Retreat from the Global (1 Viewer)

[Dave2007]

How did the RFTGers find this section?

I think the essay could not have been any easier... very easy to use the wording of the question as a structure for a superscript answer.

The creative, however... Very random stimulus

It didn't resemble anything I've vaguely done, as I tend to keep mine out of the bluntly physical world and bit more postmodern-ey. I ended up saying the image was part of a new advertising campaign for a highly ambitious nursery conglomerate, and showed how the marketing director eventually RFTG'd with lots of weird narrative devices and voices as he got a seedling of his own to care for, etc... In the end I think it was quite alright as a story, but it was just totally not what you'd expect, looking at the type of stimulus BOS have been leaning towards using for the past few years.

What'd everyone think? Are you all gonna become hippies after finishing a year of retreat?

 

[vieires]

Essay threw me for a bit but then I got into and produced a decent effort, nothing spectacular though.

Initially I was unsure about the whole 'preservation' thing, but eventually I settled on something along the lines of preservation being preserving local values etc and rejection being a rejection of global forces...or the other way around if necessary


Creative played perfectly into a story I had previously written in class, so I just launched right into it...doesnt mean it was any good though, lol. Im not much good at being creative...

 

[rooster89]

vieries my thoughts are exactly the same as urs. only my essay was prob worse. not a very good effort. o well 11th unit

 

[tanjin]

It was 'ard.

Wish I had prepared.

Edit: Did anyone find the creative writing section a bit retarded this year?

 

[vrachman]

I thought the essay question was pretty good. I jus argued that "preservation" was about preserving local values of community, value of each individual etc amidst the global climate that tries 2 supress these values, and then for "rejecting" i argued that sometimes its necessary 2 reject global values but usually its more a matter of 'resisting' them without complete rejection cos values such as economic efficiency at all costs, whilst being very dangerous and negative in a lot of circumstances it is not wholly negative because it allows us 2 advance etc so yeah rejection = sometimes crucial, but certainly not as significant as preservation, and certainly not always crucial

 

[tanjin]

What texts did you guys do?

At my school we did:

The Bone People
The Castle
Heaney

For the exam, I did "The Castle" & Heaney but didn't manage to finish it.

Bargh! It's over now. Twas my last exam

 

[sammyrrr]

I thought it was a pretty generous paper.
essay was straight forward and the creative was good.
It's hard to know how you go but i was expecting this paper to be way harder. I thought last years creative picture was way worse.
i was expecting like a feature article or something because they've done images so many years in a row.
they are cheakY!
i'm pretty happy with it.

in ur creatives do u guys include paradigms and theorists?
x

 

[sammyrrr]

( i use heaney and the shipping news. Shame u didnt get to finish but congrats on officially finishing year 12, i have 2 more to go!)

 

[tanjin]

( i use heaney and the shipping news. Shame u didnt get to finish but congrats on officially finishing year 12, i have 2 more to go!)

We were about to do the Shipping News but after our teacher made me and another girl in my class read, lol we decided to do the Bone People. Shipping News was pretty boring imo.

 

[Daaan]

Well, the essay was simple enough.. just said they showed it to some extent, but also embracing certain aspects of the global (ie gammy bird, newspaper, and heaneys pen). Think I did ok anyway.

As for the creative, simple enough, but A SEEDLING?!?! wtf?! :mad1:

Seemed random, but did ok, thought it was pretty easy overall, maybe general, which is good.

Hope everyone else did ok eh

 

[kelsinator]

hey
yeah i think i did really well..
the essay question was so good! i just argued that the globalisation's emphasis on profitbased values, rather than personal fulfillment had created tensions between the global and the individual and ergo the individual must reject dominating global values that threaten a connection to people and place, and preserve those local paradigms that nurtured growth.. etc normal stuff.

and for creative i used the seedling as a motif for his growth and understanding and the nurturing of a new sense of belonging and understanding...

i thought it was really good. best exam so far

 

[tanjin]

As for the creative, simple enough, but A SEEDLING?!?! wtf?! :mad1:

Exactly. :mad1:

 

[bussoti]

I think I did quite well, considering that in the trials I managed to finish the essay after two and a half pages and 20 minutes to spare, so lol, I learned my lesson. As for the creative piece, I was able to mold my trial piece to the question. During reading time, I remember looking at the other photographs going 'Wow! A lock! Wow, an old tome! I wonder what my creative stimulus will be?' and it's a bloody handful of sand with this little tiny offshoot. Ugh.

 

[Daaan]

Exactly. :mad1:

Lmao nice to know someone sees my pissedoffedness.

It was like i was reading thru, a letter, a key, a book, wait wait wtf a seedling?

They really sunk low this year. I think I had to stifle my laugh a little bit.

 

[Daaan]

I think I did quite well, considering that in the trials I managed to finish the essay after two and a half pages and 20 minutes to spare, so lol, I learned my lesson. As for the creative piece, I was able to mold my trial piece to the question. During reading time, I remember looking at the other photographs going 'Wow! A lock! Wow, an old tome! I wonder what my creative stimulus will be?' and it's a bloody handful of sand with this little tiny offshoot. Ugh.

And Happy Birthday Miss Vertis!!

Hope you enjoyed writing about a seed on ur 18th rofl. :rofl:

 

[topsyturvy86]

During reading time, I remember looking at the other photographs going 'Wow! A lock! Wow, an old tome! I wonder what my creative stimulus will be?' and it's a bloody handful of sand with this little tiny offshoot. Ugh.

hahaha, that made me laugh a lot.


<3 to the exam. My story was about a gardening tradition anyway, so yay for that.

noo morree engliiish.

How much did everyone write? I filled 2 booklets for essay, 1.5 for story.

 

[sammyrrr]

i did 3 booklets for essay and 2 for creative

my hand had a massive cramp!

 

[stace111]

I thought the exam was great!
The essay was a really simple question to mold my already prepared essay to. It just looked at the intrinsic relationship that exists between the local and the global ie, preserve and reject. I looked at both rejecting and preserving the local AND the global. My texts were shipping news, Alistair Macleod "The Closing Down of Summer" and "The boat" and two films Local Hero and Once Were Warriors.

The Creative writing was so good for me i couldnt help but smile. My entire prepared story was about a tree. (don't worry its not a complete hour story about a tree lol)
But i dont understand why some people think the seedling wasnt relevant? It fits perfectly with Retreating from the global! I ask you from the global what do you retreat to? The local and things like identity, tradition, culture, nature (ie. seedlings)???

 

[volcomcdb]

I thought the stimulus was good. Everyone in my class said that they could just shape their prepared story around to fit in with it. We should be grateful it wasn't something more complicated and rare.
The essay question was fine, we were encouraged throughout studying RFTG that we shouldn't slip into the notion that global = bad, and local = good, so we looked at our texts from different angles which i believe made that question not too difficult to answer.
I didn't realise how much i could actually write though in 2 hours, that was intense!
We studied: Heaney, The Lost Salt Gift of Blood and The Shipping News.
I hope the subject still scales well even though the exam seemed to be pretty straight forward..
Cheers

 

[jarina]

I found the essay really easy, i discussed the blurred boundaries between local communities and global culture as they are both essentially nessacary and define each other.

The stimulus was great. I turned the seedling into a metaphor for the main characters strong roots and heritage.

get it.. seedling... tree.. roots?