te ahua me te raruraru

“When we strive to become better than we are, everything around us becomes better too.”

— Paulo Coelho

te ao Māori principles

There are five key principals that we, as an English Department, consider important as part of a holistic study at school.

• Mana – The prestige and authority of the writer. Writers can build mana through impactful stories that uplift readers.
• Whanaungatanga – The connections and relationships between characters, writers, and readers. Literature brings people together.
• Kaitiakitanga – Guardianship and protection of stories, language, and knowledge. Writers have a duty to share stories responsibly.
• Wairuatanga – The spirituality and deeper meanings conveyed through literature. Stories can be profound and moving.
• Mauri – The essential life force or vitality of the writer coming through in their work. Writing with purpose and energy.
• Aroha – The empathy, compassion, and love writers show through their words. Literature builds understanding between people.
• Tikanga – The customs, protocols and values upheld through storytelling. Writers adhere to cultural principles.

Exercises

Characterisation and Conflict

te ahua me te raruraru

In Year 10, during both the Shakespeare and the Novel units, there was a real push to recognise the role that characters play in the text. Some drive the narrative forward, some are there for technical reasons, or – in the case of Shakespeare – for comic relief or to allow for a particular utility purpose (like including scenes that give actors time for costume changes).

In non-fiction, the same rules and expectations apply. There are still protagonists and antagonists and they often serve the same purpose.

For many of the non-fiction texts that we are studying in this unit, you will find that biographies or memoirs tend to be the focus on a central character. For example: High Adventure by Edmund Hillary is going to place the writer and ‘doer’ of the action, Sir Edmund Hillary, in the protagonist role and the antagonist will be the mountain. (remember that both protagonists and antagonists can be real or imagined, physical or spiritual, living or inanimate)

Methods of Characterisation

We need to establish the writing style of the author, and how they construct the character. Remember the process of establishing these concepts.

There may be some sensitivity in this regard. Remember that we are dealing with real life people, real situations, and the presentation of ideas and concepts that may have to be treated with some diplomacy.

As you look at each character, consider that ‘I’ of APRICOT, Imagery and Representation. How is the character or person or thing being represented.

Read through this extract from I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings and consider what imagery is being used, and what the expected representation is – that means, how the writer – Maya Angelou – wants the character of her mother to be considered, or thought about.

Exercises

Re-read the te ao Māori values that are the top of the page.

• What te ao Māori values is Clinton tapping into here? Or divergent to?
• What about the writing leads you to the thought? Give specifics.

Character Arc

The study of any character in any piece of literature must include their whole development and journey. For some, that may be short and largely vague (for example, the introduction of a delivery person who brings an important letter), but they still play a role in the whole construct. Consider each of your characters as you come across them in your text. What is their character arc? How do they shift something in another character, or drive the narrative forward? That delivery person may be vital, especially if the protagonist is anxiously waiting.

When assessing the protagonist, think of the Hero’s Journey.

Let’s look at the non-fiction Diary of a Young Girl The Diary of Anne Frank, to assist by looking at the stages of the Hero’s Journey

• Ordinary World: Anne is a young Jewish girl living in Amsterdam with her family before the Nazi occupation.
• Call to Adventure: The Nazi occupation forces Anne and her family into hiding in the secret annex to avoid being sent to concentration camps.
• Refusal of the Call: At first, Anne has difficulty adjusting to life in the cramped annex. She complains about the lack of privacy and inability to go outside.
• Meeting the Mentor: Anne finds comfort through writing in her diary, which acts as a mentor and confidant.
• Crossing the Threshold: Anne settles into her new life in the annex and accepts her confined circumstances with optimism.
• Tests, Allies & Enemies: Living in confinement tests Anne’s resilience. The other annex residents become her allies. The Nazis remain a constant enemy threat.
• Approach to Inner Cave: As time passes, Anne faces inner challenges like boredom and growing up in isolation. Her diary helps her process complex emotions.
• Ordeal: Anne experiences a deep depression after receiving negative feedback about her personality from the other annex residents.
• Seizing the Sword: Anne recovers her optimism and continues developing her writing skills and voice through her diary.
• Road Back: As the war continues, danger increases of the annex residents being discovered and captured.
• Resurrection: Anne matures tremendously, gaining wisdom and insight through her experiences.
• Return with Elixir: Though Anne tragically dies at the concentration camp, her diary lives on, giving insight into hope and human endurance.

Motivations / Motives

Motives or motivations both mean the reason that characters ‘do’ things. A rugby player will run at other players with the motivation of barging through and scoring points for their team. A young hopefully lover will approach their crush with the motivation to go out with them. Workers complete their word with the motivation of being paid.

We all have reasons or motivations for doing what we do. When you look at any action that a character in a text undertakes there must be motivations or motives for doing this.

Perhaps the biggest impact on this area of psychology is a man called Maslow. Maslow was a psychologist who recognised that there is a range of ‘needs’ that we all require as humans. He called it the ‘Hierarchy of Needs’, and as we know, non-fiction deals with the real rather than the imagined, so it’s not difficult to see the importance of this.

1. Physiological: Things you need to survive. Food, water, oxygen, etc.
2. Security and Safety: Things you need to be safe, like money, shelter, health, employment, benefits
3. Social: Connections to others. Friends, family, romantic connections, community groups
4. Esteem: The need for appreciation, accomplishment, respect from others, personal worth
5. Self-Actualization: Focusing more on your own growth and potential and less on the opinions of others

You can recognise much of this in the texts that you read. Sports people write about being successful in their chosen sport because they have all their physiological needs already met. Michael Jordan wasn’t worrying about where his next meal came from – if he had, it is unlikely that he would be writing about his deal with Nike, or his successful 3-pointer that won him the NBA title.

Exercises

Look at the central narrative in your non-fiction book and make a list of the key characters (both with the protagonist – ie. supporting individuals, and those who come into conflict with them)

• List the perceived motivations of each one. It may be as simple as ‘wanted to be the first’ or ‘to be the best’.
• What goals did they set as a result?
• What actions did each them then undertake to achieve that goal.

 

Conflict

Again, in Year 10 we looked at the use of conflict. There are two major conflicts that can exist

• Internal Conflict
• External Conflict

Create notes in your book on conflict by revisiting the Year 10 PressBook to help with your understanding of the various types of conflict that can exist in any given text.

Supplementary Texts

At this point you should have some knowledge of your chosen stimulus text, and have begun to look at the contextual and background knowledge that will impact your understanding of the text.

These aspects of characterisation and conflict become important within the supplementary texts also. In speeches look at who the speaker is trying to alienate, or separate through the use of pronouns like ‘them’ and ‘us’. In articles check out the use of positive and negative connotation in adjectives.

Let’s take an example. Again using Diary of a Young Girl as the focus. In studying this text, it is important to see the horrific language used against the Jewish people. Here, the despicable Adolf Hitler uses strong rhetoric to convince the German people to separate themselves from the Jewish. This sort of language is what led to Anne Frank – and so many other Jewish people – to be treated so terribly by their fellow citizens.

It is vital to understand that level of hatred in order to fully comprehend the situation that the Frank family were in.

Consider how Hitler is characterising the Jewish people here. The term ‘antisemitism’ is used to describe such attacks on Jewish people. It is separatist, and oppressive in tone. And it is utterly despicable. But, it is a part of the whole context in which the text being studied is written.

This, obviously, is an extreme example; however, there are similar constructs in all non-fiction texts. For Edmund Hillary it was about the challenging environment and the unknown. The importance of the British Empire (Hillary’s success was a British expedition – the Commonwealth was beginning to be challenged and so it was a success they could use to promote the working together of nations).

Types of supplementary texts

Here is a list of the possibly supplementary texts that you could use.

1. advertisements,
2. brochures,
3. leaflets,
4. editorials,
5. news stories,
6. articles,
7. reviews,
8. blogs,
9. investigative journalism,
10. letters,
11. podcasts,
12. autobiographies
13. biographies,
14. travel writing,
15. diaries,
16. essays,
17. scripted speech,
18. narrative writing,
19. textbooks, and
20. descriptive writing

Let’s look at the next five. I will be using Anne Frank  as a reference point here.

• articles,

Articles are similar to news stories, but tend to be more on the magazine side of things. Often they can be profiles of individuals, or provide more information than a newspaper has the room for.

Interestingly, Hitler was given the title of Time Magazine: person of the year in 1938. Here is the article that accompanied the famous cover story

Hilter: Man of the Year

It is worth reading to get a feel for the style of writing, and to give context.

• reviews,

Reviews are, like advertising, not likely to have a direct impact on your knowledge. They may be able to give some idea about the way things were at the time. But overall, they are an interest story, rather than a provider of relevance.

• blogs,

Clearly, blogs were not a ‘thing’ pre the year 2000, and many of the texts were crafted before that year; however, they still serve as a wonderful resource for researching. Blogs are often created by individuals who have individual thoughts and perspectives. There must be some caution in using only blogs, or blogs as a major source as they tend to have biases.

Blogs can also be collections curated by individuals. Check out this example which includes the oral history of some holocaust survivors.

Concentration Camp Survivors Share Their Stories

• investigative journalism,

Investigative journalism is a very rich area for analysis. Typically a long form report or story which delves into the depths of a particular story and uncovers something of value that may have been hidden by authorities, or creates the opportunity to share information more widely and without constraint.

Many of the major news outlets have an area dedicated to such stories – particularly the magazine style newspapers such as the Wall Street Journal in US, or The Guardian in UK.

A really interesting piece from The New Yorker looks at how the American Press reported on the early years of Hitler and the Nazi party – and did nothing about it.

The Moral Failings of American Press Coverage

• letters,

Of all the supplementary texts that will support the learning around the diary, letters are surely one of the strongest. They, like diaries, provide very important glimpses into life for people during World War 2, particularly those of Jewish origin. Being able to hear their words, their griefs, and their situations will add to your understanding of life for them.

Here is a resource which chronicles the letters from the concentration camps and from that era. One point to remember: these are meant for a very specific audience, so some things will not make sense. Many times the writer will discuss things known only to the recipient – relatives, contacts, occasions from the past etc. The point here is to look for the tone, and for the specifics that will add to your understanding.

Last Letters from Auschwitz

Ko te reo te tuakiri | Language is my identity.  
Ko te reo tōku ahurei | Language is my uniqueness.
Ko te reo te ora. | Language is life.