This is a PPT exploring the text 'To This Day' for a stage 5 unit on 'Transformation'

1. REPRESENTING
TRANSFORMATIONS
TRANSFORMING THE
SELF
KOYCZAN'S 'TO THIS DAY' Year 10 English

2. TOTHISDAY
Today's discussion
• Reviewing transformations
types and definitions
• Self-actualisation in TTD
• The absence of societal
transformation in TTD

3. Definitions
Reviewing transformations types
and definitions
A transformation is a dramatic or complete change in
someone or somethings appearance, nature or form.

4. Self-actualisation
DEFINITION
The realisation or
fulfilment of one's
talents and
potentialities, especially
considered as a drive or
need present in
everyone.
WHO
EXPERIENCES
THIS
The author
"we are not what we
were called"
"They were wrong"
WHO DOES NOT
• The girl with the
birthmark and the
boy who was
adopted
• "To this day/despite a
loving husband/she
doesn't think she's
beautiful"

5. How does
Koyczan
represent self-
actualisation?
LANGUAGE - ADJECTIVES,
VERBS
TONE - IMPERATIVE
LANGUAGE
IMAGERY - RELATED TO
SELFHOOD

6. Before self-
actualisation
one day
before I realized fat kids are not
designed to
climb trees
I fell out of a tree
and bruised the right side of my
body
I didn’t want to tell my
grandmother about it
because I was afraid I’d get in
trouble
for playing somewhere that I
shouldn’t have been
After self-actualisation
but I want to tell them
that all of this shit
is just debris
leftover when we finally decide to smash all the
things we thought
we used to be.
In the first stanza Koyscan is passive, actions are
done to him and he is 'afraid'. Later we see
Koyczan as an active participant in his own life.
Not only does he have control but his voice has
become imperative and demanding. He knows his
worth,.

7. AND IF YOU CAN’T SEE
ANYTHING BEAUTIFUL
ABOUT
yourself
get a better mirror
WHOSE DEFINITION OF BEAUTY
begins with the word mom
because they see her heart
before they see her skin
IMAGERY - RELATED TO
SELFHOOD
I FELL OUT OF A TREE
AND BRUISED THE RIGHT
SIDE OF MY BODY

8. When I was a kid
I used to think that pork chops and karate chops
Were the same thing
I thought they were both pork chops
And because my grandmother thought it was cute
And because they were my favourite
She let me keep doing it
Not really a big deal
Humour
Borrowed voice - mimics childs voice
Foreshaddowing
Repetition - justification and anxiety
Shift in 'Voice'

9. they have to be wrong
why else would we still be here?
we grew up learning to cheer on the underdog
because we see ourselves in them
we stem from a root planted in the belief
that we are not what we were called we are not
abandoned cars stalled out and sitting empty on a
highway
Imperative voice - modality
Juxtaposition of natural metaphor with inanimate metaphor
-
He is 'beautiful' the way he was born
Inclusive language - beyond himself
Rhetorical Q - Insight into insecurity
Repetition of 'we are not'
-
this is something he has had to remind himself continually

10. School bullying
THEABSENCEOF
SOCIETAL
TRANSFORMATION
Beauty
standards
Mental health
stigma
Broader
societal issues

11. Beauty
Standards
AND THE PECKING
ORDER WENT
FROM ACROBATS TO LION
TAMERS
FROM CLOWNS TO
CARNIES
ALL OF THESE WERE
MILES AHEAD OF WHO
WE WERE
WE WERE FREAKS
LOBSTER CLAW BOYS
AND BEARDED LADIES
ODDITIES
Bullying
KIDS ARE STILL BEING
CALLED NAMES
THE CLASSICS WERE
HEY STUPID
HEY SPAZ
SEEMS LIKE EACH
SCHOOL HAS AN
ARSENAL OF NAMES
GETTING UPDATED EVERY
YEAR

12. Stigma
HE WAS THREE WHEN HE
BECAME A MIXED DRINK
of one part left alone
and two parts tragedy
started therapy in 8th grade
//
TO THIS DAY
he is a stick on TNT lit from both ends
Mental
Health
JUGGLING DEPRESSION
AND LONELINESS
PLAYING
SOLITAIRE SPIN THE
BOTTLE
TRYING TO KISS THE
WOUNDED PARTS OF
OURSELVES AND
HEAL

13. Transformation
oftone
(reflection)
TONE IS INITIALLY LIGHT AND
HUMOUROUS
Pfrom there I was sent to another small room
with a really nice lady
who asked me all kinds of questions
TONE BECOMES DARK AND
SOMBRE
four fifths suicidal
a tidal wave of anti-depressants
and an adolescence of being called popper
TONE BECOMES ASSERTIVE AND
CONFIDENT
and if you can’t see anything beautiful about
yourself
get a better mirror
look a little closer
stare a little longer

14. Reflection ResolveRepresentation
Why the change?

15. SO
SOME PARTS OF SOCIETY ARE RESISTANT TO
TRANSFORMATION.
HOWEVER, HOW WE REACT, REFLECT AND RESPOND TO THESE
PROBLEMS CAN BE TRANSFORMATIVE
The absense of transformation