Essay Questions
1. How has your understanding of the challenges of human experience been shaped by your study of the prescribed text
2. Through the sharing of stories, we become more aware of ourselves and our shared human experiences. Explore this statement with close reference to your prescribed text.
3. How do composers reveal the anomalies of human motivation and behaviour? In your response,
refer closely to your prescribed text.
4. "Human experiences, and the way they are constructed within texts, always offer the opportunity for reflection". Evaluate the relevance of this statement to your prescribed text.
5. How do composers create meaning through their exploration of powerful human experiences? In your response, refer closely to your prescribed text..
6. The human experience is highly provocative, often eliciting profoundly emotional responses from individuals. To what extent is this conveyed in your prescribed text?
7. Through the language of composers, complex human experiences are given voice, thus allowing challenging encounters to be more readily understood by audiences. How does the composer of your prescribed text effectively convey complex human experiences?
8. The human experience is highly paradoxical. Discuss in relation to your prescribed text.
9. Texts about human experience inevitably reveal the highly personal motivations driving human behaviours and actions. Explore how this is conveyed in your prescribed text?
10. Texts about human experiences inevitably reveal the anomalies and inconsistencies that underpin human behaviour. Do you agree? In your response make detailed reference to your prescribed text.
11. Texts about human experiences stimulate personal reflection, thus enabling readers to gain new and renewed insight into human nature and the world. Explore how this is seen through your prescribed text.
12. Exposure to human experiences can challenge an individuals preexisting beliefs, thus igniting new ideas and personal reflection on the true nature of humanity. To what extent have your understandings of human experiences been shaped by your study of your prescribed text?
13. "Human experience resembles the battered moon that tracks us in cycles of light and darkness, of life and death, now seeking out and now stealing away from the sun that gives it light and symbolises eternity" - Eugene Kennedy
Using the above quote as a stimulus, discuss the ideas of the human experience explored in your prescribed text.
14. "Novels attempt to render human experience; that's all they really are. They are meant to convey empathy for the character." Explore this statement in relation to the ideas about the human experience conveyed in your prescribed text.
15. Texts "hold as 'twere a mirror up to nature: to show virtue her feature, scorn her own image, and the very age and body of the time his form and pressure" - Hamlet (3.2.17-24). To what extent does this statement reflect representations of individual and collective human experiences in your prescribed text?
16. ‘When composers create characters or personas who are authentic and engaging, then we are more likely to understand and learn from their experiences.” Have you found this to be the case in your prescribed text? Discuss.
17. Explore how your prescribed text represents human experiences, igniting new ideas and positioning you to see the world differently.
18. How do composers use literature to reveal the challenges and triumphs of human experiences?
19. Texts represent how human experiences arise from and are associated with human qualities and emotions. Explain how language is used to shape these representations in you prescribed text.
20. Quality texts invite their responders to see the world differently. Explain how this is true in your prescribed text?
21. Quality texts invite their responders to challenge assumptions. Explain how this is true in your prescribed text?
22. Quality texts ignite new ideas in the minds of responders. Explain how this is true in your prescribed text?
23. Engaging texts allow us to the opportunity to reflect personally about our own experiences. Explain how this is true in your prescribed text?
24. Stories are powerful tools that allow individuals to understand the challenging human experiences of themselves and others. Explore this statement with close reference to your prescribed text.
25. "...but the human experience is often paradoxical." - George Elliot
How do texts try to make sense of the human experience? Explore this statement with close reference to your prescribed text.
26. "No man is an island." - John Donne
How is the individual experience ultimately a collective one? Discuss this idea with close reference to your prescribed text.
27. An individual’s experience is underpinned by a complex negotiation between themselves and their world. To what extent does this interpretation align with your understanding of your prescribed text?
28. ‘We are challenged by the human experiences conveyed in texts as they force us to examine how we too are bound by our own or others experience.’ Explore how this is evident in your prescribed text.
29. It is a story’s ability to ignite new ideas about human behaviour that allows us as readers to see the world differently. In your response, discuss this statement with detailed reference to your prescribed text.
30. The telling of stories invites us to view our experiences and the experiences of others in a new light. Explore this statement with close reference to your prescribed text.
31. Storytelling ignites new ideas about the multifaceted nature of human behaviour. Discuss this statement in relation to your prescribed text
32. The function of stories is to reflect and express our humanity. To what extent do you agree with this view? Discuss with close reference to your prescribed text.
33. To what extent is the meaning of a text as a representation of human experiences dependent on the purpose of the composer and the context in which it is composed? In your response make detailed reference to your prescribed text.
34. The art of the composer is to reveal us to ourselves. How effectively has the composer of your prescribed text revealed what it is to be human?
35. Evaluate how effectively the composer of your prescribed text has used form and language to convey the range and complexity of human experiences.
36. 'Stories can only be as strong as the techniques used to represent them'. Evaluate the ways in which the composer of your prescribed text has implemented techniques to craft strong stories about the human experience.
37. We like to think of ourselves as individuals, but paradoxically, we also like to think of ourselves as deeply connected as a universal human race. Explore the extent to which this paradox is addressed within your prescribed text.
38. How do texts apply various literary and/or visual devices to represent human behaviour and motivations. In your response, make detailed reference to your prescribed text.
39. How do all texts offer a reflection on human experiences, both deeply personal and shared?
40. How do texts use the exploration of life scenarios of individuals in order to convey important ideas about the human experience?
41. ‘Human behaviour flows from three main sources: desire, emotion and knowledge’ – Plato. To what extent does your prescribed text align with this statement?
42. 'Literature contains knowledge of the human experience that is not available otherwise' - Aleksandar Hemon. How are such ideas communicated through your prescribed text?
43. 'Literature takes the reality of human experience as a starting point, transforms it by means of the imagination, and then sends readers back to life with a renewed understanding of it' - Leland Ryken. To what extent does the above quote resonate with your study of texts and human experiences?
44. 'Literature adds to reality. It does not simply describe it' - C. S. Lewis. To what extent has your study of your prescribed text added to your understanding of human experiences?
45. 'Literature provides us with experiences it would not be wise or possible to introduce into our own worlds and thus enlarges our understanding of the very nature of humanity' - Louise Rosenblatt. How does your prescribed texts deepen your understanding of human experiences and the world?
46. Texts reflect both human integrity and human imperfection. Do you agree? Justify with detailed reference to your prescribed text.
47. The experience of telling and receiving stories is an experience of learning about who and what we are. How true is this in light of your study of your prescribed text?
48. 'Literature presents characters portraying human experience in all its richness and contradictions' - Julia Alvarez. How is this conveyed in your prescribed text?
49. Human experiences can be both unique and universal. How does studying your prescribed text and ONE other related text deepen your understanding of this notion?
50. To what extent are texts culturally significant due to their explorations of the complex emotions and qualities that define humanity?
51. Explain the significance of form in expressing and evaluating what it means to be human in your prescribed text.
52. Explore how texts illuminate the inconsistencies in our behaviour, and how this shapes our understanding of what it means to be human.
53. The most important texts are ones that invite the responder to see the world differently. To what extent is this true of your prescribed text and one text of your own choosing?
54. How do texts reflect particular lives and cultures, and what does this tell us about the relationship between storytelling and humans? In your response, make close reference to your prescribed text and one other related text.
55. Texts are a vessel in voicing the concerns of society, resonating within readers the complexity of individual and collective experience, thus instigating renewed perceptions of the world. Explore how this is conveyed in your prescribed text.
56. Texts about human experiences illuminate how collective experiences shape an individuals human qualities and behaviours. To what extent does the text you have studied demonstrate that individual and collective experiences are interconnected?
57. Texts convey the relationships between human emotions and human experiences. How is this revealed within the text you have studied?
58. Human beings are given the opportunity to choose their experiences and, thus, their reality. To what extent does the text you have studied illustrate the influence of personal choice on human experiences?
59. Our experiences are a reflection of our human identity. Do you agree? Justify your response with close reference to your prescribed text.
60. Our life experiences are created through our actions and reactions to life’s stimuli. Explore this statement in relation to your study of texts and human experiences.
61. Texts can invite the responder to see the world differently through deepening our understanding of the impacts of human emotions. Evaluate this statement with reference to your prescribed text.