How to write expository and creative responses to encountering conflict, particularly for The Lieutenant and Every Man In The Village Is A Liar.

1. How To Write
Effectively About
Encountering Conflict
A Ticking Mind Presentation

2. A Ticking Mind Presentation

3. Context vs.Text
response
• Text response = What is this text about?
• Context response = What does this idea
mean? What do examples show us?
A Ticking Mind Presentation

4. Every Man In This
Village Is A Liar
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5. A Ticking Mind Presentation

6. Encountering conflict
• What does it mean to be a witness to
conflict?
• What is the impact of being a witness to
conflict?
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7. 2014 prompt
• Conflict causes harm to both the powerful
and powerless
• Witnesses to conflict are all affected by what they
see. But every witness to conflict is in a different
position to act on what they see - some have power,
some don’t.Those who have some power to influence
the events they witness....
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8. Big questions
How do we approach and respond to conflict in
different ways and what are the consequences of
these differences?
•Witness vs. Participant
•Insider vs. Outsider
•Powerful vs. Powerless
•Idealist vs. Pragmatist
•Male vs. Female
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9. Which of these conflicts is
present in The Lieutenant /
Every Man
How do we approach and respond to conflict in
different ways and what are the consequences of
these differences?
•Witness vs. Participant
•Insider vs. Outsider
•Powerful vs. Powerless
•Idealist vs. Pragmatist
•Male vs. Female
A Ticking Mind Presentation

10. Summarise conflicts
In The Lieutenant/Every Man InThisVillage Is A
Liar, Megan Stack/Daniel Rooke struggles
with...Ultimately, she/he….What the text
shows us is that...
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11. The Introduction
Conflict is like a raging fire, it is often unexplainable,
random and devestating. These mercyless qualaties
often mean that damage is done to both the powerful
and powerless. Although fire does not choose which
houses it burns, the powerful may be able to delay the
fire. Ultimately conflict will cause some kind of harm to
the powerful and to the powerless, so in accepting this
harm we can learn about the conflict and rebuild again.
A Ticking Mind Presentation

12. The imaginative landscape is a conceptual construct
determined by interpretation and impact. It can therefore, be
defined as both our physical environment and our
perspectives of the land, making it unique and personal.
Influenced by the way in which individuals perceive the
land, either connection or disconnection can result. Where
our surroundings can be both facilitating and threatening,
this dichotomous relationship leads us to perceive the land
not necessarily just as it is but as we wish it to be. Thus,
those who have a strong identity die to their respect of the
land will maintain their place even in difficult times yet
those with a tenuous link to the physical space will be
threatened by it. The experiences of individuals can define
their viewpoint of a landscape.

13. Attributes of an
introduction
• Define key context idea
• Link ideas to prompt
• Use language of ‘shared experience’
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14. Key ideas
• Key verbs: is, is like, can be, should, has
• Encountering conflict is...
• Our experiences of conflict are like...
• Our engagement with confrontations and
conflicts can be...
• Our responses to issues of conflict
should...
• Conflict has...

15. Past Prompt
• Conflict of conscience can be just as difficult as
conflict between people.
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16. The imaginative landscape is a conceptual construct
determined by interpretation and impact. It can therefore, be
defined as both our physical environment and our
perspectives of the land, making it unique and personal.
Influenced by the way in which individuals perceive the
land, either connection or disconnection can result. Where
our surroundings can be both facilitating and threatening,
this dichotomous relationship leads us to perceive the land
not necessarily just as it is but as we wish it to be. Thus,
those who have a strong identity die to their respect of the
land will maintain their place even in difficult times yet
those with a tenuous link to the physical space will be
threatened by it. The experiences of individuals can define
their viewpoint of a landscape.

17. Shared experience
• Our
• We
• Us
• Individuals
• Humans
• Society
• Experiences
• Culture
• Attitudes
• Values
• Lives
• Always
• Sometimes
• Often
• Shapes
• Influences
• Causes
• Creates
A Ticking Mind Presentation

18. The body paragraph
Whether the decisions we make may bring positive or negative
change, they will always play a significant part in shaping who
we are and where we belong. When, in the film Skin, Sandra
elopes with a man named Petrus Zwane, she comes to accept that
she is black and does not belong with her family. She tells her
father, ‘I am not white.’The impact of these words on her father is
catastrophic. Appalled and disgusted, Abraham cuts all ties with
Sandra and disowns her, the impact of his decision in turn leading
Sandra to be excluded from her family, and living in a shanty on
the margins of society. But the message of Skin isn’t necessarily
that we have no control over our belonging. Ultimately, Sandra’s
new life in the black community of South Africa lead her to be
empowered, with the final shots of the film showing us imager of
her happily running her own business.

19. Attributes of a body
paragraph
• Begin with a topic sentence that is about an
idea and use the language of shared
experience.
• Elaborate on this idea and build to an
example from a set text
• Include example from other places in the
same paragraph or other paragraphs
A Ticking Mind Presentation

20. *The impact of witnessing violence
*Always, often, usually, sometimes, for many, for some,
typically, fundamentally, essentially
*Shape, impact, influence, creates, causes, affects
*In,We see this,When,An instance,An example,A case
in point
*But,Yet, Moreover, Nevertheless, Furthermore, However,
Even So,Although, Despite
*Ultimately, InThe End,The key point,The message is
A Ticking Mind Presentation

21. Using great phrases
• The trauma of being a witness
• The crippling legacy of witnessing the
impact of violence
• The divide between men and women
• The powerlessness of being only able to
witness and not act
• The hopelessness of realising what war is
like

22. A central theme of American war correspondent
Megan Stack's autobiographical account of her time in
the Middle East, Every Man in this Village is a Liar, is
not only her bitter and caustic observations of
international, intra-national and sectarian conflict,
mostly at a local, grass-roots level among the
populace.
It is, especially, the price she pays as both an
American and a reporter, for being there during "the
war on terror", the internalised conflict, the grief, guilt,
shame, the emotional toll, slowly mounting, from
Afghanistan in 2001, to Israel's bombardment of
Lebanon in 2006. In this regard the book's sub-title is
instructive: An Education in War.

23. Using great phrases
•A failure to communicate
•The breakdown of communication
•An unwillingness to understand
•A lack of willingness to see the perspective of the other side
•Ignorance of another culture / side / perspective
•The difficulty of having to choose between loyalty to duty or
loyalty to principle
•The difficult task of knowing which side to choose
•The competing claims each side can have
•The head can pull one way, the heart another

25. The conclusion
Although escaping reality is an important
part of living lives that can sometimes be
boring and grim, losing touch with reality is
ultimately destructive. Inevitably, forgetting
what is real about life results in people
leading a destructive existence which hurts
not only them, but the people around them.
A Ticking Mind Presentation

26. The conclusion
• Summarise different aspects of an idea
• Evaluate the significance or impact of an
idea or action
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27. Although escaping reality is an important part of
living lives that can sometimes be boring and grim,
losing touch with reality is ultimately destructive.
(Summarise different aspects of an idea)
Inevitably, forgetting what is real about life results in
people leading a destructive existence which hurts
not only them, but the people around them.
(Evaluate the significance or impact of an idea or
action)
A Ticking Mind Presentation

28. • Different aspects of an idea: Although,
despite, while, on the one hand, there are
many...
• Evaluate impact: Ultimately, inevitably, in the
end, what this means, what this shows us
Key words
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29. A Ticking Mind Presentation

30. Creative possibilities
Creative Non-Fiction (Every Man InThisVillage Is
A Liar):Writing about true events with more
creative detail/techniques than you would
typically find in a non-fiction report.
A Ticking Mind Presentation

31. *They shivered in the stinging night and gripped grenade
launchers...p. 7
*When the thin light creaked into the room...p. 11
*Night had dragged itself out of morning’s way. p. 39
*Wheels ate the highway and I was comfortable knowing I was just a
passenger. p. 53
*The war slithered into his house and broke his heart. p. 69
*One minute slurs into the next. p. 102
A Ticking Mind Presentation

32. Creative Non-Fiction
• What is a conflict you know about/have
seen
• Describe the facts creatively
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33. The Lieutenant
• What happened when?
• Daniel Rooke met Tagaran for the last time?
• Spoke to Silk for the last time?
• Wrote a letter to Gardiner for the last
time?
A Ticking Mind Presentation

34. Thank you