Rearranging some paragraphs from my Inner Journey Essay AND Do we need 2 additional? (1 Viewer)

Smoke

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Jun 14, 2004
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Ok, first question: Will i do alright if i use just one additional text? Do i have to use two? Im just asking this because the english department at Caringbah tried to get us used to writing about

inner journey text
relate to a tape
relate to add mat 1
relate to add mat 2
relate to BOS
relate to question

:S

I hate using 2 additional material pieces. Do I have to use 2? Cant I just use one, and make sure its well done?

As for rearranging some paragraphs, ive been told I'm too wordy and it lengthens my essay too much. So shortly I will be posting my essay here for review by some kind souls :)

<--- And before people think this is an oppurtunity to go out with an attempt to make me feel bad that this is a poor essay, I already know that, so please, no trolling :)

---------------------------------------------Essay-------------------------------------------------

A journey is the process of relocation, movement or change from one state to another. An inner journey is an exploration of the self, realisation or analysis, search or pilgrimage, commonly resulting in a personal development. My place is an autobiography detailing the experience and changes in Sally Morgan of and during her search for identity and truth. The novel focuses on the shift from negative to positive self-conceptions, spirituality, acceptance and growth. The B.O.S Text 4, Journey To The Interior, is a poem written by Margaret Atwood that deals with the peril, confusion and feelings of the persona during an exploration of the self. Star Trek V, The Final Frontier, a movie directed by Harve Bennett, tells of a man’s search for God & Eden and his realisation of the futility of the search and how this realisation changed him & others who shared the journey. Also in an excerpt from the novel The Turning (Chapter 1), written by Tim Winton, the responder is presented with a persona who tells of his struggle to find acceptance of his life, and his search for one that more suited his outlook on life and what he fantasised. These texts contain qualities that allow for them to be interpreted as stories of the inner journey.

****If i am going to take out a piece of additional material, It will eb the stuff from The Turning. Aside from that I'm kind of happy with the introduction****

My Place is an account of a search for the truth and identity told in the first person primarily by Sally Morgan.The first seven chapters deal with the impact on sally’s life of living with Bill, her father and his death, which occurs by the seventh chapter. Bill was an alcoholic and the mental turmoil of his war experiences took their toll on his sanity and ability to control his actions. Sally felt that as a child she took the role of “peace maker” of the family, telling the responder of this through the anecdotal reflection on the past, in “the war had never ended for Dad…I was worried that one night something terrible might happen and I wouldn’t be awake to stop it. I was convinced I was all that lay between them and a terrible chasm”. The evidence of this was more of a recount and reflection by the adult Sally Morgan is the level of language that a child would not possess and the past tense tone “I was” is repeated three times. This repetition serves to emphasise the feeling of importance in holding the family back from tragedy. The metaphor conveyed through the imagery of the “terrible chasm” represents the fear that Sally felt in “I was worried” in being unable to stop the family falling - suffering a tragedy that could not be recovered from as one would be unable to recover from falling into “a terrible chasm”. Although this is not a journey in itself, the reflection on past life is an integral part in making a realisation of the journey.


***** See the above second section? I get the feeling you could still include the qoutes, analysis of language techniques, and finally reference to the reflection on the past as being an integral part in making a realisation of the journey, etc. In a much shorter space? ***************


In these first seven chapters, Sally expresses confusion in not knowing her racial background, unlike the other school children that did. Her childhood naivety is shown in her failure to realise that she was subjected to racial discrimination. In the first person, Sally proclaimed as a child “it was good to finally have an answer for our playmates, they just didn’t want us pretending we were Aussies when we weren’t” after her grandmother told them they were Indian.

Later in life, her sister Jill, told her; “A boong, you know, Aboriginal, God, of all things, Aboriginal!” In realisation of her childhood naivety Sally’s initial journey of a change from incomprehension to understanding ends and she embarked upon her “tentative search for knowledge”

***is this too wordy?***

In Jill’s revelation, Sally now became aware that it was her racial background that served as a contributing factor for her problems at high school. Realising she was unable to change this she removed herself from the situation, truanting from school. This was much like the experience of the persona from Winton’s ‘The Turning’, who decides to leave his town and life, running away in search of one that better fit his outlook on life and expectations. She expressed her discontent with school life in “I was becoming more and more aware that I was different to the other kids” and “I found the only way to cope was to truant” similar to the persona from ‘The Turning’ who expresses the same dissatisfaction in “that I dream of escaping, of pissing off north to find some blue sky. Unlike him, I’m not from around here” As each removed themselves from the situation they did not like, they went about searching for things more to their interest. While Sally did not commence journey each time, the persona reveals the ending of his journey, ironically at the end of the first chapter, as a prediction of the future, in “I’ll return home to find it the same as when I left, realising it is where I belong” as a discovery of the self accepting his life, through his journey into the unknown.

****Ok...big problem. You wil see as you get further into my essay, that the 'journey into the unknown' is linked to all my other texts...So how am i going to take out the turning text? Or perhaps I should take out the star trek text...it seems a little weaker******

The quest for knowledge often requires an exploration of the unknown. In her own search for the truth Sally travels to Corunna Downs. It is during this time and shortly after that what was once just Sally’s journey now becomes the journey of Daisy and Gladys.

In meeting with the people of Corunna Downs, and so being moved to tell her life story, Gladys’s inner journey was in the form of personal development in that she became honest and accepting of her Aboriginality.
She expressed this feeling in “I feel embarrassed now to think, once, I wanted to be white”. Daisy too experienced her own inner journey as well, as she takes more interest in her people and opens up about her past to Sally in telling of her life because of the happiness she saw in Sally and Gladys. She justified her prolonged silence in “maybe if you had my life, you’d be scared too” she made the realisation that “the government and the white man must own up to their mistakes”


***oh crap oh crap I've just realised how insanely long this essay is now that i realise I FORGOT TO WRITE ABOUT A BOS TEXT!***


A journey ‘into the unknown’ and one persons journey acting as a catalyst for another’s also feature in Star Trek V The Final Frontier.

As one man high jacked the USS Enterprise and forced it’s crew to travel to the centre of the universe, in search of God, his journey was forced upon the crew. Upon crossing the “Great Barrier”, depicted by thunder and lighting and billowing clouds, a genuine feeling of fear conveyed to the viewer through camera angels; first showing close ups of the wide eyed, agape faces and then long shots of the same emotion shared by all the crew. However this fear of journeying into the unknown was counteracted by the belief that either way they would all see their god (i.e. whether they lived or died)

*** OK. One add mat needs to go....but how the heck am I supposed to rewrite this now that everything is connected?!? Oh man, I CANNOT write this much in 40-50 minutes!*****

Sally’s decision to write a book detailing her life brought on the need to commence a quest for knowledge that had little direction or guidance. Misdirection and a ‘lost’ feeling are shared by Sally in that part of her life and the persona from Journey to the interior, in “A compass is useless; also trying to take directions from the movements of the sun, which are erratic”, the sustained metaphor of landscape imagery serving to convey the realisation of the persona that their inner self was alien, unexpected and they were lost in their journey.

**too short?**

It is evident, that through the analysis of various texts, the journey is present due to a process of relocation, movement or change from one state to another. In further analysis, the inner journey is often found in texts due to a development of the self (of the persona), realisation or reflection on the past by a character. Characters/personas that undergo an inner journey often gain some understanding of their self, a realisation, greater knowledge of the world, etc and looking for these in texts is evidence for such a journey having occurred.


1324 Words...I need it to be 950-1000. :S Help! PLEASE!
 
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You got a substantial amount of recounting the events in your essay, but the focus is its RELEVANCE to Sally Morgan's inner journey. I suggest you can do without the early parts of Sally's childhood, but keep the bit about her "Indian" identity and the Jill's view on her identity to contrast it with Morgan's naviety at that stage of her inner journey.

You definitely need more on BOS. Maybe you can start off with it so it's a tick on your text checklist?

The bit about the Morgan text and the other text is a little bit confusing. Perhaps you can elaborate more on the concept before launching into the analyse of the other text.
 

vleung

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Jun 19, 2004
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There are lot of improvements which can be made, but I guess the major issue is that a lot of the wordiness comes from retelling the text, which you don't have to cos the marker definitely knows the prescribed text. So when you talk about all that Bill stuff, just refer to it briefly like "her role of playing 'peacemaker' with her alcoholic father" rather than telling Bill's life story. You don't have to say "Bill, her father". The marker knows that. So if you talk about him as "her father" and then talk about him as "Bill", they'll know what you're talking about.

Secondly, your intro should be a bit briefer. Cut retelling what My Place is about. This is an essay, not a review. You also don't have to refer to "Journey to the Interior" as a BOS text, they know this, too. Just say, "the poem "Journey to the Interior" by Margaret Atwood". The descriptions of your texts should be concise and to the point of what you'll discuss about it.

Next, you should be more careful about your paragraphing. It seems as though you've neglected your related a lot for the sake of describing Sally's life story (not to mention, not discussing Daisy, Gladys or Arthur at all).

In reference to the original question, no, it's okay to have just one related, non-stimulus text, but it's useful to have more than one. The HSC question typically says that you have to make reference to at least one stimulus and at least one related text of your own choosing. You seem to have missed the opportunity to display your analysis skills in your references to related material. Instead of saying "depicted by thunder and lighting and billowing clouds", you could instead say something like "the stormy imagery of..." whatever it was.

Overall, I'm confused by your structure. It seems that you've got a lot of intro, a lot of My Place, then you have a little bit of retelling, then you've linked My Place to related material, and then the other related/stimulus stuff is just hanging on the end. If you had each paragraph about My Place linking to related/stimulus, then it would be a bit more orderly. If you didn't feel as if it linked, scrap it.

If you chose to fix one of any of the things I've pointed out, it would improve just that much more :) Just make sure you answer the question when the time comes...
 

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