English 91100 (2.3) Resource Booklet

Level 2 English
91100 (2.3): Analyse significant aspects of unfamiliar written text(s) through close reading, supported by evidence

Credits: Four

RESOURCE BOOKLET

Refer to this booklet to answer ALL the questions for English 91100 (2.3).

Check that this booklet has pages 2–4 in the correct order and that none of these pages is blank.

YOU MAY KEEP THIS BOOKLET AT THE END OF THE EXAMINATION.

TEXT A: column / opinion

Refer to this text to answer Question One for English 91100 (2.3).

Write Stuff – Jon Bridges
The text message has changed the way we communicate for the better. Pesky punctuation and inconvenient ‘‘sentences’’ are a thing of the past. Language used to be a vehicle you needed a university education to understand and a permit to be allowed to drive. Now we can all get behind the wheel and do burnouts on the tennis court of meaning. Let’s see how fast this thing can go!
The text message has also allowed us to shrug off all the cumbersome paraphernalia of written communication. No more pads of unfeasibly thin writing paper, and the unhygienic licking of stamps and envelopes is gone. It’s hard to believe that any writing technology required not just one, but two separate acts of licking …
In all the inconvenient rigmarole of pens, addresses, stamps and stationery, there’s only one thing I’m going to miss and that is: “How are you, I am fine.” Never was there a phrase invented that gave children a more sure-fire way to begin. My only regret with the demise of mail is that my grandchildren – should I be blessed with any – will never ask how I am and let me know they are fine, before moving on to thank me for the lovely gifts.
As we look back and laugh at our ancestors … I think the only regret we can have is that the text message did not appear sooner in the history of this world. If it had, these are some of the magnificent text messages that might have been received and sent:
Got ark rdy like u said. Lol. When is rain?
Ship hs hole. Shld b ok tho. C u in NY.
Me n Tnsng made it safe. No cvrge @ top or wld hv sent pxt.
Hey neil, omg, saw you on moon ;) Im waving can u c me? / 5
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Jon Bridges, Write Stuff, New Zealand Listener, vol. 214, no. 3557, July 12–18 2008, viewed 25 August 2010, www.listener.co.nz/issue/3557/columnists/11471/write_stuff_.html

TEXT B: prose (fiction)

Refer to this text to answer Question Two for English 91100 (2.3).

The steady gaze of people on earth – Clare Moleta (Extract)
When we lay down at night in the heat, on the concrete, then the universe became apparent. Not the sky, which we could see any time, but all the things that hid behind it. There were six of us then. We lay down with the less interesting sun beneath our backs and paid attention. And the universe was rich and black as a bull ant. Sometimes my dad pointed out how certain stars were like a pot or a crucifix. I thought that was stupid. Stars weren’t like anything. I don’t mean that I thought my dad was stupid, I just didn’t trust that particular idea. It made sense that things could be like stars, which he also showed us. Satellites, for example, looked the same from where we lay, dad and mum and my sister and my sister and me and my brother all in a row, but when they moved they gave themselves away as fakes.
There was also the moon which my dad reeled in for us and which looked, through binoculars, like burnt wood.
One night after we’d watched the universe for a while, something started bumping around up there like a star in a pinball machine. Then there was an article in the newspaper about a Russian satellite that had malfunctioned and gone off course. I cut it out and took it to school. I said I was worried about the astronaut inside and that I thought it might have been my family’s fault. But my teacher said there was nobody up there…
I doubted it. I stayed awake thinking about the astronaut alone in the little bright machine, waiting to be saved. I thought about the astronaut’s family, all in a row on earth, maybe on concrete but neat, like Russian dolls. I counted all their wide, painted eyes watching the astronaut bounce around the universe, dizzy and lost and waving her hands, utterly out of reach. I did feel responsible.
But a Russian doll’s good trick is the illusion of a whole unit. Put it together right and you’d never know by looking if one of the dolls inside was missing. You’d have to shake it, or maybe if it was the smallest doll that was lost you could weigh it in your hand and feel the hollowness in the heart of the wood. Or you could wait till all the dolls were lined up in a row and count them, but how often does that happen? / 5
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Clare Moleta, The steady gaze of people on earth, New Zealand Electronic Text Centre, 2008, viewed 25 August 2010, www.nzetc.org/iiml/turbine/Turbi08/fiction/t1-g1-g2-t11-g1-t1-body1-d1.html

text c: poetry

Refer to this text to answer Question Three for English 91100 (2.3).

The Fox – Bernadette Hall
The fox is a single red stroke that cuts across
the clearing. The colour seems to hang like smoke,
you can almost see where she has come from.
Her musk (though you can smell nothing)
is specific like a thumbprint on the air.
It isn't raining but there's a kind of wet
on your face, a stickiness of insect juices dropped.
The fox is rusty-dull, discreet, not radiant or hot
or pulsing. Not agitated. Not randy.
She is completely dream and intelligence
sliding through the wet grass, the stinging nettles,
the little brittle helmets of dry seed,
a flower or two, relics of the drizzly, petalled summer.
The lyric fox goes down to the creek
where dark and dankness will mask her scent
and the lovely rosette of her face.
She'll be able to pause there, for a while, sip water
while the dogs swirl and bell in front of the Big House. / 5
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Bernadette Hall, The Fox, New Zealand Electronic Text Centre, 2009, viewed 25 August 2010, www.nzetc.org/iiml/bestnzpoems/BNZP09/t1-g1-t7-body1-d1.html