Elysium - Characterisation and Representation of Ideas

The first shot of Max establishes a few things: the cramped nature of his house, his criminal or low socio-economic background (reflected in the Latino-styled tattoos), and the dated technology in his home juxtaposed against the robots and space station outside.

I'm a big believer in advocating for students who might not be harnessing their gifts to their fullest potential. In English, this means those students who are naturally gifted in terms of critical thinking and analysis, although they may not have the skills to formulate these gifts into the traditional modes of English communication (writing, representing, reading, etc.) So, with this in mind, I think there's still a lot of room in Preliminary Advanced English for scaffolding students. I don't want to assume that a student comes into Advanced English already knowing everything, and that includes knowing all the "how to" skills. What would be the point of that? If a student already knows what you're teaching and how to do it, then they should be skipping grades and looking for early entrance to university!

I've spoken about using Elysium as part of a comparative study on dystopian texts here, here and here, so I wanted to extend this a little further to show how students can analyse the way characterisation reflects the themes and context of the film.

My first-year teaching self would have just asked the students to look at a character and tell me what they represent. I would have left it open-ended in the belief that an Advanced English student could pour their magic mojo on it and interpret the characters independently. My time teaching a multiplicity of students and diverse student-types has taught me that this approach only achieves one thing: it gets answers out of those who already know how to do it. 

The mercenary Kruger is modeled after the notorious rogue soldiers known as 32 Battalion, who served in South Africa in the 1970s and 1980s. The shot above, where he uses a samurai sword to BBQ meat on a rooftop, reflects the ease and confidence in which he moves within the dangerous favelas.

In recent years I've been taking a different approach to high-achieving students. Why not just give them all the information they need, and therefore force them to focus more explicitly on the skills rather than the content? This isn't a new idea... it's reflected in flipped classrooms, project-based learning, scaffolding, etc., so it's not so much an epiphany as just a reinforcement of where I want to push the students.

The lesson below features character profiles of the major figures in Elysium - Max, Frey, Delacourt, Kruger, Spider, and Carlyle. Each profile contains some basic shot analysis, explanations of the etymology of the character's name, and additional context that links to what writer-director Neill Blomkamp was aiming for in his stylistic choices for how the characters are represented. It's all there for the students. They wouldn't know this stuff automatically; I had to arrive at the contextual knowledge through my own research and analysis so it would be silly to assume that the students could come up with this deep knowledge of content on the spot during the lesson.

The point is to instead discuss and read this stuff with the students and then get them to deconstruct the character with a higher order question (EG. 'In what way...', 'What is the significance...'). The student takes the information given to them and uses it to formulate their own response. It's okay for the information to be explicitly given to them because they're essentially doing what a university student does, which is working with a reading or text to bring a diverse array of content into their own hands as they put pen to paper. The more they do this, the wider and deeper their personal knowledge of the subject will become. It's not a radical concept; I just wanted to share the resource below and explain how it works :)

Resource - Representation/Characterisation in Elysium

An Objective History of the Conflict in the Pacific

In response to the title of this blog, according to history teacher/maestro Dr Bruce Dennett, there is no objective history of conflict in the Pacific. 

In teaching the International Studies in Peace and Conflict portion of the Modern History HSC syllabus, the task of diving into the Conflict in the Pacific (Option D) seems deceptively simple. Look at it on the immediate level:

• It's a linear study of WWII, something that some Modern History students will be craving after all their studies of WWI and 1930s European politics. 
• It involves Australia, and is part of Australia's national identity. 
• It features two big keystones that appeal to many budding historians: the bombing of Pearl Harbour and the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. 

Listening to Bruce Dennett at the HTA Senior History HSC Study Day, it quickly becomes very clear that the conflict in the Pacific is an incredibly complex area of historical study that rewards sophisticated historical thinking. I know this, and you know this, but to hear him pull apart the history to destroy any semblance of objectivity is something else entirely. 

Incidentally, if you ever get a chance to see Dennett speak at one of these HTA days, you should jump right onto it. He's exceptionally well-read and very clever in his insights into well-trodden areas of history but, most importantly for any students in the audience, he's also very entertaining and engaging and a key architect of the Modern History HSC syllabus.  

In his lecture on the Conflict in the Pacific, Dennett asserts that Modern History students need to engage with the historiography in order to construct, in the words of the HSC rubric, a sophisticated response. Rather than trying to befuddle our students' minds with the mechanics of historiography or expecting them to memorise a plethora of relevant historians, it instead becomes useful to present contradictory truths about the war and ask students to build their own sustained arguments that touch on both sides of such debates. 

So, as Dennett says, the war was not inevitable, the Allied victory was not inevitable. The only tactic available to MacArthur was not his island-hopping campaign. There are multiple sets of arguments that can be supported. There are a multiplicity of valid historical truths. There is no such thing as an objective history of conflict in the Pacific. And, what the Japanese learn about WWII is, unsurprisingly, very different to what Australians or Americans learn about.

Here are some examples of debates that students can get stuck into:

The Atomic Bombs: There are arguments to be made for the atomic bomb being completely unnecessary, just as there are arguments that can be made about the atomic bombs saving lives in both Japan and elsewhere.

Hirohito and the Reasons for War: In one version of events, Hirohito was an aggressor hellbent on imperial domination of Asia, and completely unjustified in expanding across the Pacific - guilty of countless atrocities and invasions. In another version of events, Hirohito did not want war but was forced into it by 'ABCD' encirclement (Americans, British, Chinese, Dutch). When the Japanese started their war against China it felt justified as, in living memory, they had faced subjugation by the Chinese Empire. Japan also remembered when Commodore Perry (an American) forced them to open trade with the West through thinly-veiled threats of naval attack in the 19th century.

Beliefs about Defeating the Enemy: Were both sides essentially working off the same strategy? The Japanese believed that if they destroyed 10 American warships then this would cripple the U.S. fleet beyond repair. The American strategy, Plan Orange, led to a transition from a major naval confrontation to 'island hopping', and debates amongst Americans over which was more effective - naval or air power.

Growth of Pacific Tensions: How much knowledge did President Roosevelt have of the incoming Japanese attacks that would prompt U.S. involvement in the war? Were American blockades of the Japanese in the 1930s designed to weaken the Japanese so that they were unable to fight a war? Were both America and the Japanese trying to out-manoeuvre each other before any active war broke out?

The War Crimes Tribunal: How badly should Japan have been punished? Were the War Crimes Trials about punishment of the Japanese at the hands of the Allies? Or was it a process of rehabilitation for America to build a new Cold War ally?

MacArthur: Was he a legend? Or was it only in his own mind? Arguments can be made (to the contrary of the usual interpretation) that he should have been court-martialed for his role in leaving the Philippines woefully unprepared in 1941, and that he only had any real personal success after the American occupation of Japan had begun.

So, as said, multiple truths!

Elysium - Connotation and Invented Lexicon

Digging further into analysing Elysium as part of a Preliminary HSC Advanced English Comparative Study, I think it's necessary to address the role that genre plays in the film's context and language choices. 

Elysium is a very much a science fiction text in the most conventional sense of the term. Set in the future, and featuring a high concept collision between the tropes of utopian and dystopian societies, and coming with all the hardware trimmings that modern audiences have come to expect from big screen forays into the genre, I think you would be hard-pressed to find anyone who wouldn't classify it as a science fiction film. 

But what is it that separates Elysium from Animal Farm in its exploration of corrupt governance when we consider genre? Well, as most sci-fi fans will know, nearly any effective piece of speculative fiction will feature some sort of invented lexicon. When composers work with invented worlds, it becomes effective for them to represent the somewhat abstract concept of an imagined space with new terms. Several techniques can come into play here:

• Portmanteaus: a combination of pre-existing words into new words to reflect new contexts.
• Loanwords: words 'borrowed' from other languages to represent the increased influence of particular cultures on one another.
• Euphemisms: softer/dishonest ways of portraying harsh ideas; used to reflect the rhetoric of oppressive governments in their attempts to propagandise and persuade.
• Connotations: the associations people bring in their understanding of certain terms.
• Allusions: references to other bodies of knowledge; be they religious, mythological, historical, cultural, literary, etc. 

Not all of these come into play in Elysium, but some quite clearly do. An example is the term 'undocumented', which is used by the Elysium citizens to refer to the ships that carry desperate Earthlings. These are people who are attempting to travel to the elite space station in the hope of accessing godlike medical technology. Whilst 'undocumented' isn't an unfamiliar term, it is somewhat euphemistic as it belies the true attitude of Senator Delacourt towards the ships (IE. She wants to destroy them). The connotation of the term also calls to mind refugees in our own context; the 'undocumented' illegal immigrants who cross the border from Mexico to the U.S.A. (which should be familiar rhetoric to any student who has seen American television and Donald Trump's recent campaigning).

The document below contains a list of examples from Elysium's invented lexicon, and some of the bigger allusions made (such as the use of favelas and the origins of the term 'Elysium' itself). Students are asked to analyse the allusions made and consider the reasons for the director's choice of imagery. Following this, students can work in pairs to explain the connotations of some of the invented terms. The sheet then finishes by asking students to bring their analysis and understanding of context together as a personal response that assesses just how successfully they think the director has built a realistic vision of the future through the use of this language.  

Resource - The Language of Elysium

Conflict in the Pacific: HSC Questions

At the moment, I'm gearing up to teach Section IV: International Study in Peace and Conflict, Option D: Conflict in the Pacific for Modern History in Term 3. Part of my preparation for this is to backward map from the HSC Exam (which is just around the corner!) so, like any Year 12 teacher, I started looking at past HSC paper questions.

Part of backward mapping from assessment is to determine what exactly needs to be taught to the students but, as the HSC paper for this year isn't something teachers are told in advance (for obvious reasons), I have to be quite investigative to make sure I cover all my bases. So I went through all the past papers from the last 15 years and had a look at the questions for this option. 

Then I worked out which of the four sections from the syllabus each question matched up to. The four sections being:

• Section 1: Growth of Pacific Tensions
• Section 2: Course of the Pacific War
• Section 3: Civilians at War
• Section 4: End of the Conflict

Turns out they've been covered fairly equally over the last four years, as you can see from this table below:

So this means that, potentially, a student could be asked about any of the sections of the syllabus in the HSC, so it's best that they have a good understanding of each and every section so they've got something to work with no matter what. This is, of course, just common sense - it shouldn't be a surprise that the Board of Studies want every part of the syllabus taught (and understood). I think it's just good to see that this transfers into the HSC exam though, with equal consideration given to each section.

Anyway, just for good measure, here's the actual questions and my matching of each one to the corresponding section. The red ones are the questions from the pre-2006 papers.

To what extent was Japanese foreign policy from 1937 to 1941responsible for the increasing tensions that eventually led to war? (Section 1)

To what extent did imperialism and the various responses to it contribute to the growth of Pacific tensions in the period 1937-1941? (Section 1)

Assess the role of US and British policies in the Pacific from 1937 to 1941 in the outbreak of the Pacific war. (Section 1)

Assess the impact of strategies used by the Japanese and the Allies in the Pacific in the period 1937-1951. (Sections 1, 2, 4)

To what extent did Japanese nationalism lead to the bombing of Pearl Harbour in 1941? (Section 1)

To what extent did Japanese nationalism cause the outbreak of war with the United States in 1941? (Section 1)

"Japan had little choice but to bomb Pearl Harbour if it wanted to achieve its foreign policy aims in the Pacific." To what extent is this statement accurate? (Section 1)

Discuss the impact of imperialism in the Pacific from the Japanese attack on China in 1937 until Japan's occupation of South-East Asia in 1942. (Sections 1, 3)

Discuss the impact of Japanese imperialism on Asian peoples in occupied territories from the Japanese attack on China to 1945. (Sections 1, 3)  

The success of the Japanese advance to 1942 could not be maintained, and led to Japan's defeat in 1945. (Sections 2, 3, 4)

Explain the failure of the Japanese armed forces to consolidate their position after the fall of Singapore. (Section 2, 3)

Assess the view that the Battle of the Coral Sea was the main turning point in the Pacific War (Section 2)

Evaluate the view that the Battle of the Coral Sea was the major turning point in the course of the Pacific War. (Section 2)

To what extent was the Battle of Midway the most significant turning point in the Pacific War? (Section 2)

Assess the significance of Japan's defeat in the Battle of Midway for the outcome of the Pacific War. (Section 2) 

Account for the defeat of Japan in 1945 despite its dominant strategic position in 1942. (Sections 2, 3, 4)

Assess the effectiveness of the strategies used by Allied forces against Japan in the period 1942-1945 (Sections 2, 4)

To what extent was the impact of war on Asian peoples in Japanese-occupied territories a major factor leading to decolonisation in Southeast Asia? (Section 3)

Assess the impact of the war on civilians in territories occupied by Japan in South-East Asia. (Section 3)

Assess the impact on civilians of the Japanese occupation in South-East Asia in the period 1941 to 1945. (Section 3)

"The effect of the war on the home fronts was the same for Japan and Australia". To what extent is this statement accurate? (Section 3)

Assess the effect of the war on civilians in Japan and EITHER Australia OR the United States between 1941 and 1951. (Section 3) 

To what extent did the use of the A-bomb bring about the end of the conflict? (Section 4)

Evaluate the view that the Japanese armed forces were largely responsible for the US decision to use the A-bomb to end the conflict in the Pacific. (Section 4) 

Evaluate the view that the United States had no option but to use the atomic bomb in 1945. (Section 4)

Evaluate the view that the aims of the Allied powers were achieved successfully in the occupation of Japan in the period up to 1951. (Section 4)

Discuss the impact of the Allied occupation on Japan in the period 1945-1951. (Section 4) 

Evaluate the view that maintaining the status of the Emperor was responsible for the success of the Allied Occupation of Japan to 1951. (Section 4)

How successful was the Allied Occupation of Japan in achieving its aims to 1951? (Section 4)

Pearl Harbor, 1941

And that's it so far. It will be fun to see what comes up in this year's exam. I've included most of this information on a sheet for students, which you can access here - Resource: Essay Practice.

Reading Roll: April-June 2016

Stalin: The Court of the Red Tsar by Simon Sebag Montefiore

This highly engaging narrative of Stalin's Russia manages to turn one of the most complex periods of 20th Century history into a fascinating character study. Whilst it's a little hard to not get dizzy with all the names of Stalin's various hangers-on (a temporary job if ever there was one!), Sebag Montefiore grounds this volatile tale of power and war in Stalin's fascinatingly contradictory personality. The self-proclaimed 'man of steel' is presented here as both shrewdly intelligent and devastatingly paranoid; a man of pragmatism, selfishness, and bucolic savagery, and someone that historians still struggle to form a solid understanding of nearly a century after his rise to power. 

The Wasp Factory by Iain Banks

Iain Banks' debut novel has been on my 'to read' list for many years. I have to say that I enjoyed it a lot - if 'enjoy' is the right word to use to describe a book about a young man who spends his days on a Scottish island torturing animals, watching punk bands at the local pub, and reminiscing about the three children he once killed. Definitely a one-of-a-kind experience, with some truly odd character interplay, surprisingly poetic language, and a payoff that will twist your entire perception of the novel.

The Faceless Ghost by Lafcadio Hearn

Lafcadio Hearn's 19th century translations of traditional Japanese ghost stories have been given the graphic novel treatment in this short retelling of six or so macabre tales. Some of these selected stories are more 'ghostly' than others, however, Sean Michael Wilson has done very well to take these archetypal pieces of folklore and transfer them into an essentially visual form. Graphic novels don't usually pay high dividends to the kind of narration on which such stories are usually reliant, so I think some kudos are in order for Wilson and illustrator Michiru Morikawa finding success in grafting these narratives onto such an accessible mode of communication.

Einstein's Dreams by Alan Lightman

Lightman's unique novella was recommended to me by a friend from work, and I found it so different and enlightening that I was able to read it all in one go. Einstein's Dreams is a difficult book to categorise - I guess I would say it was science fiction, but that would probably give you the wrong idea. If I had to describe it I would say that, if we could firstly hypothesise that a multiverse of realities exist, it's a theoretical work that outlines the possibly infinite nature of time itself. That sounds like nonsense, doesn't it? It's not, I swear! Trust me, I just don't know how else to explain it.

Rat Queens (Volumes 1-3) by Kurtis J.

Another one that was recommended to me by a friend, Image Comics' Rat Queens is a satirical fantasy genre adventure that wins big points for exploring gender politics and feminism in a really fun way. I absolutely fell in love with Weibe's dialogue and characterisation, and while it's a shame that the aesthetic changes between graphic novels, it was a completely necessary shift since original artist Roc Upchurch was arrested on charges of domestic abuse (something that runs so contrary to the spirit of the text!)

Persepolis by Marjan Satrapi

Marjan Satrapi's modern classic is equal parts lived-in history and personal autobiography, and does a great job of making the ideas and events of Iran's Islamic Revolution accessible to foreigners like myself. Satrapi's voice rings true and loud as she describes her coming-of-age in tumultuous 1980s Iran and cosmopolitan France. A truly fantastic autobiographical graphic novel.

Kampung Boy by Lat

This autobiographical and irreverently cartoonish comic throws a nostalgic eye over life in 1960s rural Malaysia, tapping into universal themes of growing up, tradition vs. modernity, and the joys of childhood. There's something about the mischievous twinkle of Lat's breezy misadventures that encourages viewer identification; and although we might not be young Muslims growing up in the Malay jungle, it's still somehow something that feels wholly familiar! Kampung Boy is a hugely popular South-East Asian text and, even though I'm a few thousand kilometres away and in a completely different kind of society, I still found it easy to see why it has lasted the test of time.

Timeline by Peter Goes

In this picture book, Peter Goes creates these beautiful, vibrant double-page spreads of different eras of history. Each opening uses infographic-styled presentation to collect together a few interesting facts with a visual historical narrative. Admittedly, it's a little Eurocentric, but it's also very nice to look at.

By This You Shall Know Him by Jesse Jacobs

I've decided that I love Jesse Jacobs. His newest graphic novel, Safari Honeymoon, is a wonderfully bizarre man vs. nature story, and this earlier tome considers similar themes in depicting creation and origins of life. His style here is similar to the work he has done for Adventure Time, only much more strange and envelope-pushing - if such a thing can be! By This You Shall Know Him portrays the creation of life on Earth as a petty game of one-upmanship, playfulness, and greed staged by godlike-beings seeking the approval of a enigmatic super-entity. Oddly compelling! 

Paper Towns by John Green

I read Looking For Alaska last year and really enjoyed it, and while Paper Towns isn't quite as indie-zeitgeist-epic as Green's first book, it's still a really entertaining coming-of-age character study with its fair share of memorable moments. I also love the way that Green organically builds some genuinely interesting and esoteric areas of knowledge into his stories (in this case the 'paper towns' of the title) - hopefully imbuing and/or reinforcing a love of learning for a whole new generation of literati.

101 Answers for New Teachers by Annette Breaux

A fantastic and occupation-affirming book that definitely shouldn't just be read by new teachers. Breaux's pragmatic, proactive approach to teaching really spoke to me. I don't want that to come across as cheesy as it probably sounds, it's just that I read all of Breaux's hard-won anecdotes and found myself stopping over and over again to make notes, or think more in-depth about her ideas, or just take a break to reflect on how much I agreed with her. There are so many teachers out there, old and new, who would get so much out of this book. 

American Born Chinese by Gene Luen Yang

I picked up Gene Luen Yang's one-shot graphic novel thinking that it would be an amusing memoir of one boy's journey to adulthood as a cultural-hyphenate in '90s America. It would be disingenuous to say that this book is not this, but it's also so much more - concurrently telling three thematically-linked stories; the aforementioned coming-of-age teen drama, the traditional Chinese tale of the Monkey god (AKA Journey to the West), and a satirical sitcom-esque comedy about a grossly outdated stereotypical 'Chinaman' (the repugnantly named 'Chin-Kee') who visits his all-American cousin. Luen Yang deftly interweaves genres to touch on themes of identity and self-acceptance in moving fashion, whilst also simultaneously pushing the bar on exploration of racial stereotyping. The 'Chin Kee' section of the graphic novel is something that some people will find a little hard to read, even when you consider that it's coming from an authentically Chinese voice, but if you do decide to read this book then I recommend you stick with this section as the pay off is quite significant.

The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie by Muriel Spark

Muriel Spark's early '60s novella is probably better known now (marginally) as the inspiration for the 1970s film for which Maggie Smith won her first Oscar. I'm a big fan of this film and find its subtext concerning elitism and fascism quite beguiling in its subversive audacity. The book is perhaps even more direct about this theme, so I appreciated it a lot. In a nutshell, the titular Miss Jean Brodie is a middle-aged English teacher at a conservative 1930s Scottish girls' school. She is infamous around the school for her tutelage of the 'Brodie set', a small group of girls hand-picked and groomed by Miss Brodie to basically be her own personal fanclub. It draws neat parallels between scholastic trends towards elitism and the rise of fascism in Italy, Spain and Germany prior to WWII, however, more daringly (and unfortunately still relevant today), it's the commentary that Spark passes on those who propagate educational elitism that sticks with the reader. It's this element that remains most indelibly memorable about this wonderful little piece of wit and satire. An underrated 20th Century classic.

Showa by Shigeru Mizuki

I'm about to teach the WWII Conflict Study Conflict in the Pacific for HSC Modern History for the second time and as part of my preliminary reading I decided to dive into Mizuki's famous graphic novel series on Japan's Showa period (1926-1989). So far I've only read the first volume (there are four) but, despite its length, it just about flew by as Mizuki retains reader engagement by alternating between vignettes on Japanese historical events and his own childhood as a cheeky rascal growing up in urban Japan. Mizuki also casts an unflinchingly critical eye over Japan's romance with militarism during this era, making this manga a must-read for any history buff looking for a valuable perspective on the rise of Tojo's fascist WWII regime.

Multiple Warheads by Brandon Graham

I found this on a 'best non-superhero graphic novels' list here. It turned out to be quite something else; a post-apocalyptic, anarchic, Mao-punk road trip through the ruined, alien-infested wastelands of futuristic northern Asia. It's hard to describe the plot of Graham's dystopian opus because so much of his creative energy is spent on other aspects of storytelling - world-building, esoteric visions of post-human existence, invented lexicons, tangential arthouse film-style characterisation, and staggeringly grand illustrations that test the reader's frame of reference. I digested this in little bits so that I didn't get too over- or underwhelmed, and by the time I finished I found myself wanting to read more of Brandon Graham's stuff.

Pyongyang by Guy Delisle

Guy Delisle is a journalist and animator whose work takes him all over the world, most interestingly to the places that few visit. Pyongyang, his graphic novel of the time he spent working in North Korea, affords readers the chance to see the world's most secretive nation from the inside. The level of access that Delisle was allowed is moderately restricted at best, however, even with such strictures placed upon him, this memoir is still nothing short of fascinating for anyone curious about what life in North Korea is really like.