Year 9 Essay on Holes

The essay below is a essay from a Year 9 student on the novel Holes. The question he answered on is the type of question that you may get in your exam.

Describe a character who changed during the text. Explain why this change occurred.

A character who changed in the novel “Holes” by Louis Sachar was Stanley. Over the course of the novel Stanley changed from being a boring, dull and ‘wimpy’ child to an interesting and ‘tough’ young man.

One of the main ways in which Stanley changed was that at the beginning he had “no friends” and was bullied frequently. This changed because of the fact that he eventually made friends with his camp mates. The bullying would have also stopped because by the time we got back to civilisation he was no longer “fat” which was the main reason he had be bullied.

Stanley’s home situation also changed when he left for “Camp Green Lake” his father was struggling to find a way to “recycle” old sneakers. His family also was reasonably poor at the start. By the end however Stanley’s dad with the help of the infamous “sploosh” was able to stop the sneakers smelling. Stanley also discovered a trunk of extremely valuable shares which belonged to his family. The fact that his family was now reasonably well off made Stanley more confident in himself and a more pleasant person to be around.

At the beginning of the novel Stanley was generally seen as being a bit of a ‘wimp’ he would always run rather then fight and would never do anything brave. However over his time at camp green Lake he developed and overcame his fears. He even did some fairly heroic stuff such as going into almost certain death in the desert to help his friend Zero, and braving wardens with guns and poisonous lizards to try and find a treasure. By the end at the novel there was no way he could still be seen as a wimp by anyone. Over the film Stanley changed in many ways and all seemed to be important, and for the better.

Response to Texts in the Year 9 and 10 exams

Another section in the Years 9 and 10 exams is Response to Texts. I have put an essay from a Year 10 student below. The essay was written on the novel Looking for Alibrandi and it was written in exam conditions.

Describe an character who changed during the text. Explain why this change occurred.

In the novel ‘Looking for Alibrandi’ by Melina Marchetta, the character Josie Alibrandi changes.  In the beginning of the novel she was scornful of her culture (Australian-Italian), dubbing the Italian tomato day as “national bloody wog day”, at the end of the book she has accepted herself and her culture.

As the novel begins we see her immediately as witty, intelligent, and though she would never admit it; a snob and really quite nasty to those she does not like.  Josie has a rocky relationship with her Grandmother, Nonna, who is a traditional Italian matron.

Nonna’s endless restrictions and expectations leave Josie impatient and ever the wild child to her Grandmother.  Josie eventually discovers that Nonna was very much similar to herself when she was young, and stronger than Josie ever could have imagined.  Josie begins to listen to Nonna, and she grows to respect and love her crotchety Grandmother.

The whole book is of Josie growing, spiritually and mentally.  Since she has only been bought up by her Mother, the two are very close.  Yet Josie manages to show a childish and petty side when her Mother attempts to go out on a date with a man she has met.  Josie throws a traditional tantrum showing she is not as mature as we thought.

This changes when her non-existent Father comes onto the scene.  Josie is forced to face her demons; her culture and her illegitimacy. After several false starts that include much swearing, Josie lets her Father in.  This fills a space that has always been in her life.

When a friend commits suicide, Josie seems to grow up in the space of a few days.  She is forced to revaluate what is important to her, when she realises that the lifestyle of her friend, a proper Australian, wasn’t as idyllic as she had always thought.

Through this, Josie sees that her culture will always be part of her, and she accepts this.  At the end of the novel Josie has grown up and is at peace with herself, “what’s important is that I know my place in life”.

Year 9 and 10 exams

The Year 10 exam is next week and one section is Formal Writing. I have added a piece of writing written in exam conditions by a Year 10 student. The writing has developed ideas, it uses a controlled writing style, it is clearly structured and accurate.

Family / whanau are more important than friends

To say that family is more important than friends is being rather naïve to the way today’s society works. That is not to say that family is unimportant, it is not, but friends are just as important as well.

The saying goes that you can pick your friends but not your family. Families provide love and support, but cannot always provide the acceptance a friend can. Friends choose each other because they have mutual feelings about things. Families don’t choose each other; they are born with each other, clashes in opinion included.

While it is true that you can escape your family if things get hard, it would be difficult for a teenager to do so. In these years, the generation gap is at its most stretched which makes things at home especially hard with family.

It is during this time that friendships are either cemented or lost. Friends provide buffers and are supported during hard times, so are families. However friends are more likely to be on the same wave-length than a parent, whom is thirty-years older than you, is likely to be.

Humans are social animals: they are designed to seek out people for friendship. One cannot disregard thousands of years of evolution to say that family is more important than the people that make life sparkle.

Family is important: it is a foundation, a safety net even. It can provide many things that friends can and is the basis of all society. However, interlinked with this is the idea of friendship, something that has the same power to build or destroy, much like family.

Perhaps, rather than saying friends are better, or family is more important, it would be more accurate to say that love knows no boundaries. Friends can be family in every way save blood. Family can be the best of friends for individuals as well. These two concepts are not just ‘close’ they are virtually inseparable.

The Opening Sequence

A question that often comes up in the Visual Text section is on the opening of a film. I have added the opening sequence of The Shawshank Redemption below for those of you that would like to attempt the essay question below.

Analyse why you thought either the beginning OR the ending of the text was effective.

• blank screen with major credits and Inkspots’ song over: ‘If I Didn’t Care’.
• fade-up to night scene; long shot of two lights at the beginning of a drive; lit building in background
• camera tracks back to pick up dark shape of car; silhouette of driver lit by dash lights; music track decreases in volume
• camera tracks forward slightly and pans around to pick up driver in medium-side shot; he looks dishevelled, leans forward and reaches over to glove compartment; Foley track becomes more prominent
• close-up of hand retrieving bundle from compartment; camera follows as bundle taken across to driver’s lap and opened to reveal a revolver and loose bullets; hand moves to find and open a small bourbon bottle
• cut to medium-front-on shot of driver swigging
• soundtrack of courtroom scene becomes prominent; cut to front-on close-medium shot of character being asked a question about a murder in court; piano music track in background
• sequence of question-and-answer shots in day-lit courtroom
• cut to medium-night shot of man backing through doorway; woman follows; door is pushed closed and they embrace against it

• cut to another medium shot; question-and-answer sequence in the courtroom
• cut to close-up of hands loading the revolver in the car
• cut to medium-front shot of driver through windscreen
• cut to sequence of question-and-answer shots in courtroom
• cut to slow pan of jury
• cut to close-medium question-and-answer sequence with characters becoming more intense
• cut to close-up of hands preparing revolver, cut to close-medium shot of driver taking another swig
• dash lights go out; courtroom voice-over becomes prominent; interior light comes on as driver opens door

• cut to close-up of foot emerging from car; soundtrack of things falling; glass breaking; close-up of feet walking towards drive

• cut to front-on full shot of driver walking unsteadily forward towards gate; he walks into medium shot

• cut back to courtroom sequence, cut to series of close-ups of the lovers against the door; courtroom soundtrack still over

• cut to sentencing scene in court; close-up of judge; cut to zoom in on Mr Dufresne
• cut to black; soundtrack of door slamming loudly

To Kill a Mockingbird Essay

If you are revising Harper Lee’s novel ‘To Kill a Mockingbird’ write an essay on the question below.

‘Our father didn’t do anything. He worked in an office, not in a drug store. Atticus did not drive a dump-truck for the county, he was not the sheriff, he did not farm, work in a garage, or do anything that could possibly arouse the admiration of anyone.’

How does Harper Lee present Atticus as a man that Scout learns to admire?

Visual Text Revision

This post is for Level Two students. I have added some film questions for you to work on.

1. Explain how a director has established and developed a major character in your studied visual text.
2. Discuss how a director has manipulated the viewer’s response to one of the following: a relationship, a group of characters, an incident.
3. Describe how a film that you have studied has revealed aspects of human nature or human society.
4. What did a film you have studied reveal to you about relationships between people?
5. Describe how the film you studied caused you as a viewer to adopt an opinion and/or develop a response to one of its main characters.

Unnecessary sign

Level One Questions

The list of questions below would be suitable for Year 11 students to use to write revision essays on the novel. Support your ideas with specific details from the novel that you studied.

1 Explain what you think made this text worth reading.

2 Describe an important decision, and explain why it was important.

3 Describe a character you felt strongly about, and explain what made you feel this way.

4 Describe an important conflict, and why it is important.

5 Describe an idea or issue, and explain what you think about it.

6 Describe a problem that a character faces and explain how successful the character is in solving it.

7 Explain the most important idea in the story, and what you thought about it.

8 Explain what a character has learned by the end of the text, and the effect this has had on him/her.

9 Describe a situation you felt strongly about, and explain what made you feel this way.

10 Describe an object or symbol that is important and explain why it is important.

Year 11 Formal Writing

This post is for Year 11 students who are in 101 classes. I wanted to remind you that the Assessment Specifications for 1.2 Formal Writing 2008 state:

“Candidates will write a letter to the editor of at least 250 words in response to one of 10 topics.  Two topics will have stimulus material.  Assessment will not include letter layout.”

You will still have to write in a formal style as that is what the standard is assessing. What is the required formal style? That means regardless of the context, you have to be able to produce: “a piece of formal writing that expresses ideas, information and/or opinions, is organised using an appropriate format and structure, and uses acceptable spelling, punctuation and grammar.” Each year the exam will give a context  to provide all students something ‘authentic’ to respond to.

Have you seen this cat?