Discovery: Go Back to Where You Came From

One of the more memorable examples of mise en scene from Go Back to Where You Came From. Note the use of shallow focus, framing, gaze, and slight high angle to keep the sky out of frame (hence dampening any chance of symbolic 'openness' or optimism)

Last year, on the recommendation of the excellent folks at Into English, I taught Go Back to Where You Came From as my Discovery text with Year 12 Advanced English. As we gear up for the last year of the Area of Study I thought I'd share the revision notes I made for my Advanced English class last year. 

These notes consist of a tabulated approach to analysing the three episodes and the reunion special. In the left hand column you'll find a screenshot from the episode, and on the right are some rough paragraphs that model appropriate ideas and approaches that can be used by students. As I mentioned just over a week ago in my Dracula post, providing exemplar responses is a really important part of opening up the learning process for students. 

Click the link for modelled responses for HSC Area of Study 'Discovery': Go Back to Where You Came From.

Here are some additional notes I also used with my students last year when revising the Area of Study and the text. I'd like to stress that these are just summarised dot points designed to prompt students when preparing for the HSC.

Ways of Approaching the Area of Study / Rubric Terms

• Influence of context on discovery
• Nature of discovery
• Impact of discovery
• The responder's discovery
• Representation of discovery
• Positive vs. Negative discoveries
• Meaningful, emotional, creative, intellectual, physical or spiritual ways of discovering
• New worlds and values revealed through discovery
• Speculation about future possibilities due to discovery
• New perceptions of self and others afforded by discovery
• Transformation
• Confrontation 
• Significant Experience (also known as Impetus)
• Anagnorisis (also known as Epiphany, Revelation, or Realisation)
• Departure Point
• The influence and reflection of metanarratives  

Raquel discovers that she doesn't actually much like being a participant on Go Back to Where You Came From.

Techniques / Devices Used

• Editing - jump cuts, crash zooms, montage
• Subtitles
• Direct-to-camera interviews (also known as: talking heads)
• B-roll (also referred to as: cross-cutting during interviews)
• Font
• Voice-over (narration and exposition)
• Pathetic fallacy
• Symbolism
• Close-ups, Extreme close-ups
• Mise-en-scene
• Handheld camera
• Ambient sound
• Cinema verite genre
• Archival footage
• Diegetic sound
• Sensationalism
• Characterisation through editing choices
• Rhetoric - logos, ethos, pathos, kairos
• Slogans
• Facial blurring
• Labelling
• Repetition
• Truncated dialogue
• Emphasis
• High modality in language
• Colloquialism
• Connotation
• Euphemism
• Word associations
• Blunt language
• Profanity
• Emotive language 
• Jargon

I tend to teach in a way where I provide students with more than they can possibly use. The thinking behind this is that students will then have a selection of things that they can pick from when formulating their own paradigm for understanding the text and rubric. There are so many different ways to approach Go Back to Where You Came From in terms of identifying techniques, and the modelled paragraphs are intended to demonstrate this breadth and depth.

If I had another run at this Area of Study I would try to include some paragraphs that continue to broaden the diversity of potential approaches. The hope is that this promotes critical thinking and independence, and allows for differentiation even at the higher end of the spectrum with Year 12 Advanced English. Students can look at these 'orphaned' paragraphs (IE. Paragraphs of analysis that aren't written in specific response to any essay question) and then attempt to write their own. By doing this they will be practising and implementing their own approach that can then hopefully be adapted for any number of HSC questions.