Year 12 2015

Area of Study: Discovery

What is an Area of Study?

An Area of Study is the exploration of a

concept that affects our perceptions of

ourselves
and our world.
st
(1 sentence from syllabus description)

Students expected:
to have a personal view on the concept that
has been developed and refined throughout
their study.
To demonstrate their understanding of the
concept AND how it is represented in ALL
written responses

Discovering the Rubric

This Area of Study requires students to
explore the ways in which the concept of
discovery is represented in and through
texts.

Discovering the Rubric

Discovery can encompass the experience of
discovering something for the first time
or
rediscovering something
that has been
lost,
forgotten or
concealed.

Noun discovery = product

and
Verb discovering =
process

`
the first time and
rediscovering

Exploration new worlds, new cultures, personal

knowledge/understanding and travel experiences
Lost: Archaeology and exploration; searches for
lost civilizations, people, places, times,
artefacts . . .
lost over time; misplaced; maps, treasures; family;
quests and adventures
Forgotten knowledge and ideas; ancestry, family,
patents, formulas, history; forgotten over time;
history; memory; the past?
Concealed hidden, secret, veiled, coded
messages,
symbols, private thoughts/feelings; conspiracies,
spies;
artworks; hidden orders, sects, groups

Discovering the Rubric

Rediscovering the personal: emotions,
feelings; reawakening of the spiritual,
creative, intellectual, religious . . .
Re/Discovering the truth?
History/rewriting history, aliens, Roswell
Incident USA, censored articles, modern
atlases

Discovering the Rubric

Discoveries can be sudden and
unexpected,
or

How
discoveries
happen?

they can emerge from a process of

deliberate and careful planning
evoked by curiosity, necessity or
wonder.
What do these words suggest?

Discovering the Rubric

Discoveries can be fresh and intensely
meaningful in ways
that may be emotional, creative,
intellectual, physical and spiritual.
!

Complete the rings

Discovering the Rubric

They can also be confronting and
provocative.
!

Brainstormin what ways can they be

confronting and provocative?

Discovering the Rubric

They can lead us to new worlds and values,

stimulate new ideas,

and enable us to speculate about future
possibilities.

New worlds . . .

And values?

Discovering the Rubric

stimulate new ideas . . .

TED Talk The Tinkering School
https://www.youtube.com/watch?
v=hvHViFc0ekw

Discovering the Rubric

and enable us to speculate about future
possibilities.
!

Having a vision
http://www.youtube.com/watch?
v=wnkEace3rb4

Discovering the Rubric

Discoveries and discovering can offer new
understandings and renewed perceptions of
ourselves and others.
Self Discovery?

Discovering theHow?
Rubric
In what
ways?

An individuals discoveries and their

process of discovering can vary according to
personal, cultural, historical and social
contexts and values.
Why are these
important?

The impact of these discoveries can be farreaching and transformative for the
individual and for broader society.
How? In what
ways?

Discovering the Rubric

Discoveries may be questioned or challenged when
viewed from different perspectives and their worth
may be reassessed over time.
The ramifications of particular discoveries may
differ for individuals and their worlds.
!

Make a list
What are some examples of discoveries that have
been questioned, challenged, re-assessed?
!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K9WoelxqlR8
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lP1cCjBkWZU
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SsxOEPUiFA4

Discovering the Rubric

By exploring the concept of discovery, students can understand

how texts have the potential to affirm or challenge individuals
or more widely-held assumptions and beliefs about aspects of
human experience and the world.
Through composing and responding to a wide range of texts,
students may make discoveries about people, relationships,
societies, places and events and generate new ideas. By
synthesising perspectives, students may deepen their
understanding of the concept of discovery.

Students consider the ways composers may invite them to

experience discovery through their texts and explore how the
process of discovering is represented using a variety of language
modes, forms and features.

Discovering the Rubric

. . . the ways composers may invite them to experience discovery through their texts . . .

David Almond
Books. They are lined up on
shelves or stacked on a table.
There they are wrapped up in
their jackets, lines of neat print
on nicely bound pages. They look
like such orderly, static things.
Then you, the reader come along.
You open the book jacket, and it
can be like opening the gates to
an unknown city, or opening the
lid of a treasure chest. You read
the first word and you're off on a
journey of exploration and

Discovering the Rubric

In their responses and compositions, students examine, question,
and reflect and speculate on:
their own experiences of discovery
the experience of discovery in and through their engagement
with texts
assumptions underlying various representations of the concept of
discovery
how the concept of discovery is conveyed through the
representations of people, relationships, societies, places, events
and ideas that they encounter in the prescribed text and other
related texts of their own choosing
how the composers choice of language modes, forms, features
and structure shapes representations of discovery and discovering
the ways in which exploring the concept of discovery may
broaden and deepen their understanding of themselves and their
world.