mothers attempt to warn the son of hardships collectively, she states that there is “...no carpet on the floor”, which metaphorically means that where ever the son may want to rest it will always be “bare” and that he should keep “... climbin’ on”. Similarly, text 5) also explores hardships for university students through the struggle of supporting themselves financially. As the article states, one in three students have to get a loan to keep paying rent due to “the rising cost of rent” which is visually supported by the image above. The image displays buildings with “let” signs skattered throughout it; indicating that students can’t afford to rent a unit. The let signs indicates that the students have to leave as seen in the survey, “they had run out of money by the end of the semester”. The red in the signs symbolise bad and hardships for collectively and individually.

[Lochie_Andrews]

Both Text 4 and Text 5 express the hardships that are faced by the individuals throughout life. In text 4, the persona utilises a metaphor of a staircase to express the challenges that she has faced, 'Life for me ain't been no crystal stair'. This example combined with the accumulation of the hardships that the mother has faced, 'It's had tacks in it, and splinters and boards torn up' guides the responder to understand and interpret the hardships that individuals must endure when faced with challenges. Additionally, in the final lines of the poem, Hughes' use of colloquial language in the line, 'don't you fall now, I'se still goin' honey.' highlights that the persona is still and will always be climbing the metaphorical staircase, while also expressing that endurance and resilience are required to persevere when challenged. While text 4 expresses the struggles faced by an individual through a metaphor of life, test 5 appeals to the responders with heavy use of facts and statistics. The use of statistics in the subheading 'survey suggests that students feel they lack support from their universities in managing their finance' is an immediate source of information that grasps the responder's attention and encourages them to understand the hardships that are being faced by students. Additionally, the use of visual imagery in the supporting photo of for sale signs alludes the economic hardships of today's society. Although Text 4 and 5 explore utilise different mediums to express the hardships that are faced by individuals, each text ultimately expresses the same core idea that struggle is a major aspect of the human experience.

[angewina_naguen]

Hey, everyone!

Thanks for getting your responses in! I will be getting feedback to them very soon  In the mean time, your lecture slides are now available for download. Click on the link below to download your English Standard slides 

2019 HSC English Standard Revision Lecture Slides

[stacy.frichot]

Text 4 employs the use of a poem, which is significant because it’s a more traditional way to convey thoughts and ideas. This impacts the responder by making the poem feel like a “hand me down” of advice from one generation to another (mother to son), it shows how one highly experienced human is passing down all the knowledge that they have gathered up to share with a very inexperienced young boy. Whereas in text 5 the use of an article, presents a more current, recent list of events to grab individual attention for a short period of time. This emphasis the impression that the students in text 5 are facing a temporary hardship, a short-term adversity, whereas the mother in text 4 discusses the hardship of her life “life…ain’t been no crystal stair”; which is a more long-term hardship. Text 5 uses a more collective approach to explain their financial difficulties, “according to a the survey” , whereas in text 4 it is a first-hand account which makes the responder experience a more personal connection with the individuals “it’s had tacks in it…splinters and boards torn up”. Both text 4 and text 5 show an intimate understanding of how hardships have effected them and also both texts discuss financial hardship, especially in living conditions, this makes them both a valid form of hardship through human experiences.

[angewina_naguen]

Hey, everyone!

I've decided to post some general feedback here for the short answers considering the exams are upcoming. Apologies that this took far longer than anticipated since I've been busy powering through the past two weeks. If you would like more detailed responses from me, I will be happy to provide it if you send me a PM  This is just so I can outline easier the overall strengths and areas of improvements 

Feedback
- All responses are geared towards the concepts of Texts and Human Experiencesand incorporate the rubric's terminology to execute this. The open-endedness of the question I provided granted immense flexibility for you to choose how you wished to explore the texts' relationships to the module. Across the board, the focus on Human Experiences was well-achieved and will hopefully be something you continue to do in the exam.

- All responses acknowledge the presence of both texts and engaged strongly in synthesis. There is evidence in everyone's responses of comparison which really tackles the demands of the question head-on. I particularly found it nice to see the success of the "While Text 1 does a) and Text 2 does b), both texts explore c)" template in ensuring that you considered the common representations of hardship.

Feedforward
- Having both a mini-thesis at the beginning of the responses and a concluding linking sentence at the end would be ideal. These purely conceptual sentences serve to introduce your stance on how hardship is represented in both texts and to reinforce that representation's impact on audience respectively. A sample of each of these would be as follows;

"Texts seek to illuminate the intensely meaningful human experiences born from hardship."
"Thus, both texts ignite new ideas about to us about hardship, not as a signifier of our differences but as an integral part of being human.

- More textual evidence and analysis could be added if possible under exam conditions. In this instance with the 7 marker, I would aim for three quotes on Text 4 and three quotes on Text 5 to ensure you can gain enough marks there. The responses here have some fantastic examples elected for analysis already so I would recommend adding more analysis if you had more time.

Thanks so much for being patient with me and again, do feel free to ask me for more detailed feedback. I really hope this helps and wish you all the absolute best with Papers 1 and 2!

Angelina