how to write effectively about encountering conflict

How To Write Effectively About

Encountering Conflict

A Ticking Mind Presentation

Context vs. Text response

• Text response = What is this text about?

• Context response = What does this idea mean? What do examples show us?


Every Man In This Village Is A Liar


Encountering conflict

• What does it mean to be a witness to conflict?

• What is the impact of being a witness to conflict?


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....


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


Which of these conflicts is present in The Lieutenant /

Every ManHow 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


Summarise conflicts

In The Lieutenant/Every Man In This Village Is A Liar, Megan Stack/Daniel Rooke struggles with...Ultimately, she/he….What the text shows us is that...


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.


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.

Attributes of an introduction

• Define key context idea

• Link ideas to prompt

• Use language of ‘shared experience’


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...

Past Prompt

• Conflict of conscience can be just as difficult as conflict between people.


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.

Shared experience

• Our

• We

• Us

• Individuals

• Humans

• Society

• Experiences

• Culture

• Attitudes

• Values

• Lives

• Always

• Sometimes

• Often

• Shapes

• Influences

• Causes

• Creates


The body paragraphWhether 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.

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


*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, In The End, The key point, The message is


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

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.

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

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.


The conclusion

• Summarise different aspects of an idea

• Evaluate the significance or impact of an idea or action


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)


• 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


Creative possibilities

Creative Non-Fiction (Every Man In This Village Is A Liar): Writing about true events with more creative detail/techniques than you would

typically find in a non-fiction report.


*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


Creative Non-Fiction

• What is a conflict you know about/have seen

• Describe the facts creatively


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?


Thank you

how to write effectively about encountering conflict

Documents

mind presentationa

experiences of conflict

mind presentationcontext

mind presentationwhich

outsider powerful

powerless idealist

text response text response

powerless witnesses