Reading and Responding

TASK REQUIREMENTS

Students are required to produce a text response essay of between 800-1200 words in length.

Their essay must explore the themes and ideas in their text.

DESCRIPTION GUIDELINES

Writing Time: 80 minutes

Equipment & Materials allowed: Students are permitted to bring a dictionary. No notes pages are permitted for this SAC.

Scaffolding Essay Responses

REMINDERS

1. Make sure you have a clear and consistent contention

2. Use quotes to justify your opinions on the text

3. Proofread carefully to ameliorate grammatical and spelling errors

Let's go over the essay process together! I am sure you have been through this a few times but it definietly helps to revise!

INTRODUCTIONS & CONCLUSIONS

1. Develop your own essay topic in relation to your text

2. Craft an introduction to it

3. Share it with someone else and have a look at theirs

4. How could you make it even stronger? Have you forgetten any elements?

5. Think about how your could craft a conclusion that sums up your points and the main idea of your contention.

DEVELOP BODY PARAGRAPHS

Let's look over how to write a good body paragraph!

1. Decide what are some of the ciritical points within your text.

2. Develop two contentions on each of these critical points in your text.

3. Flesh out one contention on each topic in full body paragraphs.

CRITICALLY EVALUATE A RESPONSE

Have a look at this mid-range response and improve it by using the examiner's comments as a guide and your own knowledge of the play.

Now write a full essay paragraph.

For example:

'The Chorus, being so weak-willed and passive in the face of Medea's wrath and immoral intentions, is not to be admired by the audience because their response to Medea ultimately solidifies and reinforces the traditional view of women as submissive, yielding and acquiescent.'

MID-RANGE RESPONSE

Medea

‘Often tragedies have an heroic but flawed central character, but in Medea no character has any admirable or heroic qualities.’ Do you agree with this observation about the characters in the play?

Evaluators Comments:

• middle-range response

• a limited and somewhat superficial response which fails to go beyond an exploration of one character, Jason

• some level of competent textual analysis is demonstrated which quite appropriately examines aspects of Jason’s heroism

• broader and more substantial argument is essential to extend the boundaries of this response.

The play ‘The Medea’ has its hero in Jason for whom also the play is his tragedy. He was a grand man much respected by the citizens of Corinth with two heirs and a beautiful new wife who was a princess. He is flawed in his inability to understand the extent to which Medea is wining to seek revenge against his breaking of his sacred oaths.

Jason’s main flaw is to underestimate Medea’s ability to reek havoc on those that betray her. Although he was married to her he still doesn’t seen to understand what she is capable of. He even has the audacity to say to her ‘I could never bear ill-will to you’ when he is well aware of what she has committed in the past. Medea tells us about these things ‘my brother shamefully murdered’ and Jason also knows about them yet he still is unable to comprehend Medea seeking any great revenge against him. Jason tells us that Medea’s anger ‘often leads to ungoverned rage – I have seen it before’ but he is still unable to understand what Medea is capable of which in the end becomes his fatal flaw. Admittedly it would be very difficult for a person to see anyone sinking as low to commit infanticide also means of revenge but none the less Jason’s fatal flaw does come about by underestimating Medea.

As a result of Medea’s actions of revenge against him, Jason loses his hero status and becomes a guilt wretched sad man with no heirs and no wife and little chance of ever having any because Medea’s actions have severely tarnished his name. He feels ‘dead’ after his children were murdered ‘my children are dead? Those words kill me’ leaving him with the guilt of their deaths ‘my poor sons, you have died because of your father’s treachery’. Medea even goes as far as to seal his loss of heroism by telling him ‘you will die an unheroic death, your head shattered by a timber of the Argo’s hull

In the play The Medea, Jason is the heroic but definitely flawed character it is tragedy by the fact that his fatal flaw in underestimating Medea contributes to his downfall. The loss of his wife, children and his heroism is what his fatal flaw results in all for underestimating the woman he comes to call an ‘abhorrent child murderer’.

MID-RANGE RESPONSE

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