1. Area of Study: Discovery

2. Let’s Discuss… What does the word discovery mean to you?
Think of a time where you have made a discovery…
What did you discover?
What impact did the discovery have on you?
What did you learn from the discovery?
How did you feel about the discovery?

3. Area of Study: Discovery
The first unit of study for the HSC English course is the Area of Study. For the HSC course, we will explore the concept of discovery. We must think carefully about what this word means and how it applies to ourselves and the world around us. We will then use our understanding of the concept to complete short answer questions and to compose creative writing pieces and analytical essays. In order to write our essays, we must examine the texts of various composers, including the memoir of Ernesto ‘Che’ Guevara, the prescribed text for this unit. By doing this, we will make our understanding of the concept of discovery even more extensive.

4. Goals for the Unit
To understand, discuss and explore the concept of discovery
To respond to unseen texts and to relate them to the concept of discovery, using our understanding of the texts to complete short answer questions
To explore different methods to improve our creative writing
To plan, draft, proofread and edit short stories that explore the concept of discovery
To improve our capacity to analyse written, visual and multimedia texts
To undertake a close analysis of the prescribed and related texts, relating them to the concept of discovery
To compose analytical essays and speeches

5. Texts ‘The Motorcycle Diaries’ by Ernesto ‘Che’ Guevara (Non-Fiction)
You will need to find two related texts that explore the concept of discovery. Try to find novels, films, television shows, dramas, magazine and newspaper articles, advertisements, poems, songs, film clips and interviews that engage with the concept of discovery.

6. Assessment Tasks
You will complete a listening examination that will test your understanding of the concept of discovery and your ability to analyse unseen texts, relating them to the concept of discovery.
You will compose and deliver an analytical speech about discovery. In your speech, you will need to discuss the concept of discovery and relate it to Ernesto ‘Che’ Guevara’s memoir titled The Motorcycle Diaries and your related texts.

7. Understanding the Rubric

8. Your Task for Today…
Cut your copy of the rubric into small pieces and glue each piece into your work book – leave ample space around each piece of the rubric
Read through each section of the rubric carefully
Annotate each section of the rubric, summarising the rubric and taking notes about the concept of discovery and what you are expected to do and know in the Area of Study – be detailed!
On a separate page, create a list of vocabulary words that you think will be integral to the Area of Study

9. The Rubric
In the Area of Study, students explore and examine relationships between language and text, and interrelationships among texts. They examine closely the individual qualities of texts while considering the texts’ relationships to the wider context of the Area of Study. They synthesise ideas to clarify meaning and develop new meanings. They take into account whether aspects such as context, purpose and register, text structures, stylistic features, grammatical features and vocabulary are appropriate to the particular text. This Area of Study requires students to explore the ways in which the concept of discovery is represented in and through texts. Discovery can encompass the experience of discovering something for the first time or rediscovering something that has been lost, forgotten or concealed. Discoveries can be sudden and unexpected,or they can emerge from a process of deliberate and careful planning evoked by curiosity, necessity or wonder. Discoveries can be fresh and intensely meaningful in ways that may be emotional, creative, intellectual, physical and spiritual. They can also be confronting and provocative. They can lead us to new worlds and values, stimulate new ideas, and enable us to speculate about future possibilities. Discoveries and discovering can offer new understandings and renewed perceptions of ourselves and others.

10. The Rubric
An individual’s discoveries and their process of discovering can vary according to personal, cultural, historical and social contexts and values. The impact of these discoveries can be far-reaching and transformative for the individual and for broader society. 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.
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.

11. 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 composer’s 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.

12. Applying the Rubric

13. Task 1
Discovery can encompass the experience of discovering something for the first time or rediscovering something that has been lost, forgotten or concealed.
Write the opening paragraph for a narrative where the character discovers something for the first time.
Using any text of your choice, write a paragraph that explains how the text shows us the rediscovery of something that has been lost, forgotten or concealed.

14. Task 2
Discoveries can be sudden and unexpected. Discoveries can emerge from a process of deliberate and careful planning. The process of deliberate and careful planning can be evoked by curiosity, necessity or wonder.
Brainstorm four examples of discoveries that would be sudden and unexpected.
Give one reason why you would deliberately and carefully plan to discover something (e.g. a touring holiday).
Give one example of how deliberate and careful planning can be evoked by curiosity and/or wonder.
Give two examples of how deliberate and careful planning can be evoked by necessity.

15. Task 3
Discoveries can be fresh and intensely meaningful in ways that may be emotional, creative, intellectual, physical and spiritual. Discoveries can be confronting and provocative.
Write the plot outline for a story where the character makes a discovery that is fresh and intensely meaningful in either an emotional, creative, intellectual, physical or spiritual way.
Give three examples of discoveries that could be confronting and provocative for a person or character.

16. Task 4
Discoveries can lead us to new worlds and values. Discoveries can stimulate new ideas. Discoveries can enable us to speculate about future possibilities. Discoveries and discovering can offer new understandings. Discoveries and discovering can offer renewed perceptions of ourselves and others.
Write out several ideas to answer the question: ‘How can a discovery lead us to new worlds and values?’
Give three examples of how discoveries can stimulate new ideas for a person, or the wider society.
How can the process of discovering offer new understandings for a person? Give two examples.
Write a journal entry for a character that shows how the character found renewed perceptions of themselves and/or others through a discovery and/or the process of a discovery.

17. Task 5
The impact of these discoveries can be far-reaching. The impact of these discoveries can be transformative for the individual or broader society. Discoveries may be questioned or challenged when viewed from different perspectives. The worth of discoveries may be reassessed over time. The ramifications of particular discoveries may differ for individuals and their worlds.
Write two paragraphs of imaginative writing exploring how the impact of a discovery can be far-reaching and/or transformative for the individual character.
In what ways can the impact of a discovery be transformative for the broader society? Give at least two examples
Give at least two examples of contexts where discoveries may be questioned or challenged when viewed from different perspectives.
What are some examples of situations where we may see the worth of discoveries being reassessed over time?
In Australia, how have the ramifications of particular discoveries differed for individuals?

18. Extension Activities
Further explore the area of study rubric through matching the quotations above to various aspects of the rubric.  This should be done by placing the quotes and the corresponding rubric points into a table.
Utilise one of the above quotations as a stimulus for a piece of imaginative writing exploring the relevant aspects of the concept of discovery.
Utilise one of the quotations as the statement for an essay question. Write out the plan for your essay, including the thesis and at least three points of argument through which you would prove your thesis.

19. A discovery is said to be an accident meeting a prepared mind
A discovery is said to be an accident meeting a prepared mind. – Albert Szent-Gyorgyi ( ) Discovery consists of seeing what everybody has seen and thinking what nobody has thought. – Albert Szent-Gyorgyi ( ) - in Irving Good, The Scientist Speculates (1962) One doesn’t discover new lands without consenting to lose sight of the shore for a very long time. – Andre Gide ( ) The greatest obstacle to discovery is not ignorance – it is the illusion of knowledge. – Daniel J. Boorstin There is a theory which states that if ever anybody discovers exactly what the Universe is for and why it is here, it will instantly disappear and be replaced by something even more bizarre and inexplicable. There is another theory which states that this has already happened. – Douglas Adams ( )

20. Mistakes are the portals of discovery
Mistakes are the portals of discovery. – James Joyce ( ) The only real voyage of discovery consists not in seeing new landscapes, but in having new eyes, in seeing the universe with the eyes of another, of hundreds of others, in seeing the hundreds of universes that each of them sees. – Marcel Proust. There is no harm in doubt and scepticism, for it is through these that new discoveries are made. – Richard Feynman ( ), Letter to Armando Garcia J., December 11, He who never made a mistake never made a discovery. – Samuel Smiles What is there that confers the noblest delight? What is that which swells a man’s breast with pride above that which any other experience can bring to him? Discovery! To know that you are walking where none others have walked; that you are beholding what human eye has not seen before; that you are walking where none others have walked; that you are breathing a virgin atmosphere. To give birth to an idea, to discover a great thought – an intellectual nugget, right under the dust of a field that many a brain-plough had gone over before. To find a new planet, to invent a new hinge, to find a way to make the lightning carry your messages. To be the first – that is the idea. – Mark Twain.