G11 Feedback written response Brave (IO format)

Dear G11 students,

I will return your Brave responses to you next week, but because your IO documentation is due this Monday (9/5/22), I thought I'd type up my general feedback here. Remember that the Brave summative followed the expected structure of a good IO.

FEEDBACK

What went well

• annotation and planning were generally good
• most of you followed the GI - extract - BoW structure well
• visual analysis, analysis of sound, analysis of script/story were generally good, and film-technical language was often used appropriately (medium shot, diegetic sound, etc.)
• there were some good insights: words/runes carved in stone in the opening shot suggests fate is 'fixed'(Tom); metaphor of tearing the cloth suggests a rift can ruin/break the entire structure (Harshall?) but work on writing on this level consistently

General points for improvement

• scenes must be contextualised as precisely as possible (when does it take place? what happened before/after? why is the scene significant? does the scene fulfill a specific function?). Do not refer to "the scene where Merida puts her bow on the dinner table" without any further context.
• this is an animated film, not just a film
• remember to analyse what the writers and film-makers have decided to do. Don't write about Merida delivering a voice over: it's an actress reading from a script. Merida is an animated, fictional construct
• Keep summary to a minimum. Assume your reader has seen the film or read the text last week
• linguistic analysis was weaker. Review your linguistic terms studied in semester 1 (word classes, sentence types, style). HL: review linguistic terms relevant to spoken language

Global Issue

• make sure your global issue can be clearly stated in one sentence. This is key as the global issue is what should tie all elements together and create a unified argument
• don't forget to explain your global issue and justify your choice
• do not mention a specific text or medium in your global issue
• do technical close reading work on both the extract and the other scenes, all relevant only to the global issue
• there is no need for additional close reading analysis not related to the global issue
• remember: you are using a global issue as a tool for a more focused analysis. The film-makers are not aware of your chosen global issue

Balance

• the expectation for analysis of the extract on the one hand, and the work/body of work on the other is 50/50
• many of you provided good close reading analysis of the extract, and then some paraphrased/summarised references to other scenes in the film. You have to know these other scenes/chapters/poems well enough to be able to analyse them technically as well. The only difference is that you won't have these extracts in front of you. While your close reading of other scenes/chapters/poems doesn't have to be quite as granular as that of the extract, you still need to analyse
• related to the above: if you analyse the extract well, but only summarise other scenes, you can expect a 4 or 5 maximum overall on the IO

Structure

• a winning structure for the introduction is: 1) introduce the whole text and its context, and situate the extract and its relevance 2) move towards your global issue in a logical way (from the previous points) and present the global issue clearly; justify and explain the global issue and its relevance to this text and extract 3) outline your methodology (are you going to explore the extract first? which other scenes will be you looking at, and why?)

EXAMPLES

Example of using body of work

Let's say you are presenting ideas about the importance of young people to be able to determine their own fates, and want to use the arrow shooting competition as an additional BoW scene. Consider:

• where and when does this scene take place? Why is that important for the film, and the way the story develops ideas about individual agency?
• how do the film-makers use visual elements (framing, colour, editing, composition, action, contrast, etc.), script (narrative, characterisation, parallel sentence structures, dialogue, diction, etc) and sound (diegetic/non-diegetic sound, acting, intonation/pitch/volume, aspects of conversation, monologue, etc.) to explore aspects of the global issue?

Example of language analysis

"I'm the princess. I'm the example! I've got duties, responsibilities, expectations."

• look at parallel syntactic structures. How do they emphasise Merida's frustration with her fate? How does the actress reading Merida's part use these parallel elements for emphasis?
• explore the repetition of the pronoun, and how it then contrasts with "my mother" a bit further on
• look at how "duties, responsibilities, expectations" is presented through punctuation and a more free approach to grammar. Why three? Why no "and" before the third item in the list?

With the above, I am not trying to suggest you should cover all of these elements for analysis in an IO, but I want to point out there is plenty to analyse, whether you have a copy of the scene in front of you or not. If all you do for the work/bow element is briefly summarise two other moments in the text without any analysis, it will impact your grades for A, B and C negatively.