Wednesday, September 16, 2009

Synopsis of harry Lavender I found online

The narrator (Claudia) wakes up, suffering from a hangover. She has coffee, a shower and then dresses. Before going, she wakes up the man in her bed, telling him he has to leave because she has to go to a funeral.
On the way down town, she stops to buy a bunch of violets.
She recalls how she met the dead man. He was the brother of an old school friend of hers, Marilyn Bannister, who unexpectedly got in touch with Claudia. Marilyn told Claudia that the police believed her brother Mark had died of natural causes, but that she did not agree.
Claudia drives on out to the cemetery. Mark Bannister has been found dead. His pacemaker [artificial heart] malfunctioned and killed him. However, after the death, Marilyn received an envelope. Inside was a card bearing the mysterious words: ‘TERMINAL ILLNESS’.
The funeral service takes place. As well as Marilyn and her children and Mark’s girlfriend, there are two men watching from a BMW.
Afterwards, at the hotel where the wake is taking place, Claudia meets friends of Mark Bannister. They are surfie. One, Robbie, is particularly friendly towards her. Playing a video game machine with Robbie, she questions him. Robbie says that shortly before his death Mark was given a computer and encouraged to write a novel. Mark’s girlfriend, Sally Villos, joins the group. She is distraught and gets quite drunk.
Later, Claudia replays the tape recording she has made of the conversation with Marilyn. Mark had a hole in his heart. When he died, he had heroin in his blood stream, though not enough to kill him. Back in her room at the hotel where she lives, Claudia receives a gift of lavender. It is, she assumes, from the man who stayed the night before.

An unnamed voice talks of dreams – dreams of his own funeral. There are flowers (including lavender) police, and a variety of images of faces, the media and rubble everywhere. The voice talks of being indestructible.

Claudia gets in touch with an old friend of hers at the motor registry office, Bernie, asking him to check up on the number of the BMW.
As she travels into the city, she ponders the mysterious words on Marilyn’s card. What could they mean? She goes into the computer shop and looks up an old friend, Otto, asking him if he would like to help her in an investigation which involves computers.
She makes and appointment to see a Dr Mackintosh, Mark Bannister’s doctor. He tells her that Mark had arrhythmia, an abnormal rhythm of the heart. She learnt that Mark had two operations for the fitting of pacemakers – one by a Dr Prendergast and one by a Dr Villos. She tells him about the heroin found in Mark’s bloodstream, but the doctor, though surprised, it would not have killed the young man.
Going to the Allergy Clinic, Claudia looks up an old friend of her, Lucy. She puts Claudia on to the medical technician, Steve Angell.

Claudia manages to see Steve Angell. She asks him about Mark Bannister, with whom he had been involved because of the pace maker. She learns that Mark had his pacemaker and heart function checked electronically by computer link-up. He tells her about the sophisticated type of pacemaker that Mark had in his body. They then learn more about one another, and its obvious the two are attracted. Steve invites her to come around to his place. Claudia wonders how Steve could remember Mark’s case, but it turns out that he remembers him because of his very sensitive heart and the time her nearly died when Steve was testing the pacemaker.

Claudia and Otto go to visit Mark’s flat in Bondi. They enter the flat and examine it carefully. While Claudia looks around, finding nothing suspicious, Otto checks the computer. There is nothing on the computer at all. They check the other flats in the block, but the only inhabitant whom she meets refuses to speak with her.
On a hunch, she crosses to the flats opposite the back of Mark’s flats, and guessing, rings the bell belonging to the inhabitants of the top flat, opposite Mark’s. Inside, she meets a Mr and Mrs Levack. It emerges that Mrs Levack spends much of her time looking out the window at the neighbours. She watched Mark Bannister a lot. Claudia learns that Mark was often visited by a girl and sometimes a man. The day that Mark died, Mrs Levack was watching. She describes how he got very upset and then fell over. In came the girl, and shortly after the man (whom she believes to be a plain clothes policeman). Claudia thanks Mrs Levack and goes.

The unnamed monologue picks up again. The speaker remembers being a fugitive from the Nazis and mocked as a refugee when he came to Australia. At school, he was bullied by the other boys, until he took them aside one by one and showed him his knife. He remembers the terror of nearly being caught by the Nazis and losing his mother, of escaping from Poland and making his way out of Nazi territory. He remembers his attitude towards the way Polish heroes and names were misused in his Australian school.

Claudia traces the BMW to a house in a Sydney suburb (Bronte). She knocks at the door, and is taken in by an old lady. The house is full of cats. The BMW turns out to belong to the old lady’s ex-boxer son Ronny, whom Claudia recognizes from photos as the man she had seen on the street corner in Bondi when she was visiting Mark’s flat. Mrs O’Toole does not know of her son’s whereabouts.
Claudia sees the BMW drive past. She travels to Bondi, and goes onto the beach, looking for Robbie. He spots her, and they talk. Robbie agrees that Mark Bannister took heroin, and is reluctantly forced to admit that it came from the video arcade nearby.
Claudia is still being shadowed by the BMW, and after some diversionary tactics, she realises that it is following her car, not her personally. She returns to the computer shop and asks Otto about electronic shadowing. Together they examine her car. Otto finds a transmitter hidden on her car and they remove it, instead placing it on a police car.
Claudia visits the home of Dr Villos. The only person home is Sally, and she is very nervous. When Claudia asks about the man who came into Mark’s flat when she was there, she is evasive. She refuse to say any more.
Claudia gets in touch with an old friend from university days, Carol Rawlins, now a police detective, and asks to investigate Mark’s death on the police computer.

Claudia meets Steve Angell. He tells her about his experiment once taking heroin. They walk down to a park beside the Harbour, developing their relationship, and he invites her to his place again.
Meeting her old friend Carol, Claudia asks about what she has found. Carols reply is quite simple: ‘No suspicious circumstances’.

The unnamed voice talks about the sort of business he is in – murder. He talks about the methodical way he stalks his victim, choosing an unguarded moment to strike. He gives an example of a ‘hit’ on a man, shot dead outside his mother’s house.

Disguising herself, Claudia goes to the video arcade. After playing one of the machines for a while, she talks to the nig Maori bouncer, asking for a heroin ‘score’. He roughly tells her to go.
Sitting in hamburger joint across the road, she watches the video. After a while, Ronnie O’Toole turns up in the BMW. She follows it. In a back alley, O’Toole is supervising the loading of videogame machines into a customs van. She follows the van when it drives off.
It makes it way to the container terminal at the port. Leaving her car, she climbs into the terminal yard. The men take the video machines out of a container, substitute them for the ones they have brought in the van, and re seal the container, as if none of it had happened at all. However, when she goes back to the car, it is to find that the truck that was hiding it has gone. the men have seen the car. She hides. Just as she thinks they are about to find her, Ronnie tells the guard it is nothing to worry about. She still cannot escape however. The guard comes back towards her. She kicks and hits him, but only just manages to escape. With guard in pursuit, she dives into the harbour.

She shows up at Steve’s house where she takes a bath. He tends to her wounds and joins her in the bath.
Later, eating, he admits that the work he did in Germany before coming back to be a medical technician in Australia involved illegal phone tapping. She learns that the pacemaker in Mark’s body would not have been subject to examination after his death, and would, because of costs, have been almost certainly recycled. Later they make love.

The unnamed monologist talks about the Sydney he knows, al apparent respectability on the surface, but hiding corruption and all sorts of hidden details underneath.

Returning to her room, Claudia realises someone has been there. She searches everywhere, looking for traces of an intruder. Eventually, on the balcony, she finds in the lavender pot a card. It has replaced the one previously there (inscribed “To my Valentine”). The new card simply reads: “THE LIFE AND CRIMES OF HARRY LAVENDER”. Claudia racks her brain, trying to understand what it means. She knows that Harry Lavender controls Sydney and she’s determined to find out more.
Claudia gets in touch with Brian Collier, a journalist and ex-colleague of her father’s. She keeps an old clipping of her father’s from years back, a clipping which describes a young war orphan called Harry who has made himself useful to a business man with shady connections.
She waits for Brian Collier in the bar of the hotel where she lives. She introduces herself and Brian asks about her father. She admits that she has not seen him for years (since she was five years old) and would probably not recognise him because he was just another ‘dero’ wandering the city. She asks about an article Brian has written about organised crime in Sydney. Although he mentions the Asian connection and the possibility of police corruption, he thinks of the latest wave of killings as ‘take over bids’ as the criminals jostle for position. The reason is the rumoured approaching death by cancer of Harry Lavender. She asks if Ronnie O’Toole might takeover from Harry. Ronnie’s nickname is Johnny the Jumper because of his sadistic habit of jumping on his victim’s legs as a form of torture. Brian thinks Ronnie/Johnny is not smart enough. He tells her that her father did not react the right way to the threats of Harry Lavender years before. She remembers however that the threats were to cut his wife and child (herself), and that this was the reason he took to drink. When she tells him about the book Mark Bannister was writing when he died in mysterious circumstances, and the possibility that it was sent by modem, he agrees, telling her he uses that technique himself to ring in stories. He warns her about getting involved with Harry Lavender, saying Lavender, who is obviously having her followed by Johnny the Jumper, may be only toying with her before he goes for the kill. Brian advises her to get out of the country.
When Claudia gets back to her car, she realises someone has been interfering with it. She checks it carefully, but can see nothing. Sitting inside, nervously wondering whether she should turn on the ignition, she thinks about her life. She starts the car and heads off, nearly hit by a speeding black Porsche.
With memories of the threats years ago by Harry Lavender against her father, she rings her ex-husband Gary in the country, asking him if the children are alright.

Claudia realises that Harry Lavender is aware of what she is doing – not harming her, but not leaving her alone either. Using the methods she has learnt, she concentrates her mind to still her anxiety.
She rings Otto, getting him to agree to search for a telephone number to which Mark’s computer may have been linked. Then she rings Sally Villos, and secures an invitation.
At Sally’s place, Claudia has a long conversation. She discovers that Sally was the driver of the black Porsche which nearly ran into her on the previous day. She asks to look at Mark’s thing, which Sally brought from his flat. In an address book, under the letter H there is a mystery number – Sally says she does not know whose. Claudia asks Sally about Mark’s computer, brought from his flat and, she sees, plugged in, but Sally denies knowing how to use a computer. There are no disks to go with it.
Sally says that Mark’s manuscript, that one that was to be a ‘best-seller’, was finished just before his death. He was extremely anxious about it being stolen – one reason he took ‘smack’ to calm himself. Claudia tells Sally that Mark was murdered and asks if she wants his murderer to be brought to justice. Sally warns her not to get involved. When Claudia asks Sally if she can borrow the computer (for Otto to analyse), Sally refuses and tells her to leave.
Coming back to the city, Claudia reflects on the nature of Sydney – taken over by the property developers., beautiful but corrupt. ‘Everything stank of Lavender,’ she thinks.
Back in the pub where she lives, she sits in the bar and is accosted by a regular customer, who tells her about the latest crime. She sees the paper and realises that it is a report on the death of Robbie Macmillan. She reads that article. He had his legs broken. She goes to the toilet and is violently sick.
Claudia rings Carol, her contact in the police force, urging her to bring in Johnny the Jumper. Then she tries the mystery number from Mark’s address book. It made an odd noise – the sound of a modem. She rings Otto and tells him that she has founded the number she needs.
Then she broods over the two people she knows that have ended up dead because of this case. She thinks of Steve, worrying about him. Then suddenly she wonders if he too might be involved. She rings him, but there is no answer.

Sally calls Claudia back. She is drunk and distressed. She tells Claudia that two men came to her house after Claudia left, threatened her, searched the place – especially Mark’s possessions – and took away his computer. Claudia questions her, but there are no further details and Claudia suspects the whole story.
Claudia returns to the video games parlour late at night and looks carefully at the building. There is no way of getting in (to look for Mark’s computer) on the ground floor, but she realises the roof is not secure. She goes to a movie, killing time until early morning. In the toilet, she practises her karate.
In the middle of the night, she parks her car in the alley behind the games arcade, which is now closed. On the upper story, above the arcade, are a set of wooden doors, with a chain hanging. She dresses for action, takes a tool bag, climbs onto the roof of a car, and pulls herself up to the doors. For a while she is in danger of being discovered by a drunk below. After a time she is able to break in and enter the building.
Inside, she examines the games machines. There is no sign of drugs in them, but marks where something has been taped inside. Then she hears voices. One of them (the Maoris’) is telling the other that he has been making a nuisance of himself, drawing attention to his actions. ‘Harry doesn’t like that,’ he says.
The Maori pushes the other man into the office. When he leaves, later, Claudia makes her way into the office. On the floor is the body of Johnny the Jumper. He has been shot. In his hands is his tongue. Claudia opens the draws of the desk in the office, finding the titles of companies run by Harry Lavender, including Hartronics (the pacemaker manufacturer) and Sydney Girl (a modelling agency). There is a magazine with a picture of Sally Villos. Claudia looks at the picture of Sally and suddenly realises that she is Harry Lavender’s daughter. Claudia is trying to ring Carol when she is knocked unconscious.

Claudia wakes up to find herself in the car, in the harbour. She has a terrible headache and there is the smell of alcohol everywhere. She is rescued by the ambulance people and police. The police are taking her details, when she insists on speaking to Detective Carol Rawlins (the old contact).
She is brought to Carol and the policemen leave. Claudia tells her story – of entering the Harry Lavender building, finding the body of Johnny the Jumper, and being knocked out. Claudia’s theory is that Robbie Macmillan was set up with a ‘plant’ of heroin, and that Johnny the Jumper was then killed for drawing too much attention to Harry Lavender with this latest murder. Carol is sceptical. The case against Lavender is non-existent – there is no body in the office, no blood stains, no evidence of any kind against Lavender. Meanwhile, Claudia is potentially in danger of being charged for breaking and entering, drunken driving and other misdemeanours.
Nonetheless, Carol believes her, and sends her home with a warning not to go any further in the case against Lavender. At home, delivered by a police car, she takes to bed, exhausted, wondering how Phillip Marlowe survived without ever going to bed.

The unnamed other voice (Harry Lavender) reflects on the city and the future. He compares his business empire to a computer. He recalls the amount of control that can be exercised over hearts so that a person can be kept in a condition where any little exertion or crisis is fatal. He recalls the million dollar scam that he has worked in a bank via computer trickery. His regret is that he will not live long enough to see his power go on. However, like cancer, his influence and empire will survive his death.

Claudia wakes, her head aching, thinking about Harry Lavender. She realises he is playing ‘cat and mouse’ with her. She thinks about how she can find a way to destroy him. She broods about Robbie Macmillan and Mark Bannister, both now dead because of Harry Lavender.
She listens to the answering machine, hearing messages from Otto, Mrs Levack and Steve Angell. She rings Steve, and he invites her over again. Then he mentions some news: the person who had Mark’s pacemaker has died too. It was a car accident and the pace maker is irretrievable. She asks Steve where the pacemaker came from and learns it was Harry Lavender. Distraught, she breaks up with Steve and hangs up.
At Otto’s, she prepares to break into Harry Lavender’s computer system by modem link. The first problem is the password. After long consideration and trying all sorts of possibilities, she thinks of using her own name. It works. Fearfully, she enters the system and reads on the screen (Harry Lavender’s own computer system) ‘TO MY VALENTINE’. Activated, the program shows the shape of a blood red heart, which is gradually devoured by lavender coloured crabs. She realises that it is her heart and that the crabs represent Lavender’s cancer. She realises he is toying with her. She is like a mouse in a maze. Finally, she enters the words ‘THE LIFE AND CRIMES OF HARRY LAVENDER’. She is letting Lavender know that she knows about him.
Once outside Otto’s shop, she makes her way to Bondi, following up the call from Mrs Levack. It turns out that Mrs Levack intercepted a letter from America, addressed to Mark Bannister. It is form a New York publisher, thanking him for the manuscript on disk entitled The Life and Crimes of Harry Lavender. They want instructions about returning the disk. Claudia is delighted.
Claudia rings Sally Villos and gets her to meet in a women’s gym, for a sauna. Meanwhile, she rings Brian Collier and Otto, and re-addresses the publisher’s letter to herself. She posts it, confident that it is now safe. However the van that clears the mailbox is obviously not the real thing.
At the gym, she and Sally undress, put towels on and go into the sauna. Claudia questions Sally brutally and threatens her. Sally says she is going to faint from the heat and must have a shower. Back at the change rooms, Sally gets her bag and suddenly Claudia finds a gun pointed at her. Sally admits that she wants the book, Mark’s book. Claudia says that it is in her bag. Sally reaches in and finds only the miniature tape recorder. She is taken momentarily off guard, and Claudia kicks the gun out of her hand. It ends up in the sauna fire. There is a struggle but Claudia wins. She tells the owner of the gym to call the police.
Claudia demands to know what Sally was doing in Mark’s flat just after his death. She realises that Sally had actually injected Mark with heroin. Why? Sally says it was to protect her father. Claudia says her father is Harry Lavender, though Sally denies it, saying her father is Raymond Villos, the surgeon, who could be implicated in the failure of the pacemaker. Claudia asks why she was there at the time and was told because of the cancellation of a modelling session. In Mark’s flat, she read on the screen a message which had killed him – the message that if he got stressed out at all he would die. She also read, Claudia asserts, that she is the daughter of Harry Lavender. Sally denies this.
The police arrive. Claudia asks Carol (Detective Rawlins) if she has been under pressure to protect Lavender. Just as Carol is asking Sally if she wishes to lay charges, there is a sound of explosions. The bullets in the gun which Claudia hurled into the sauna fire during the struggle are exploding. Suddenly, Sally is about to be charged with carrying an illegal firearm.
Outside, Claudia is walking through the streets when she sees the same van (the one which took the letter to Mark) which drives suddenly down the street towards her. She leaps into the police car and tells its driver to go. After a chase, they elude the van, and she tells the driver to go on, while she gets out.
Once again she makes her way through the city, this time towards Darling Harbour. Just as she is getting to the Pyrmont Bridge, she sees the Maori following her. He has a knife. She runs across the bridge, but it is opening because of a yacht moving through underneath. She runs and leaps as hard as she can, and just makes it to the other side. The Maori runs after her and jumps too, but he misses and falls into the Harbour.

Claudia rings Brian Collier and they meet. She tells him the story. Harry Lavender learnt he was going to do in a matter of months. He wanted a record of what he had done – his life and crimes. He picked someone to write his memoirs, which would be published after his death. However, he lived longer than he expected and the incriminating manuscript, as well as its nervy author, began to be a problem. He had Mark killed and the computer erased. Bu there was still the chance of another copy. So he sent the first clue to Mark’s sister and watched while Claudia went on the case, trying to find out.
Claudia rings the New York publishing firm and explains that she wants back the manuscript. The woman there agrees to send it by modem straight away. Then Claudia rings Steve, to apologise for her earlier suspicion, arranging to go with him to Queensland to meet her children. Brian gives her the news that Harry Lavender, in hospital, has lapsed into a coma. She looks out at the city, brooding on its beauty but its continuing underworld of crime.
On Brian’s computer, the manuscript has begun to come through: The Life and Crimes of Harry Lavender

Distinctive Voice Stuff I found online

You know where I found this - that's right, on boredofstudies.org

claudia's voice/personality is:

liberated: unknown Blond in the bed
tough talking: "no one gets in my room .... let alone my bed"
cynical: "well helled, well coiffed"
strong: physically-karate and mentally
competent: a women in typically a mans job and does it well.
intelligent: solves mystery
street smart: knows the city
observant: relizes BMW is following her
confident: mingles at pub ( wake)
witty: "one step closer to heavan was the crematorium"
sarcastic: "better" (sally in suna pg 152)
harry lavenders voice is:
powerful: leader of organised crime, imagines is own funneral
arrogant: proud of criminal activities "helped in many ways... social contribution."
smug: boasting of friends; politicians, police links and media.
egotisitical: repition of I
sinister
ominous

Technique & Justification
Harry Lavenderpowerful, arrogant, smug, egotistical, sinister, ominous

“I wake from this dream with the same coffin smile”
-Metaphor, Personification
Superhuman qualities, the feeling that he is pure evil as we think of vampires in coffins with wicked smiles brings out his distinctive voice.

“Every person living and breathing, and many that were dead knew the name of that cancerous growth that went by the name of harry lavender”
-Metaphor
Gives us the feeling that he was unstoppable
And detestable

Claudia Valentine - independent, tough, strong, intelligent, street smart, observant, confident, witty

“I woke up felling like death. Ironically appropriate given what the day held in store”.
-Simile, Paradox
Shows she is living life on the edge close to death

"one step closer to heaven was the crematorium"
Metaphor
Shows the witty side to Valentine
Hardboiled detectives are witty

“Karate had taught me more than just high kicks” p34
Shows she is tough and independent

“The deroes... started on their liquid breakfast”p2
Metaphor, seedy lower class, urban setting, establishes the hardboiled setting.

The Setting/Sydney city seedy,
“The flower shop was near Kinselas an elegant night spot that used to be a funeral parlour but where people now ate devilled kidneys and crumbed brains in the former chapel and afterward went upstairs for the show”.

-Juxtaposition of images
-to create the feeling of death and to show that the city has its own personality and distinctive voice, sickening connotations of people eating body parts in a funeral parlour.
-A dark side to what used to be an innocent chapel. Idea of facades
A setting for a hardboiled detective
- Despite the elegant and respectable city there is a sickening grotesque side to it.
“ small triangle of threadbare green” pg2
Metaphor, used to establish the setting it’s a city of concrete.

Friday, September 4, 2009

Strictly Ballroom - HSC Online

Link to Strictly Ballroom Material on HSC Online

Belonging Essay Questions

HSC-Style Questions

1. "Belonging relies on both conformity and individuality" What is your view?

Compose a persuasive response with reference to the prescribed text and 2 other related texts of your own choosing.

2. "Strong human spirits are essential for belonging" Discuss

Write a persuasive response with reference to your prescribed text and at least TWO related texts of your own choosing.

3. "Our desire to belong is universal, but expresses itself in different ways."

Evaluate this statement with reference to your core text and two related texts

4. Belonging is a struggle".

Discuss this statement to reference to the prescribed text and at least 2 texts of your choosing.

Close Study of Text (Module B) - Notes from 2008 Marking Centre

Section II – Module B: Close Study of Text

General Comments
There were a number of paths candidates could take to answer the question and those candidates who discriminated in their selection of supporting evidence were more highly rewarded. Many candidates demonstrated genuine engagement and they responded personally to the issues raised in the text and focused on a broad range of concerns rather than being limited to any one aspect.


Better responses demonstrated a deep understanding of the central concerns of the text, detailed textual knowledge, and skilful analysis. They exhibited the capacity to synthesise the central concerns of the text with the closing section of each text. They also demonstrated genuine engagement with the text and their arguments were thorough, fluently expressed and well developed. The metalanguage for each text type was used appropriately in these responses and they demonstrated clearly a confidence in selection of evidence to support a well-structured argument.
Weaker responses reflected an inability to move beyond recount and assertion rather than demonstrate argument and analysis. Some of these weaker responses struggled to show understanding of the closing section of their text or to link it to the text’s central concerns.

The majority of responses showed a satisfactory control of language conventions and most knew their texts well. Most candidates demonstrated clearly that they were engaged in a close study of the text. Candidates are reminded that related texts are not required in this module.

Tuesday, July 28, 2009

Distinctive Voice Link

Good Link - Click Here

Quotes from Judith Wright

Feelings or emotions are the universal language and are to be honored. They are the authentic expression of who you are at your deepest place."

"Only after I faced the unhappiness of my first marriage did I start on the path of personal growth."

"Want to know if a given behavior is a soft addiction? If any of these characteristics apply, chances are it is: zoning out, avoiding feelings, compulsiveness, denial/rationalization, stinking thinking, and hiding or lying about the behavior."

"We are hungry for more; if we do not consciously pursue the More, we create less for ourselves and make it more difficult to experience More in life."

"When one pauses to consider how thoroughly corrupted our censors must be by this time, it is difficult to have any faith whatever in their judgement of what is and is not corrupting to others. If to the pure all things are pure, it may well follow that to the corrupted all things are corrupt."

Request to a Year

Request to a Year

If the year is meditating a suitable gift,
I should like it to be the attitude
of my great- great- grandmother,
legendary devotee of the arts,

who having eight children
and little opportunity for painting pictures,
sat one day on a high rock
beside a river in Switzerland

and from a difficult distance viewed
her second son, balanced on a small ice flow,
drift down the current toward a waterfall
that struck rock bottom eighty feet below,

while her second daughter, impeded,
no doubt, by the petticoats of the day,
stretched out a last-hope alpenstock
(which luckily later caught him on his way).

Nothing, it was evident, could be done;
And with the artist's isolating eye
My great-great-grandmother hastily sketched the scene.
The sketch survives to prove the story by.

Year, if you have no Mother's day present planned,
Reach back and bring me the firmness of her hand.

Judith Wright

Judith Wright Revision Images



Tuesday, July 14, 2009

Trial Revision Day - Tuesday July 21st

Just a reminder that our Trial Revision Day is Tuesday July 21st from 10am-1pm.

We will be covering:

1. Belonging/Strictly Ballroom
2. Judith Wright
3. Educating Rita

We will leave off Harry Lavender as we just finished it in class

See whoever I see there

Friday, July 10, 2009

Friday, June 26, 2009

Assessment Notification

St Patrick’s Marist College
English
Year 12 (Standard)
2009
Module A: Experience Through Language – Distinctive Voices – The Lives and Crimes of Harry Lavender Student Number


Assessment Task No: 4
Mode: Listening Date Due: Tuesday, July 7th 2009
Weighting: 15%

SUBMISSION INSTRUCTIONS
• Student will sit a pre-listening task on Wednesday, July 1st
• Students are NOT to bring any paper into the task on July 7th
OUTCOMES BEING ASSESSED
H4. A student identifies and describes language forms and the features, and structures of particular texts which shape meaning and influence responses.
H6. A student engages with the details of text in order to respond critically and personally.
H7. A student selects appropriate language forms and features, and structures of texts to explore and express ideas and values.

CROSS CURRICULUM LINKS
Key Competencies:
• KC1 collecting, analysing and organising information
• KC2 communicating ideas and information
Literacy:
• Listening to an excerpt on CD
• Writing analytical responses

CONTEXT FOR THE TASK
During your study of Module A “Experience Through Language” you have explored the Elective One “Distinctive Voices”. In this unit you have examined how characters speak differently and what this says about their personalities, background and motivations. You have also closely examined how composers create these Distinctive Voices through use of language techniques and features.
TASK DESCRIPTION
Wednesday July 1st
• Students will sit the pre-listening component of this task.
• This will involve hearing the assessment excerpt twice and being able to take notes on paper that will be provided for you.
• The paper will contain a series of questions to guide you in your note taking.
• These will not be the questions for the task.
• You may keep this paper but are not allowed to bring it into the assessment task on July 7th.

Tuesday July 7th
• Students are not to bring in their own paper.
• All answers are to be written on the paper provided.
• Students will hear the excerpt twice
• Students may begin writing at any time after the task has started
• The duration of the task (including the playing of the excerpts) will be 40 minutes

In order to undertake this task you will need to:
• Review all notes on language techniques/devices and The Life and Crimes of Harry Lavender
• Take accurate notes during the pre-listening task on how voices are created and their effects

Friday, June 19, 2009

Anthony, Kory, Cameron, Troy - Colloquialism

pg 61 - "don't knock it" -

this quote is a colloquialism that is saying to not say anything negative about it. This is a reference to the language used in popular culture in today's modern society.

This is used by Day to show that Claudia is a part of the popular culture or is influenced by it and therefore is easier to relate to as a character and interact with, including the reader and the characters in the novel.

pg 50 - "I know other guys scored down there" -

This is a reference to obtaining drugs locally. The word "scored" is a colloquialism for obtaining, and in this quote referring to drugs, which is part of the popular culture of today.

This is used by Day to show the way popular culture is an influence on Robbie and how Day uses this to show the recognition to to the availability of drugs in this area, and also, in today's society.

Lester, Adam, Max, Attison, Sean - Cultural Allusion

"The sunburnt boys all sat at one table" references to the outdoors surfing beach culture commonly associated with Australia The distinctive voice is presented through portrayed of Claudia's cultural experience and association with "surfies" as she easily identifies the group through labelling them as "sunburnt boys".

Cultural Allusion is established as the "Time to go sweetheart" is oriented around women. This also establishes the personality of the character. It illustrates a male role. The distinctive voice that is presented when Claudia speaks to the "blonde" the character is stereotypically male as "blonde" in Australian culture usually refers to a female.

James,Ailish,Nicole,Angela-METAPHORS-

PAGE 109

'Mental snake was now part of the city'

This creates an image of a person's mental state being comfortable and familiar with their surroundings.
This distinctive voice has a positive tone because they are confident and adaptable to their surroundings.


PAGE 129

'Shooting me with her eyes'

This creates an image of a negative form of emotion towards the other person this quote refers to.
This creates an emotionally negative tone as the distinctive voice.

Rosey,Christie,Terrance,Adam,Paul.- Personification & Repetition

Personification;

PAGE 17
"Darling Harbour where buildings with the eyes gouged out"
This allows for audience to understand that 'Darling Harbour' has human characteristics and makes the reader feel intimidated that such a big object could be 'looking' at them.
This links back to Distinctive voices as Day has created a link between an imaginary world with reality. This is done through the use of eyes on a well known Australian icon Darling Harbour.

Repetition;

PAGE 63-64
"Dry, So Dry i had to prise it all out"
Through the use of repetition emphasis has been made on how the character has felt about martini. This creates a sympathetic and subjective feeling/sense (taste, or perhaps smell) for the reader.

Wednesday, June 3, 2009

Distinctive Voices Related Texts

ANTHEM FOR DOOMED YOUTH - Wilfred Owen


What passing-bells for these who die as cattle?
Only the monstrous anger of the guns.
Only the stuttering rifles' rapid rattle
Can patter out their hasty orisons.
No mockeries now for them; no prayers nor bells;
Nor any voice of mourning save the choirs, –

The shrill, demented choirs of wailing shells;
And bugles calling for them from sad shires.
What candles may be held to speed them all?
Not in the hands of boys but in their eyes
Shall shine the holy glimmers of goodbyes.
The pallor of girls' brows shall be their pall;
Their flowers the tenderness of patient minds,
And each slow dusk a drawing-down of blinds.

September - October, 1917
Notes for students
1 Anthem - perhaps best known in the expression "The National Anthem;" also, an important religious song (often expressing joy); here, perhaps, a solemn song of celebration
2 passing-bells - a bell tolled after someone's death to announce the death to the world
3 patter out - rapidly speak
4 orisons - prayers, here funeral prayers
5 mockeries - ceremonies which are insults. Here Owen seems to be suggesting that the Christian religion, with its loving God, can have nothing to do with the deaths of so many thousands of men
6 demented - raving mad
7 bugles - a bugle is played at military funerals (sounding the last post)
8 shires - English counties and countryside from which so many of the soldiers came
9 candles - church candles, or the candles lit in the room where a body lies in a coffin
10 pallor - paleness
11 dusk has a symbolic significance here
12 drawing-down of blinds - normally a preparation for night, but also, here, the tradition of drawing the blinds in a room where a dead person lies, as a sign to the world and as a mark of respect. The coming of night is like the drawing down of blinds.
Notes copyright © David Roberts and Saxon Books 1998 and 1999. Free use by students for personal use only.
Copyright © 1999 Saxon Books.

Various George W Bush Cartoons

1. What image is being presented of George Bush?
2. What aspects of satire have been used to achieve this?




Be My Brother - Genevieve Clay



1. What is Clay saying to her audience with this short film?
2. What techniques does she specifically use to achieve this?

Tuesday, May 26, 2009

Distinctive Voices Focus

MODULE A: Experience Through Language

Elective 1: Distinctive Voices

In their responding and composing students consider various types and functions of voices in texts.
They explore the ways language is used to create voices in texts, and how this use of language
affects interpretation and shapes meaning. Students examine one prescribed text, in addition to other
texts providing examples of distinctive voices.

Characteristics of Detectives

Characteristics of Detectives

1. Phillip Marlowe

• hard-bolied
• Clothed in the style of a 1940s hard-boiled detective ie: hat, trenchcoat
• Confronting “style”
• Has an inherent sex appeal
• Smokes, drinks, “three day growth” style of stubble
• The motif/element of the gun becomes an extension of the hard-boiled detective
• Expert in playing cat-and-mouse and he can “push the right buttons” to get information
• Has a “weathered look” due to hard living ie: physical conflicts, sex, alcohol and presumably drugs
• Is the hero/anti hero ie: at times he is the champion of justice while at other times he displays loathsome characteristics eg: hitting women
• He is an expert in character analysis – can size up a person quickly (but not always)
• A specific diction, specific tone of voice and delivery that has been widely imitated in this style of genre
• Questioning technique is rapid-fire and will use physical intimidation by “invading someone’s personal space”

2. Inspector Hound (and other detectives of the like)

• Pays attention to character interaction before intervention
• The “bumbling” detective ie: crime will get solved but not intentionally by the detective
• Wore a pea hat, over-exaggerated rubber boots and a trench-coat (atypical of the intuitionist detective with the caricature on the boots)
• Diction is articulate and gives the illusion of competence but comes across, at times, as non-sequiters
• Ignores the specific clues (ie: the body) that another intuitionist detective would have immediately noticed
• Is dim-witted as opposed to being quick-witted
• Poiroitesque detectives are always investigative rather than being caught up in trivialities

Crime Fiction Genre Notes

Crime Fiction Notes:

- main features of genre: (construction of texts & authors writing style) Þ POV, style of language, types
of characters, setting, plot, authorial purpose (political, literary), defined by purpose & focus
- key element: mystery & its solution by rationality & careful accretion of evidence is primary focus of
text, invites responder‘s active involvement in deduction of solution to crime, mystery may be vehicle for
other focuses Þ conventions periodically picked up/discarded to suit readership (engagement & relation to
text)
- traditional structure of detective genre Þ seemingly perfect crime (unsolvable but later rationalized &
assured conservative Victorian readership that law & order could be maintained, éJack the Ripper‘ = upper
class not capable of committing crime = Doyle‘s stories), wrongly accused suspect at whom all
circumstantial evidence points (red herrings), bungling of dim-witted police (private det = independent,
idiosyncratic), greater powers of observation & superior mind of detective (hero, power to deceive, arrogant,
ratiocination = reasoning & logical conclusions & observational techniques, above newly appointed lower
class policemen), unexpected denouement in which detective reveals how culprits identity was ascertained
(ties ends together, revelation, resolution, ébackward writing‘ by placing/integrating clues through text,
reader compares answers to clues to own logic)
- criminal no longer hero (post industrial revolution not symbol of political resistance), criminal punished,
justice served & society‘s innocence assured
The Adventure Of The Speckled Band Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
Sherlock Holmes could ”see deeply into the manifold wickedness of the human heart„
”The left arm of your jacket is spattered with mud in no less than seven places. There is no vehicle save a
dogcart which throws up mud in that way, and then only when you sit on the left hand side of the driver„
Country Manor House The Skull Beneath The Skin P.D James
- cf so well established can question own genre:
”Got tired of seeing its dramatic cover in every bookshop and supermarket„, with the writing style ”neither
good enough to jeopardise popular appeal nor bad enough to make people ashamed of being seen reading it
in public.„
”Those thirties murder mysteries„ with people ”popping in and out of French windows„ = hound
”He coughed– like a stock butler in a play„
- peaked in 1920‘s-30‘s but still popular, branches don‘t stop at particular era (essential elements still
engaging = structure, puzzle 4 reader to work out, psychology/motivations)
Investigation:(tangible physical evidence & interrogation)
”It was strange how little she new about a real police investigation„[The Professionals](consider diff types
of dets ç Cordelia fails to protect her client, gets involved in conspiratory cover -up & gets rescued by passing
fisherman = British portrayal of female PI (Cordelia Gray series = familiarity, involved in dets lives,
expectation of readers as fleshed out in minds & established)
-Buckley = fresh, ambitious, pragmatic, still learning & Grogan = withdrawn, predatory, clinical, obsessive,
experienced
”scraped a sample of blood from the marble limb– delicately picked up the note with tweezers = examine
timings, details, sniff towels for time of bath, quarantine suspects = clear process & methodology
”the room was overcrowded but the experts in death, investigating officers, photographers and scene -ofcrime
searchers, were adept at keeping out of each other‘s way„= working cohesively
”this is a story book killing: a close circle of suspects, isolated scene -of-crime conveniently cut of from the
mainland– possible to tie it up– within a week„- Ambrose
”what among all that female clutter was missing, something that we would have expected to see?„ç q for
reader as unanswered until couple of chapters later, involved thru convos between detectives
interrogation = intimidation, approaches (qs, body lang, formal/informal)vary for witnesses, establishes
role/fn & sequence of events
-Foreshadowing ”don‘t let anything terrible happen on Courcy Island„(similar at end of every chapter in part
1 where charas introduced & reln with Clarissa & motivations established, diff POVS)
-”There never was a time when I didn‘t see the skull beneath the skin„ç Clarissa (fear of death & also ironic
as is an actress, always puts on facade = references to drama ”Dress Rehearsal„, intertextuality with Duchess
Of Malfi, later ”no longer has a face„ = exposed)
-ambiguous ending, no solution = modern element, not ”A Case Concluded„
Film Noir The Big Sleep by Howard Hawks
- post WW2 disallusionment reflected in cynical tone (corrupt nature or individual & society), Marlowe
seeks only to survive in, not alter his world Þ pervasion of corruption, is alienated & brooding but still
immersed in world, stereotyped persona & look (trenchcoat, hat)
- violence (fight scene reaction from audience = every man for himself?), femme fatale (insecurity towards
female independence, hard-boiled det reflect historical period
- euphemisms & subtext (production code)
- disconcerting mood created with strategic use of lighting & shadow (eventually envelop set = accentuates
atmosphere of suspicion & sin thru sinister, lurking quality), bizarre camera angles question distribution of
power & show disorder/chaos (commentary, not order & resolution focus as crime becomes contagious
disease infiltrating city)
- little value of individual life = Harry Jones as innocent (reaction to war)
- serves to discredit establishment, skepticism = doubts value of unapproachable elitist group shown in
superiority of det
- moral deterioration of society, depths of depravity humanity can sink to, Taylor ‘s death unsolved =
unimportant, plot complexity (7 crimes) & contrived, web where no-one stands alone & can be separated=
mystery not focus but commentary is
”The same corrupt blood„, ”all the usual vices, besides those they‘ve invented for themselves„
”Jones If a guy's playing a hand, I let him play it„ Marlowe ”You got brains„
Stichomythia of Marlowe and Vivian‘s convos (quick pace, play on words, pick up on each other lines = he
trips her up ”that is if I were looking for him„
”I don‘t like it, but what can I do, I‘m on a case„ç cant reveal details to boss, loyalty
Parody The Real Inspector Hound Tom Stoppard (new approach to form)
- uses conventions as vehicle (familiar, accessible, identifiable)Þ country manor house setting, isolation
from mainland/civilization, fog/mystery (Mrs. Drudge ”topographical quirk in the local strata whereby there
are no roads leading fro the manor, though there are ways of getting to it„, servants know all & every1 has
motivations (blackmail/revenge/jealousy) Þ Mrs. D present at precise moments to hear ”I will kill you
Simon Gascoyne„ etc, love triangle links Simon, Cynthia, Felicity (”Simon is an old friend, though not as old
as you Cynthia„
- structure of c.f. easily recognizable & easy to parody (Stoppard qs static & stagnant nature of theatre, lack
of experimentation/innovation
Þ qs dramatic conventions ”you cant start with a pause„, opening the audience ”see themselves in a huge
mirror„- blurs the boundaries of stage and audience, supporting the play‘s theme of the fusion of reality and
illusion
Þ coincidence & predictability,(Magnus appears ”out of the blue from Canada„, Birdboot ”this is where
Simon gets the chop„ & he is shot, card game repetition in Act 2, Simon & Birdboot swap & charas go on as
normal = just role to be filled, no depth)
Þlack of realism & upper class setting (pertinent = Christie‘s audiences) = playing tennis in cocktail
dresses, hyperbole= parody in body is Higgs, Magnus is Albert & Inspector Hound & Puckeridge, ébody in
the library‘ technique (”quite fortuitously her view of the body is always blocked„ & then slides couch over
it)
- formulaic, audience wants satisfaction & seemingly get it but ending (denouement, all mysteries solved
”Puckeridge you cunning bastard„ but raises qs éwho is the real inspector hound?‘ the audience? Moon
replaces Hound so can the story unfold without a det?
Þ also qs what would happen if detective arrived b4 crime committed (natural order) Þ detective role
instantly assumed, starts questioning & every1 a suspect = dramatic irony as cant answer without realizing
crime occurred, det portrayal = prepared ”where shall I put my foghorn & swamp boots„, jumps to
conclusions ”even with a murderer in our midst– whom has he murdered Inspector?– no-one yet„,
- qs use of lang & exaggeration of role of c.f Þ sensationalism (”Kafka„, ”underneath?– it‘s a whodunit„,
”ubiquitous obliquity„
Modern:(moving away from conventions) The Life & Crimes of Harry Lavender by Marele Day
ÞValentine = independent, single mother, karate, live above pub = unconventional, ”She could never
understand how Phillip Marlowe and those guys– got shot, beaten up, and sometimes laid– without ever
going to bed„ç realism, subverts hard-boiled det, humanised & fallible = audience relates better
- but popular c.f. writer Sarah Paretsky claims, ”Whether we write in imitation or reaction to Sam Spade‘s
world, we are all in one way standing in his shadow.„
Þcorruption permeates city”There is more hidden from view, the labyrinth underbelly, the city of the
night„, white collar crime, youth culture (arcade, video games)
Þpsychology
ç complexity of charas, realism, Lavander‘s POV (already know crime & criminal, want to know y!, insight
onto mower, motivation) = Freud‘s concept of analyzing childhood triggers & influences (”refugee„), more
than just motive but psyche of criminal ”I dream of funerals– my own– I am famous, a legend in my time.
All of Sydney has turned out to pay homage„ç insight into Lavender, power-hungry, excerpts from bio
- avenue 4 creativity, shift POV to bystander, criminal, witness or lawyer/scientist/psychologist Þ while
type of det/method changes mystery remains whether crime, psychological or social
- needs of readership = escapism, desensitized to media (violence), shifts in boundaries ÞCSI ”The use of
flashbacks gives the viewer an insight into the investigator‘s mind & thought processes„ = link btwn
deduction & psychology, viewer participation & interest
Þtechnology = Bannister is killed via a PC, computers seen as next stage in evolution, love-hate reln of
society & technology (solved crime, expert help) ”While we live and die the manufactured parts go on and
on– computers are the new life form, the latest stage in evolution„ç insignificance of individual life
Forensics (c.f. constantly evolves to incorporate changes in society & technology, need 100% proof)
ÞLaurie King (SMH 8/10/00) comments on autopsies”we are at the autopsy, watching livers being
weighed and faces reconstructed„
Þ evidence importance: CSI creator Anthony Zuiker explains, ”The hero of the show is the evidence ç a
toenail, a hair follicle, a teardrop.„
Dead As A Doornail by Grant Michaels
His protagonist is a homosexual ”Newbury Street Hairdresser and amateur detective„ who is ”gossipy and
flamboyant, with a schoolboy crush on handsome Lieutenant Branco„Þ acceptance, tolerance, diversity
Originality/Diversity of genre
- what differentiates texts & engages reader Þpsychology, reln btwn criminal & suspects & det, social
commentary (earlier= good vs evil, now more complex), focus can be motive or criminal or éthe system‘
- media (print, film)/writing styles/tones for diff audiences
- diverse protagonists:
Dupin & Holmes Þ vehicles 4 development of plot
Phillip Marlowe & pulp fiction mags Þ individual immersed in underworld = social & political
Females = passive victims, vamps, femme fatales
Stan Kraychik
- mutates due to broad base/foundation/scaffolding of conventions on which to shape own meaning &
purpose, genre doesn‘t conjure censorship/boundaries/limits, represents wide view of political/social(women,
corruption, humanity, technology, science)/psychological (criminal psyche, readership) concepts
- genre discusses/parodies itself = freedom

Harry Lavender Links

1. Book Review

2. Another Review

Tuesday, March 3, 2009

Platypus Analysis Stanza 1 and 2


South of My Days - Stanza 3

*Was set in the year 1901
*Wright uses an analogy to describe the sunset. "And the yellow boy died". This analogy paint's a picture in the readers mind of a sun setting.
*Wright uses a simile in the line "the mud round them hardened like iron" to add emphasis on how hot the country gets in summer.
*Wright uses colloquialism to set the tone of a typical Australian country resident. "It was the flies we seen first, swarming like bees". This colloquialism "we seen" gives us the image of a typical Australian, as the grammar of the Australian vocabulary is slang.
*A metaphor is used to show again how hot the summer of 1901 was in the country through the quote "and the river was dust". The cattle came to the river to drink to keep them alive but the river was too dried out.

South of My Days - Stanza 5 Analysis

* Simile - 'As he shuffles the years like a pack of conjours cards'
* Simile - 'And the frost on the roof cracks like a whip. This indicates a change in tone and brings it back into context.
* Wake old man - She has distanced herself from the man as she referred to him by his name Dan before.

South of My Days - Stanza 4 analysis

Judith Wright has represented an aspect of the Australian Identity. This is represented in "South of my Days" via the use of a unique Australian image "Thunderbolt at the top of Hungry Hill". Wright has used a cultural allusion to portray this, as it creates the image of the unique Australian outback and a unique person in Australia's history.

Educating Rita (Youtube)



















Tuesday, February 24, 2009

Woman to Child (Non HSC)

Train Journey

Train Journey


Glassed with cold sleep and dazzled by the moon,
out of the confused hammering dark of the train
I looked and saw under the moon's cold sheet
your delicate dry breasts, country that built my heart;
and the small trees on their uncoloured slope
like poetry moved, articulate and sharp
and purposeful under the great dry flight of air,
under the crosswise currents of wind and star.
Clench down your strength, box-tree and ironbark.
Break with your violent root the virgin rock.
Draw from the flying dark its breath of dew
till the unliving come to life in you.
Be over the blind rock a skin of sense,
under the barren height a slender dance...
I woke and saw the dark small trees that burn
suddenly into flowers more lovely that the white moon.

Request to a Year

Request to a Year

If the year is meditating a suitable gift,
I should like it to be the attitude
of my great- great- grandmother,
legendary devotee of the arts,

who having eight children
and little opportunity for painting pictures,
sat one day on a high rock
beside a river in Switzerland

and from a difficult distance viewed
her second son, balanced on a small ice flow,drift down the current toward a waterfall
that struck rock bottom eighty feet below,

while her second daughter, impeded,
no doubt, by the petticoats of the day,
stretched out a last-hope alpenstock
(which luckily later caught him on his way).

Nothing, it was evident, could be done;
And with the artist's isolating eye
My great-great-grandmother hastily sketched the scene.
The sketch survives to prove the story by.

Year, if you have no Mother's day present planned,
Reach back and bring me the firmness of her hand.

South of My Days

South of my Days

South of my days' circle, part of my blood's country,
rises that tableland, high delicate outline
of bony slopes wincing under the winter,
low trees, blue-leaved and olive, outcropping granite-
clean, lean, hungry country. The creek's leaf-silenced,
willow choked, the slope a tangle of medlar and crabapple
branching over and under, blotched with a green lichen;
and the old cottage lurches in for shelter.

O cold the black-frost night. the walls draw in to the warmth
and the old roof cracks its joints; the slung kettle
hisses a leak on the fire. Hardly to be believed that summer
will turn up again some day in a wave of rambler-roses,
thrust it's hot face in here to tell another yarn-
a story old Dan can spin into a blanket against the winter.
seventy years of stories he clutches round his bones,
seventy years are hived in him like old honey.

During that year, Charleville to the Hunter,
nineteen-one it was, and the drought beginning;
sixty head left at the McIntyre, the mud round them
hardened like iron; and the yellow boy died
in the sulky ahead with the gear, but the horse went on,
stopped at Sandy Camp and waited in the evening.
It was the flies we seen first, swarming like bees.
Came to the Hunter, three hundred head of a thousand-
cruel to keep them alive - and the river was dust.

Or mustering up in the Bogongs in the autumn
when the blizzards came early. Brought them down;
down, what aren't there yet. Or driving for Cobb's on the run
up from Tamworth-Thunderbolt at the top of Hungry Hill,
and I give him a wink. I wouoldn't wait long, Fred,
not if I was you. The troopers are just behind,
coming for that job at the Hillgrove. He went like a luny,
him on his big black horse.

Oh, they slide and they vanish
as he shuffles the years like a pack of conjuror's cards.
True or not, it's all the same; and the frost on the roof
cracks like a whip, and the back-log break into ash.
Wake, old man. this is winter, and the yarns are over.
No-one is listening
South of my days' circle.
I know it dark against the stars, the high lean country
full of old stories that still go walking in my sleep.

Judith Wright Past HSC Questions

Some HSC style questions for Wright's poetry based on previous Close Study of text questions.

1. Distinctive ideas are at the heart of all poetry.

In your view, what is a distinctive idea explored in Judith Wright’s poetry? Explain how this idea is developed in at least TWO poems you have studied.



2. In what ways does the poet draw you into the world of the poetry?

In your response make detailed reference to at least TWO poems.


3. Identify ONE poem from your prescribed collection of poetry. Analyse the ways in which this poem reflects both the ideas and characteristics of your prescribed collection of poetry as a whole.

Present your analysis in ONE of the following forms:

(a) a speech at an HSC Study Day

or

(b) a contribution to an online HSC Resources site.