Style Model Annotation

Paper Towns by John Green
- Simple sentences: “I like consistency.” “You can’t be me.”
There’s going to be a wide variety of sentence structures within any fictional text, but within Paper Towns, simple sentences are used to accurately describe feelings that encompass the mind but are hard to put into words. They’re used to give simplicity to a character’s speech when, previously, all they’d been doing is talking in complex sentences.

- Extended metaphors: “each of us start out as a water tight vessel.” “all the strings inside him broke”
Shows deeps to character thought. The metaphors are talking about life and death and how different people think of it. These metaphors are a key theme to the novel because they help the main character, Quentin, to come to an epiphany.

- Repetition of the word ‘”maybe”
 Connotes uncertainness and naivety because death is something we can’t understand unless we’re dying ourselves. Quentin is unsure of his ideas as well as himself, which is portrayed in his speech.

-Dialogue
The text is built around dialogue between the main male and female characters, shaping their relationship.

Severed Heads, Broken Hearts by Robyn Schneider
- Retrospective view point: “my own tragedy held out”
Ezra, the main character, is reflecting on a traumatic event that he was involved in. He talks about how a tragedy can happen to anyone, but originally never expected one would happen to him, but this experience made him wary of when something equally bad would happen to the “embarrassingly popular” boy.

- Direct address: “Do you know those signs…?”
This is an example of inclusive language. It helps to make the writing relatable for the reader that can imagine the world of the story.

- Similes: “…like some sort of grotesque helicopter”
Similes use words that invoke the imagination of the reader and enrich a story by adding interest. Things are easier to describe when being related to something else, something more tangible and imaginable.

-Anecdote: “We were fanatic about Ping Pong in the summer.”
By telling stories about previous events that may otherwise have not been included in the fictional piece, the characters are given a sense of realism, making them easier to relate to. Anecdotes also add humour.

All style models use a male perspective.

Commentary Draft - The Importance of Chocolate Milk

NB. Third style model 'A Cheertastic Christmas Miracle' is not included within this draft.

Commentary One – The Importance of Chocolate Milk

The Importance of Chocolate Milk is a short story written with the purpose to entertain. The genre of the story is romance, with hints of intellectual comedy. My target audience is young adults, age ranging from 15-18 and I imagine the story being published in a short story anthology. I used two style models; Paper Towns by John Green and Severed Heads, Broken Hearts by Robyn Schneider. I chose these style models because they have the same target audience and are within the same genre.

Severed Heads, Broken Hearts is written in retrospect. The main character is reflecting on how something tragic happened to his friend and how his “own tragedy held out”. My character is also writing in retrospect about how an experience, meeting a girl, changed his life.  Both style models are also written from a male point of view – my story is told through Mark, a boy who has little experience interacting with girls, shown through his awkward body language – he bumps into Rosianna in the first place.

The main content of my story is dialogue between Rosianna and Mark, the main characters. Rosianna uses interrogatives such as “Shouldn’t you be helping me now?” and “Are you going to help me find my papers or not?” to spark Mark into action and assert her authority. She is a girl with a purpose, shown through her “hope and determination” to change the way people view the German language. Mark uses a lot of simple sentences, such as “I’ll gladly help you” and “you’re still not making sense” because he isn’t eloquent in expressing his opinion. I used different sentence structures for character expression.

Extended metaphors run throughout Paper Towns, for example “all the strings inside him broke” or “each one of us starts out as a water tight vessel.” The metaphors are talking about life and how different people think regarding the subject. My story starts with a metaphor, running out of chocolate milk is the “Big Bang that shaped my universe”, to show the significance of the event. In my first draft, I had ‘explosion’ instead of ‘Big Bang’. I decided to change it because there isn’t an explosion bigger than the Big Bang. It highlights that this sparks a chain reaction that changes his world, not just something that happens with no impact. It also shows Mark’s intelligence; he is able to express himself eloquently but only in his head.

I used similes to show differences between my characters. Rosianna is “like a gazelle”; graceful and swift with fluid motion and innocent beauty. Mark is “like a giraffe”; slightly awkward in the way he looks and stumbles on small things like speech. To achieve my purpose, I had to make the audience care about both characters, so much so that they’d want them to have a happy ending. By giving them characteristics that could invoke sympathy, such as the inability to express themself easily, makes the reader feel emotive towards the characters.  

 

 

 

GAP for Second Piece - Beauty is a Beast

Second Piece of Coursework

Topic: How opinions on beauty need to be changed, focusing on the self-esteem of women.

Genre: Magazine article, most likely published in ‘Marie Claire’ or ‘Cosmopolitan’

Purpose: To persuade

Audience: Women, primarily ages 20-30.

Beauty is a Beast - Draft Two

Beauty is a Beast

Why do we think we’re not beautiful?     

 

 

There’s been a multitude of things in the media over the last few months about the beauty and fashion industry. France made the not-so-drastic choice to ban beauty pageants, Dove launched its campaign of ‘Real Beauty’ and Barbie is no longer the most popular girl in Malibu. Times are changing. So, it’s about time we removed the foundation that’s covering up the cracks in our views on what’s beautiful.   

            We all know of the perfect ideal that we can wear whatever we want, whenever we want, so why does no one act upon it? You don’t see Miley Cyrus crying in the bathroom that everyone hated her outfit; she’s out there in the spotlight writhing around in a plastic bikini no matter how socially inappropriate it is. I’m not saying that we should all jump on the bandwagon, wearing wetsuits in winter, but maybe it’s not such a bad idea to adopt some of Miss Miley’s ‘don’t care’ attitude.

 

The past

              Throughout history, people held different opinions on what ‘beauty’ was; it’s not only the fashion that changed, but the definition. Females of the 21^st century are struggling with the pressure to be thin, to be picture-perfect…but if you look at actual painted pictures from the 15^th century, society preferred their women chubby by today’s standard. 18^th century women liked to squeeze themselves into corsets that were bruising but beautiful, yet nowadays women are shamed for wearing the current trend of corsets and cropped tops. Correct me if I’m wrong but I’m sure Marie Antoinette didn’t get hassle for her high fashion.

 

The present

A study was done by Boston University showing the levels of self-esteem in teenage girls throughout their college life and how it decreased as the years progressed. Was that because of super model influences, or harshly judged outfits? It’s both.
The beauty and fashion industry is meant to be a hopeful resource to girls to prove to themselves and others that they can be beautiful no matter what their shape, size or social status. As time has gone on the beauty and fashion world has become one filled with criticism and judgement, no longer a celebration that women can look however they want but a destructive environment for women that don’t fit the mould.

 

The future

So what about an even younger audience; how are we influencing the opinions of young and impressionable girls? I bet we can all name someone that owned at least one Barbie…or thirty and we wonder why girls have such high standards. Barbie has perfectly styled blonde hair, an unrealistically perfect figure and the biggest wardrobe known to mankind. She is the epitome of perfection. Or should that be she was?
In a recent report published by Mattel, the creators of Barbie, the sales of the multi-billion dollar doll dropped by 6%. Girls just aren’t as interested in Malibu’s most famous anymore.  This is probably due to the introduction of competition, ironically also owed by Mattel. ‘Monster High’ are dolls made to resemble famous monsters such as Frankenstein and Count Dracula, carrying the catchy slogan of ‘Be Yourself, Be Unique, Be a Monster’. It’s definitely encouraging to see consumers opting for a brand that encourages individuality rather than idealism.

             It’s not just young girls that are gaining better ideas about what beauty is, but also a slightly more mature generation. Dove recently launched a campaign talking about finding ‘Real Beauty.’ A survey was completed, worldwide, that showed only 4% out of over 1000 women consider themselves beautiful. The research also revealed that 72% of women feel the pressure to be perfect. That is hugely depressing. Is this really the society we would like to live in? The beauty world should be doing something to fix that depressing statistic.

 

Some may argue that beauty is encouraging women to improve their self-esteem and the way they view themselves, but those people haven’t yet fallen down the rabbit hole to a world of madness, exposing themselves to the hypocrisy of the beauty industry. How can people feel good in their own skin when they constantly compare themselves to the likes of Kate Moss and Rosie Huntington-Whiteley, who prance around catwalk like they’re queens of the world?

                In general we need to come up with a way of combatting the self-esteem issues that shroud women like a black storm cloud. This could mean using models with more ‘average’ proportions in magazines and fashion shows, or changing the dolls that are given to girls so a better message about self-image is presented. The point is that every woman has the power to pick up a magazine and say “I’ll look good in that outfit” and not bother to pay attention to the person actually wearing the clothes. Every woman has the power to believe they are beautiful.

 

Together we can change the way people think about themselves and what it really means to be beautiful.

 

 

Commentary One Notes - Analysis of Fiction Text

Commentary Notes

1.       Written in first person male perspective like the narrator in ‘Paper Towns’ by John Green and ‘Severed Heads, Broken Heads’ by Robyn Schneider. I wanted my main character to be clueless on the subject of girls, so being a girl and writing from the male perspective, it was easy to simulate cluelessness.

2.       “My own tragedy held out” “That’s how it happened” Told in retrospect, as a tale that changed the way the main character saw life. In ‘Severed Heads, Broken Hearts’ the main character Ezra experiences a beheading and it changes how he acts around his friends.

3.       The age of my characters reflects the audience I’d like to read the short story. Having the characters that are young adults makes them easier to relate to because the readers may be going through similar experiences.

4.       I chose to start with a metaphor: “Running out of chocolate milk was the Big Bang that shaped my universe” was important because metaphors are a key theme that runs throughout ‘Paper Towns’. They symbolise how the main character views life e.g. “Each of us starts out as a water tight vessel” and my character, Mark, sees Rosianna as a focus of his existence.

5.       In ‘Severed Heads, Broken Hearts’, the scene is set, telling the reader how the main character lives and what he’s like: “I had just turned seventeen, was embarrassingly popular, earned good grades”.  In my short story, I start by explaining why Mark ran out of chocolate milk and explained parts of his personality: “My mind worked best with numbers” This allows the reader to be better connected with the character if traits and habits are displayed early in the text.

6.       The genre of my text is a romance. I achieve this through character dialogue. There is preliminary awkwardness between Rosianna and Mark that subsides when they continue talking and Mark learns more about her. He tells the reader “That was it. I loved her” once he realises how determined Rosianna is. It is, in essence, a love story of how a first love can completely encompass your life.

7.       The purpose of my text is to entertain. My characters are the main source of entertainment. I start with a short sentence “I ran out of chocolate milk.” This is a very trivial event that doesn’t seem significant. However, the narrator goes on to claim that running out of chocolate milk was “the Big Bang” that shaped his universe. His knowledge of the Big Bang shows intelligence, but also by making the two events sound similar in effect, emphasis is put on just how important running out of chocolate milk is.

8.       I used similes to show differences between my characters. Rosianna is ‘like a gazelle’, graceful and swift with fluid motion and innocent beauty. Mark is ‘like a giraffe’; slightly awkward in the way he looks and stumbles on small things like speech. To achieve my purpose, I had to make the audience care about both characters, so much so that they’d want to know what happens to them and want them to have a happy ending. By giving them characteristics that could invoke sympathy, such as the inability to express one’s self easily, makes the reader feel emotive towards the characters.  

9.       In both ‘Paper Towns’ and ‘Severed Heads, Broken Hearts’, the authors use a distinct personality for their main female character. The term to describe this personality is ‘Manic Pixie Dream Girl’ and can be defined as a mysterious and beautiful girl that helps the main male character to come to an epiphany. Rosianna is created to help Mark realise there is more to life than chocolate milk and that you are capable of anything, if you set your mind to it.

10.   Throughout ‘Paper Towns’, short and minor sentences are used for emphasis and impact, such as “The light can get out.” I chose to start my short story with a short sentence to build intrigue. I also added minor sentences to show how passionate my characters are about certain things. Rosianna says “Not as much as me” in response to the question “Doesn’t everyone want to save the world?” Her inability to form ‘proper’ sentences shows how much changing the world means to her, so that she can’t describe it.

 

Analysis of Articles - Assessed Assignment

Analysis of Articles

Halloween Costumes – What not to wear written by Rhiannon Cosslett is a comment article on the traditions of Halloween and how society has gone wrong where costumes are concerned. It had a multitude of purposes, most importantly to advise and persuade as well as entertain. 

By the strapline of the article, an informal register is presented. For example, she uses the term ‘bye bye’ to simulate speech, and a neologism ‘Slutoween’. However the article varies between formal and informal depending on the piece of advice Cosslett is giving. When she suggests ‘dress your baby up’ the content isn’t to be taken seriously then later in the article she talks of the ‘Trayvon Martin’ murder and the ‘disrespect’ shown to other people’s cultures, which are serious matters. 

This lack of definition in register can make it hard to show the audience of the article.

Cosslett uses imperatives as subtitles, such as ‘Make sure you’re easily identifiable’, which is a suitable sentence mood for her ‘new rules’ of Halloween dressing. Imperatives can be forceful, reiterating her opinion on how people should dress. 

‘Don’t disrespect other people’s cultures’ is used as a persuasive technique. Within this section of the article she directly addresses the reader with the pronoun ‘you’. This singles out the reader, creating a more personal relationship between them and the writer. In some cases this can be inappropriate, yet in the context of culture, Cosslett sees no alternative. The use of the pronoun ‘we’ would be too vague and generalised. By using ‘you’ it shifts the blame from everyone to only the reader, making them feel solely guilty. 

Rhetorical questions, like ‘Can’t you just put down that native American headdress?’, are used for the same purpose.

In the last section of the article, Cosslett uses an anecdote about someone inappropriately dressing in ‘a maid’s costume’ bought from Ann Summers to add humour to her writing. The socially awkward situation of ‘repeated requests for vodka’ by drunken men sounds both embarrassing and exaggerated. This emotion is used to discourage the reader from making the same mistake, and gives the impression that by following the rules Cosslett has written situations like this could be avoided. 

A man’s perspective on why engagement rings are a joke written by Tauriq Moosa has similar purposes compared to Cosslett’s article. Primarily it is to persuade, secondarily to entertain. Though the topic is equally as serious as Halloween costumes, it is written in a much more formal manner, accompanied by the use of facts and figures to corroborate his opinion. 

The target audience of the comment article are men, specifically men in a ‘monogamous’ relationship. However, the title states ‘a man’s perspective’ which could be used to drawn the attention of females, so they may see the a man’s opinion of the subject of engagement rings. 

First of all, the picture that pairs with the article is one of Kim Kardashian showing off her engagement ring ‘on Instagram’. The article mentions Kim Kardashian nowhere, so is used to highlight the ridiculously of women needing to show off wedding rings to anyone who will listen. This is a stereotype of women used throughout the article, like in his concluding sentence when he says 'if you need a ring to prove your love, it's not your lack of a ring that's the problem.' This declarative gives his article a strong conclusion, invoking thought from the reader as a result. 

Within the second paragraph, Moosa uses a lot of base form adjectives to describe wedding rings, for example 'expensive', 'useless' and 'insulting'. All these words have negative connotations, which reinforce his idea that engagement rings are 'a joke'. These technique, is called 'rule of three' or 'triplets', when three words are put together for emphasis.

Moosa uses a strong metaphor, saying that 'We've turned into zombies' when it comes to love. The use of the word zombies suggests unconscious thought, that we just do things without thinking about them. It could also be used to symbolise disgust at the way people are spending so much money on rings and the 'heart-shaped horror' of Valentine's day. He also completes his paragraph negative by saying how it's hard to believe 'you haven't murdered each other', which correlates with the zombie imagery. It is also hyperbole about how married couples act around each other. This could be seen as an attempt at humour, but using 'murder' suggests a sincerity to his point.   

He tactically uses the the pronoun 'we' to suggest that everyone is to blame for the hyperinflation of the importance of engagement rinks. Similar to Cosslett's use, it shifts the blame from one reader to every reader. 

As the article progresses, Moosa uses facts and figures to illustrate his point on the expense of wedding rings, stating that 'nearly 12% of US couples spend more than $8000 for an engagement ring' The use of facts makes your opinion sound like fact and strengthens your argument as another source is used.

Both articles accomplish their purposes with the use of persuasive language features and audience inclusive techniques, such as rhetorical questions and direct address.  

Bavaria - The Hills are Alive with the Sound of Mozart

"Just so you're all aware," Robert, the tour guide, shouted as our group shuffled around Salzberg (which was unsurprisingly lacking in nuns and singing children) "I am well versed in all 'Sound of Music' hits and if requested, can lead the group in a singsong"
Groans rippled through the crowd as Robert snapped his Leiderhosen and told anyone who'd listen that he'd directed a version of the play in Amateur Dramatics.

Unfortunately, Robert's personal achievements were the only things impressive about the city. Shops were packed with tourists buying anything with Julie Andrew's face on for the bargain price of 40 euros. Sticking a celebrity's face on something is like encrusting it with diamonds - it becomes ten times more expensive. Streets were filled with small children, that could speak more German than our tour guide, who were feeded Salzbiscuits to seagulls.

If it wasn't the sound of 'Doe, Rae, Me' being hummed by everyone, some more enthusiastic than others, we might have been able to enjoy the chiming of the Glockenspiel, that seemed to ring every other second.

Sitting on church steps, waiting for the coach to come and rescue us all wasn't exactly a highlight of the holiday. I can't say that playing Miniature Golf, the same course you can find in Bristol, was traditionally Bavarian, but that's what I distinctly remember about the trip.

Bavaria held other exciting new experiences, like watching a man dive off the edge of a mountain that was 6,473ft from the ground. Skydive, that is, for those wondering if he ended up flatter than an Austrian pancake. It was quite a performance watching the man set up his parachute and tieing himself into a backpack the size of a German grizzly bear.
The Rauschberg mountain is situated in the small town of Ruhpolding. It's a popular spot for skydiving and, for those less adventurous out there, hiking routes. With neon yellow signs directing you to the bottom there's a guarantee you won't get lost…probably.

Once you've made the exhausting trip up the mountain, or the more popular option of the ski-lift, there's a delightful wooden cabin at the top, serving apple streusel and blackberry cheesecake made with goat's milk. Sure it's four euros a slice - sans Julie Andrews' face - but well worth a taste all the same.

If you want to get even more involved in the Bavarian culture, attend what's known as a 'Hut Evening' at a local pub or restaurant. My family made the decision, although it was probably a mistake in retrospect, of attending a Hut Evening that commenced at 6pm and ending at 10:30pm. According to experts four and a half hours is the longest amount of time anyone can listen to old men with walrus moustaches yodelling at the top of their lungs. That is one evening I'm not likely to forget any time soon - probably because it's permanently scarred my ear drums…

Overall, Bavaria is beautiful, brimming with tradition and opportunities to act like locals, waving white and blue checkered flags and donning lion hats with pride. The perfect holiday for those not afraid of looking a little stupid.