Can anyone review/ give me any more points that could develop my essay?
PROMPT: "This Boys Life" is a deeply pessimistic text. Do you agree?
PLAN
1- Agree
1a-Rosemary Crying on her bed (failure)
2a- Jack was pessimistic before arriving to Chinook, awaiting the inevitable wrath of Dwight.
3a- Tobias at an older age recollecting his hatred for his father at the monumental time of his child's birth.
2-Disagree
1a-Jack and Dwight sharing a father/son moment despite there conflicting attitudes.
2a- Jack and rosemary looking at houses they'd imagine living in.
3a- Dwight's praise for Jack on the way home from the Smoker.
3-What else?
t- The american dream being a leading influence for the characters in the text.
1a-Rosemary hopeful of finding her fortune in Uranium (Fortune)
2a- Rosemary enthusiastic about the idea of finally find a family for herself and Jack (Atomic Family)
3a- Jack planning his future hoping to leave Chinook (Freedom)
Just a quick recollection of my plan, any help???
A plan isn't just a list of all the things in the text that you can use as evidence (like character John feels that....) but rather, what you are going to put in your body paragraphs since you should ideally only be spending around 5 minutes on text response plans so listing all the evidence you know is bad.
The main thing I see you haven't done is define what you think "pessimistic" means. That would be what I do first in my plan so you actually know what you are talking about. I don't mean getting out the English dictionary and looking up the word "pessimistic". Rather, you should write down how you interpret the word in the context of the prompt so you can make a contention.
For example, I might say "pessimistic" means "a view of little hope for the future" or "a view where there is very little hope to change or thrive in changing circumstances" - of course, your definition depends on the text. And by having specific contextual definitions, you will have a SPECIFIC view of the prompt rather than a shallow one such as "Jack was pessimistic before arriving at Chinook".
Another thing I would point out is that you should be structuring your plan with regards to body paragraphs - not a list of agrees/disagrees. You have an interesting numbering system, which may or may not work for you. Regardless, it is not good enough in your plan to name one paragraph "agree" and one paragraph "disagree". Why? Because there is a high chance that you will have a really shitty topic sentence.
And... what is a topic sentence? A topic sentence (the first sentence) is BASICALLY AN ARGUMENT SUMMARISING/LEADING INTO THE WHOLE BODY PARAGRAPH. Which is why I was taught to have a unique argument for each paragraph - in your instance you will have better structure such that your BPs won't be so arbitrary that you are sorting one paragraph for "agree", one for "disagree" and one for "miscellaneous/what elses".
Examples of arguments.... (I had the most difficulties with these when I did VCE).
I am making up an example based on this prompt. Also, note: I haven't read TBL so my arguments are not actually based on textual knowledge, but on the prompt.
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Sample plan
Definition of "pessimism": "a view where there is very little hope to change or thrive, in changing circumstances"
BP1: This Boys Life (TBL) shows that despite the desire for growth, this desire is often moderated by difficult circumstances. (that is basically an "agree" paragraph framed in terms of an argument right?)
BP2: However, difficult circumstances are overcome by the ability to form relationships, share experiences and learn from each other.
BP3: Therefore, TBL shows that pessimism is not a fixed, inescapable state but rather is formed by an inability, or unwillingness, to change oneself in difficult circumstances.
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Something like that... of course, between the BP arguments, you can list/brainstorm some specific textual evidence but evidence should never be a sole basis for a plan.
Hope this clarifies things!
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