7. Sample SAC questions for RANSOM

Elyse asked if I could give some examples of the kinds of questions that might be set in a SAC on Ransom. Here are SIX sample questions.


1. "Priam's journey to Achilles' camp provides a ransom for himself as well as for Hector."
Explain how Priam is changed by his experiences and why this occurs.


2. "I came also as a hero of the deed that till now was never attempted."
Discuss the significance of 'chance' in Ransom.



3. How is narrative point of view used in the novel to give the reader a range of perspectives on the idea of the hero?


4. "We're children of nature, my lord. Of earth, as well as of the gods."
Is Somax's view of humanity and nature important in Ransom?


5. In Ransom Malouf shows that universal experiences of fatherhood and humanity unite even bitter enemies. Discuss.

6. In the final pages of Ransom, Malouf writes of Somax: ‘This old fellow, like other story tellers, is a stealer of other men’s tales, of other men’s lives.’
Discuss this idea in relation to Ransom.

6. DATES and DEADLINES for VCE ENGLISH in 2012

Suggested Yr 12 English Timeline – 2012


WEEK COMMENCING FOCUS
Term 1

1 Fri Feb 3 (one day) Oral SAC Prep
2 Feb 6 - 10 Oral SAC Prep / Ransom
3 Feb 13 - 17 Ransom
4 Feb 20 -24 Ransom
5 Feb 27 Mar 2 Ransom
6 Mar 5 - 9 Ransom/ Oral SAC Prep
7 Mar 12 - 16 Ransom/ Oral SAC Prep
8 Mar 19 - 23 Ransom Text SAC
9 Mar 26 - 30 Introduce Issues Analysis / Prepare for Oral


Term 2
1 Apr 16 -20 Issues Oral SAC /Teach Issues
2 April 23 - 27 Issues Oral SAC/ Teach issues
3 April 30 – May 4 Teach Issues
4 May 7 - 11 Teach Issues
5 May 14 - 18 Issues Analysis SAC
6 May 21 - 25 Spies
7 May 28 – June 1 Spies
8 Jun 4 - 8 Creating & Presenting / Writing
9 Jun 11 - 15 C&P / Writing (Queens Birthday,
Tues 12th – Thurs 14th Exam/GAT week)
10 Jun 18 - 22 Creating & Presenting SAC (Spies)
11 Jun 25 - 29 The Player

Term 3

1 Jul 16 – 20 The Player
2 Jul 23 – 27 The Player
3 Jul 30 – Aug 3 Creating & Presenting / Writing
4 Aug 6 - 10 Creating & Presenting SAC
5 Aug 13 -17 Twelve Angry Men
6 Aug 20 - 24 Twelve Angry Men
7 Aug 27 - 31 Twelve Angry Men
8 Sep 3 - 7 Twelve Angry Men
9 Sep 10 - 14 Twelve Angry Men SAC
10 Sep 17 - 21 Exam Revision (Context)
**Practice Exam**

Term 4

1 Oct 8 - 12 Exam Revision
2 Oct 15 - 19 Exam Revision
3 Oct 22 - 26 Final Week for Year 12
4 Oct 29 – Nov 2 English Exam –
Thursday 1st November

5. Notes on RANSOM: Section 1

Ransom is divided into five sections. In the first, the reader is introduced to Achilles
at the moment in Homer’s narrative where he has withdrawn with his Myrmidons
from the war and remains in camp refusing to fight, because of an offence to his
honour by the Greek King Agamemnon who has taken the Trojan slave girl Bresias
from Achilles. Meanwhile the Trojans, led by Prince Hector, are enjoying a period of
military ascendency due to the absence of Achilles from the field of combat. The
longer Achilles remains sequestered in his camp the greater the losses suffered by
the Greek armies; a spectacle that leads Patroclus, cousin of and closest friend to
Achilles, to don the famed armour of the invincible warrior and take the field. Initially,
the Trojans draw back at the sight of the feared Achilles but Hector engages
Patroclus believing him to be Achilles and kills him. At the news of Patroclus’ death
Achilles is consumed with an unquenchable rage and after dedicating himself to the
proper ceremonial devotions to the body of his dead friend, he confronts Hector
alone before the walls of Troy, watched by Hector’s father and mother, Priam and
Hecuba. Achilles kills Hector and desecrates his body, watching approvingly as his
men pierce the corpse with their swords before the shocked audience of the Trojan
court. Achilles then lashes Hector’s body to his chariot and drags it around the walls
of the city. In the days that follow, Achilles continues his ritualistic desecration of
Hector’s corpse, conducting a meticulous defilement, yet discovers each morning
that the body has been restored over night to a state of physical perfection, an act by
the gods that only serves to increase his rage and determination to deny Hector the
honour of a decent burial to allow his spirit to enter the underworld.

These structural elements taken from the Iliad are not Malouf’s exclusive literary
concerns in this section. Malouf appears to be principally interested here in a
characterisation of Achilles that stresses his elemental nature, drawing on the
elements of the sea and earth to emphasise something of the inner conflict of the
hero, born to both the gods and man. Achilles is seen attending to the voice of the
sea, his mother, in language that expresses the mystical aspects of his nature, its
fluidity and transformative qualities. He is here, not the conventional figure of the
invincible warrior, but something far more elusive, a contradiction embodying both
elements of mortality and immortality, ‘A gift he had taken as natural to him, the play
of a dual self...’. (p.5)

Achilles is presented by Malouf in this section as a truly mythic figure, heroic, but
also the subject of fate. Achilles represents the world of men, ‘He was his father’s
son and mortal. He had entered the rough world of men, where a man’s acts follow
him wherever he goes in the form of story’. (p.6) Malouf describes the death of
Patroclus as dream-like, for Achilles the very embodiment of a fatal vision: ‘Achilles
stands spellbound. Like a sleeper who has stumbled in on another’s dream...’. (p.12)
The death of Patroclus allows Malouf to introduce a central concern of the novel: the
formation of the self and, principally, the relation of self to other. In the death of
Patroclus Achilles clearly sees his own death, as he sees Patroclus die wearing his
armour, a vision he recognises again when he kills Hector; trying to find the right
opening ‘ … was like trying to deceive or outguess his shadow, and aiming, beyond
Hector, at himself. And Hector’s death...in his armour, like watching for a second
time the dreamlike enactment of his own’. (p.22) And again: ‘Achilles watched.
Himself a dead man’. (p.23)

Achilles achieves no consolation from killing Hector and the desecration of his body
that he ritualistically enacts each day is described by Malouf as akin to a war crime
commencing with his sadistic display as he drags the bloody corpse before the
assembled Trojan court and Hector’s family, his wife and child. Malouf explores here
something like the estrangement of the act of violence committed in times of war, in
the midst of his violations Achilles is also disconnected from his acts: ‘He was
waiting for the rage to fill him that would be equal at last to the outrage he was
committing ... and be so convincing to the witnesses of this barbaric spectacle that
he too might believe there was a living man at the centre of it, and that man himself’.
(p.27) Achilles is delineated here with a careful attention to his psychic turmoil, his
peculiar estrangement from a sense of self, the fatal effects of grief that have tipped
him over into apparent madness, the dissolution of the self in grief and violent rage.
From a character synonymous with the warrior spirit, and with the heroic ideals of
courage and heroism, Malouf offers his readers an Achilles who also embodies the
very essence of psychological trauma in war.

4. A RANSOM Journal

Journal Writing

Getting started on a journal entry

It's about a year ago that I started reading RANSOM for the first time. The following is that first entry from MY Ransom Journal. What I wrote is in italics. The other material - about General Location, specific location ... and so on - are the format elements of my Journal: the way I get started in writing my Journal.

General Location:
Where I am:
Place/Time/in my head/how I’m feeling/ what’s on my mind/ what’s been happening

It’s Wednesday and it’s hot! It’s been hot all day and I’m feeling tired and lethargic. My shirt is clinging to my back with the sweat. I don’t feel much like writing in this journal, but I’m going to try.

Specific location
What I’ve been doing; what I’ve been thinking about ...

I’ve started reading Ransom – in preparation for my Year 12 class next year - and I’m enjoying it so far. It is very literary, so I wonder how the students will respond.

Active response
Things that interest / puzzle me

What really grabbed me in the opening was the stuff about water – about how water was the element of Achilles’ mother. And the various images of water as being able to reflect everything but unable to hold anything ...
The other thing that I responded to was the notion of the dust that compose us having gathered together to form us, but then dispersing as our bodies disintegrate in death ... It reminds me of the funeral service: ashes to ashes , dust to dust; from dust we are made and to dust we will return ...

How it touches me

That stuff about listening for the voice of the mother really touches me ... it links with the facts of my birth, and the fact my mother relinquished me.

General Journal writing

Today I’ve decided to write about my mother – or rather, my mothers. My mother – the woman who raised me as her child and who took the truth of my origins to the grave with her – died in 1991. That’s twenty years ago. I can’t believe that...
Her name was Linda Robina May Carozzi. She was born Linda Robina May Kipping. She married my father when she was 29 and he was 31. That’s pretty late for those days, when people generally married in their late teens or early 20s.

My birth mother was named Gwendoline Esther Bertram. Her father – my grandfather - had served at Gallipoli. She had my brother Arthur when she was 1; she fell pregnant with me when she was19.

I first saw her photo – in September 2009. The photo was a detail of a larger wedding photo: my Aunt Nesta’s wedding, in 1939. My mum was so young; just 16. But I was blown away by how beautiful she was, how calm she seemed, how self possessed. I worked out that she must have fallen pregnant either just before or just after Nesta’s wedding ...

3. The Conversation about RANSOM continues ...

Student A wrote back a few days later. Notice how s/he is now clearer about what Malouf is on about. S/he's still a little confused about who is who - that is natural when reading about stuff that is complex and new ...

From: Student A
To: b.carozzi@bigpond.com
Sent: Wednesday, December 28, 2011 12:50 PM
Subject:

hey Barry, iv been reading more of ransom and what I can make out is:Achilles didn't want to fight the Greeks so Patroclus did and wore Achilles armor.Patroclus went out to fight and hector killed him.Achilles went out to find Hector for revenge and killed Hector but then tied him to the back of horses and tortured him in front of the people of Troy. is that pretty much right so far?

My Reply:
HI Student A

Hope you had a good Christmas. Is that you who has joined the blog? If so, well done.

In answer to your question: is that pretty much right so far? You have almost got it.

Achilles was one of the Greeks - they were fighting Troy (the Trojans).
Achilles decided to STOP fighting because King Agamemnon (one of the Greek kings in the alliance of Greeks that were fighting Troy) ... because Agamemnon took a young woman away from Achilles.

Patroclus was Achilles 'cousin' - they were the closest of friends (There's a story - told in RANSOM - about how Patroclus came to live with King Peleus (Achilles' dad) and with Achilles).
So Patroclus persuaded Achilles to let HIM fight, wearing Achilles' armour. [The Trojan's were very afraid of Achilles because of his ferocity as a fighter.]
At first Patroclus was successful, killed Trojan's and driving them back ... but then Hector stood up to him (thinking Patroclus was actually Achilles) and killed him.

The rest is right on the money. What Achilles did to Hector's body was a sacrilege - it was an act of total and utter disrespect. The Greeks and the Trojans both believed that the dead deserve to be treated with reverence and great respect. Achilles was showing he deepest disrespect, treating Hector's body like meat, like something to be degraded and despised.

The torture was actually a torture of King Priam (the Trojan king) and the torture of the people of Troy. Imagine what it would be like to see your enemy treat the body of YOUR parents or your closest friend like that!

Hope that all makes sense.

It's really good that you are coming up with "versions"/ "interpretations" of what is happening in the novel and then checking them out with me. That is the way to build a deeper understanding of the novel.

Keep it up,

Barry

2. Getting ACTIVE - reading RANSOM

Answer: You will have finished your VCE!

Television taught us to be passive – to sit back and take it all in.
Often, teachers have encouraged students to be ‘passive’. Too often we say to our students: “Sit quietly. Answer the questions in the book.”


Have you ever:
… read a book but not really “taken it in”?
… sat in front of a book “reading” – only to discover at the end of the page that you haven’t taken anything in?

In Year 12, in English, you need to be an ACTIVE LEARNER – because English is NOT about memorising stuff that you must repeat in an exam; English is about THINKING and FEELING.

How do you become an ACTIVE READER?
Pay careful attention to what you are thinking & feeling as you read.
Try to get clear what you ARE understanding, and what is confusing you.
Express your confusion – ASK QUESTIONS

Student A [below] wrote to me as follows:

From: Student A
To: b.carozzi@bigpond.com
Sent: Friday, December 16, 2011 5:47 PM
Subject:

hey Barry, just letting you know I read the first 10 pages of ranson and Im pretty lost, mostly because I don't know anything about the Greek god stuff so I'm going to hire Troy and then il re read it

My reply:

From: b.carozzi@bigpond.comTo: Student ASubject: Re: Date: Sat, 17 Dec 2011 07:41:33 +1100
Hi Student A,
Saw your email when I arrived home from dinner with old friends.
Yes - when I first read Ransom - about this time last year - I found the opening really difficult. I kept asking questions: who is this person who is squatting by the ocean? what's all this stuff about water?

I've been looking for a Reading Journal I started at the time; if I find it I'll pass it on. But here are some ideas to help:

1. Read the Handout about ACHILLES - from Myths & Legends (I gave it to you with the bundle of stuff).

2. Some elements of the myth of Achilles:
His father was mortal (ie. he was a normal human being, who could die). His mother was Thetis, a water godess - she lived in the ocean. So while Thetis was pregnant with Achilles, she was living in the ocean.
Achilles was born of a human father, and was therefore destined to die. Thetis didn't want that; she thought she could protect him from death by 'dipping' him in the River Styx. [The River Styx is in the Underworld - according to Greek myth, we cross the River Styx when we travel from life to death. Hades rules the Underworld Land of death. WE get across the River on a boat ...]

So Thetis dipped Achilles in the river; but she held him by the ankles, and as a result ONE part of his body - his heel - was not protected.


[This is not relevant to the story, or the book - but I just realised that that Greek myth pre-dates and predicts something that modern Science discovered - the whole idea of vaccination is that we are given a small dose of an illness - say chicken pox - and our body becomes immune to it. So in a way , the early Greeks hit upon the idea of protecting ourselves from illness (or death) by being given a small dose of it during childhood ... that is really COOL!!]

It's good that you are EXPRESSING the difficulty - keep doing that. The best phrase you can use at this stage is: What I don't get is ...

Because once you CAN answer your question, you have learned something.

I'm looking forward to your next letter.

Regards

Barry

TO THINK ABOUT:

Passive learning occurs where the student simply takes in what the tutor or lecturer teaches. This type of learning encourages “surface learning” and is generally regarded as less effective than active learning, which encourages “deep learning”. An example of surface learning is rote learning where bits of information are memorised without regard for meaning or context.
Whereas surface learning concentrates on the words rather than the meaning of what is being said, deep learning is more insightful and requires the learner to organise the information being imparted into meaningful units. Grouping information in this way helps both learning and memory.
The term “active learning” can be applied to your own attitude to learning, or to methods of teaching which force you to be active. As a student, you can take an active or a passive attitude to any learning situation.

1. December 3 Welcome to our Blog

Welcome to our Year 12 English blog. You've reached a crossroads in your life. Year 12 is unlike any year of schooling you have ever had. In many ways, it's tougher than anything you'll encounter at University. I know that I am biassed in my views about this, but I'll say this anyway: English is the most important subject you will study.

Why? Because in English you will work on developing your writing and thinking skills. What you learn in English - to read with insight, to ask questions, to write clear and fluent sentences, to present your point of view, to analyse and criticise the views of others - all of these skills will help you in all your other subjects.

The purpose of this blog is to support you in your work in English. I will be using it as a key method of providing you with resources over this coming year. To access this blog, all you have to do is CLICK on "Follow" and join up - by following the instructions.

There is a COMMENT section at the bottom of the screen. I'd be rapt if people add comments.You might also like to set up your own blog. The Blogger program invites you to do this. It's pretty easy, and a great way of keeping your Journal writing readily at hand. It's also a great way for us to communicate with each other.If you have any problems either creating a blog or becoming a follower, please contact me as soon as possible, and I'll help you get started.I hope you enjoy the various postings I'll be adding over the coming weeks.

IMPORTANT ANNOUNCEMENT:

Welcome to: Hey Barry, what did I miss?
From time to time, students will miss a class. Or they forget what they had to do. To catch up on what you missed, just click on the link to the Hey Barry, what did I miss? blog.
http://heybarrywhatdidimiss.blogspot.com.au/

Easier still: add it to your FAVORITES.