My final IO was between the THT section in the Jezebels club and a political cartoon called Rule of Law. I actually first came up with this connection when first coming up with IO ideas in Y12 (DP Year 1) and I first wrote it out in the second paragraph of a post on my learner portfolio titled ‘IO Preparation’, published on December 21, 2019. They connected with higher-ranking men worsening the oppression of women.
Excerpt from Learner Portfolio post titled ‘IO Preparation’, published on December 21, 2019
I think it went well. My memorisation and practice enabled me to learn what I said really well to help the fluidity of my IO, I used the same technique as I did in my practice as I found that worked well, except this time I memorised more as I had more time to work on it. When I was speaking I was confident in what I was saying, and I did end up saying more analysis than I planned as I recently had discovered more things to analyse. I think I did a better job analysing my non-literary extract but I hope that my literary extract was still analysed well enough. I feel like I improved from my practice as my connections and global issue was much stronger so I hope it paid off but I am glad it’s over and now all I need to focus on in English is Paper 1, due to COVID.
On Tuesday 15th, I did my practice IO presentation. It compared the section from TILOHL about Henrietta’s procedure with an article from IFLScience about drug use on rats. I connected this through the ethics and consent in scientific procedures. To practice what I was going to say, I memorised the introduction paragraphs for each text as that had necessary information in it that I needed to say, and then with the analysis sections it was easy to do as my 10 points included the examples and why I used them. I found it a lot easier to learn what I was going to say for the analysis sections as I could easily analyse the examples I had and for the memorised paragraphs I just practiced them over and over again.
After doing my IO, I got feedback. I did well on keeping time and staying within 10 but also not being too short. I also had a good balance, time wise, between the extracts. The main thing to work on is my analysis of the different elements as my literary extract was analysed better than my non-literary- this was mainly due to not being that focused on this practice as it wasn’t anything like what I would be doing in my final. I think overall I did okay for my practice, my grade wasn’t the best but I know I can improve for my final.
We analysed Infographics as a group. Mainly looking at ones about COVID-19 created by various branches of the Singapore Government. We focused on this Infographic and analysed it:
Infographic
We also learnt necessary terminology that will help us with this body of work:
On the 17th of March 2020, the campus of Luanda International School of Angola (LIS) was closed down due to the fast spread of COVID-19, a flu-like virus that’s all over the news with new cases and developments of the outbreak daily. following in the footsteps of many schools around the world. The board of directors made a quick but important decision, after weeks of discussion, and the next day the campus was closed. For the students of LIS, this means online schooling like many other schools worldwide, international or not. It’s an unsure time but the school and the country are doing what they can against COVID-19.
Angola is one of the countries where schools are shutting. Along with the schools like LIS, the airport is also stopping international flights as a way to reduce incoming people that could have the virus. Other smaller measures are being taken with more masks, hand sanitizer provided in places like the supermarket and self isolation as well.
Hopefully the actions taken by the government and the people of Luanda and other areas in the country can all help prevent and reduce any cases of COVID-19 present in Angola. Along with the actions taken by the school, hopefully this situation can be handled fast in the country and in regards to the world, each country’s actions will impact the situation for the better to put a stop to this outbreak and eventually, allow LIS to reopen again.
When reading academic writing in comparison to TILOHL there are differences in the features of the writing style. There is a clear distinction with less scientific terminology used in TILOHL but it’s due to a difference of target audience as the academic writing is more for educating or informing whereas TILOHL is more creatively informing the story. Academic writing will most likely be read less and enjoyed less by the general public as it’s meant for a specific group.
For the second paper 1 practice it is on articles as a non-literary text type. I chose quotes to do with juxtaposition and irony, descriptive language and their connotations, and the tone. These techniques link with the situation and how Donegan is presenting the different sides of #MeToo movement and the two sides with the feminist and anti-feminist ‘groups’.
It was hard to decide the different body paragraphs and what to talk about as some things were hard to pick out from the text but also hard to explain. The thesis as well, it is still confusing to write about what Donegan is trying to communicate through the article.
Through the article there was a lot of different language used and different connotations to the words which made it harder to pick out a consistent tone but also a lot of the words linked in with other sections of my essay outline. The descriptive language was the easiest to decide quotes to use as there are a lot of words used that fit with this and the connotations also are clearer to pick out. Though explaining the irony and juxtaposition used in the article was harder as the way it was used I felt it was harder to find good examples. With the tone, it changes as there is a negative tone through most of the article when talking about the assault cases and the anti-feminist movement, probably to do with Donegan’s bias. Though the article kind of intended to show hope for the movement which is shown by the title and how the article ends as well.
When preparing for the IO it was difficult to find segments from both the literary and non-literary text types. I couldn’t decide what made lines from different texts connect with each other. I looked through the articles to look for the first pairing and when looking at one of the articles, specifically to do with the “What Christine Blasey Ford reveals about womanhood” article, I found that Moira Donegan gives examples of what is expected of a woman and certain gender roles and behaviours that they are expected to have. This idea that is represented through how Donegan wrote the article is also present in The Handmaid’s Tale through what is expected of the handmaids and other women in their roles for this society. I looked at how the handmaids were expected to act and compared it too how Christine Ford acted.
When using a political cartoon as the non-literary text type I found it was easier as I could clearly see a connection with the ‘Rule of Law’ cartoon and a segment from ‘The Handmaid’s Tale’ at Jezebel’s when the commander was saying how you ‘can’t cheat nature… at least for men’. I saw a connection as ‘Rule of Law’ implies there is a rule hidden in the law (law against assault and fair judgment of punishment) if you were a man, particularly a rich white man. This links to ‘The Handmaid’s Tale’ as there are things that men are able to do which in comparison women aren’t, but women understand that men can get away with these things and accept that it’s in men’s nature. I looked at how men can act and be treated differently to women which was what I focused on when thinking of points I can analyse.
For this practice essay it was on the political cartoon by Adam Zyglis, called “Rule of Law”. This referenced a 2005 video with lewd and inappropriate comments about touching women as they will let you do anything to them because they are ‘stars’.
For my essay I analysed the text and the images used in the political cartoon. For the text I discussed the title of the political cartoon which is shown on the base of the statue. I also discussed the papers in the unbalanced scale and what Trump is saying in the speech bubble. For the images I talked about the elephant caricature, the statue itself and the #metoo movement poster.I got 9/10 points.
To improve I could make my analysis more detailed and give more examples of irony as well, while explicitly referencing juxtaposition. If I was considering the other criteria, for organising, to improve I could separate the juxtaposition from the two paragraphs rather than including it together like I did. There was a lot of Irony in this political cartoon so that would be a better option. In general I could vary my sentence structure and make sure my spelling and grammar is accurate. This was a good practice essay and next time I will make sure to be more detailed in my analysis to improve that strand.
Through the past 3 classes, we have been analysing political cartoons by various artists. We looked at techniques to look for in the political cartoons and we looked further into the meaning behind them and the situations they were based on. The techniques that we used to analyse the political cartoons were: irony, analogy, symbolism, labelling and exaggeration. Irony (or sarcasm) is the difference between the way things are and how they should/ expected to be. An analogy is a comparison between two unlikely things, something complex explained with something familiar. Symbolism is using symbols or objects to mean larger concepts. Labelling (or captions, notes, stereotypes) is used to make objects clear for what they stand for. Other things we could look for in the political cartoon is colour and visual weight.
One of the examples of a political cartoon was “Assault on Lady Liberty” by Bruce Mackinnon. This cartoon is showing a republican (as labelled by the elephant design on the cufflinks) on top of Lady Justice pinning her down to the ground representing men being above justice and how women are usually submissive to men and could be considered beneath men. This cartoon is directly related to the sexual assault allegation made by Christine Ford against Brett Kavanaugh after Kavanaugh supposedly assaulted Ford when they were high school. She came public when he was up to be Associate Justice of the Supreme Court, which he became regardless. This caused people to think she did it for publicity. Others thought it shouldn’t be cared about as it happened in high school and the allegation wasn’t definite. In my opinion, this shouldn’t matter as it’s still an issue that others face and this would raise awareness for other situations and others might speak out due to the bravery of Ford saying this against a Judge.
Another cartoon we looked at was “Rule of Law” by Adam Zyglis. This referenced a 2005 video with lewd and inappropriate comments about touching women as they will let you do anything to them because they are ‘stars’. On the image, it shows Trump and an elephant man, representing a republican, with black ink on their hands and behind Lady Justice with black ink handprints over her. She holds unbalanced scales showing the injustice with all of these other situations weighing down equality and on her sword the #metoo movement as something to fight for. This is representing the way people have an unspoken rule when it comes to sexual assaults that they, meaning rich men can get away with it even if it’s against the law.
(SEE PAPER 1 PRACTICE ESSAY FOR MORE DETAIL)
The third cartoon we looked at was “Tic Tac Trump” by Nick Anderson. Again this referenced a comment made in the 2005 video mainly talking about how Trump needed a tic tac as if he sees a beautiful woman he would just kiss them. This image is exaggerated with Trumps caricature-like style and the expressions on the three women labelled as Liberty, Justice and Truth. Trump trying to kiss these women is representing him taking advantage of his power to abuse these three values.
The final political cartoon was “Young lady here to see you now Mr Weinstein” which is referencing the many sexual assault allegations towards Harvey Weinstein an American film producer. He sexually assaulted over 80 women throughout his career but they only came to light around 2016 which was the start of the #metoo movement. Lady Justice bursting through the door represents Weinstein abusing the justice system to get away with these assaults. Though the way the door is broken of the hinges represents how women are fighting for justice, the red door symbolising a red carpet in reference to the number of celebrities who have spoken out against him.
Evie's Learner Portfolio 