AS Unit 2 The Individual and Contemporary Culture

Some ideas about coursework titles by Chief Examiner

Presentation Examples

Site A (Resources/coursework ideas)

Clothes make the person
Good Taste/Bad Taste
Speak that I might see you

Site B (Resources/coursework ideas)

Popular Music - songs that saved my life
Retail Therapy
In my room: personal places

Coursework Resources
How to construct a webfolio or digital portfolio
Free software to help you make your presentation look good

This unit is the coursework element of your AS Level. It will give you 50% of the marks you gain for your AS Level or 25% of your entire A Level course.

The coursework is concerned with two SITES of study and how they relate to each other. The TOPICS are a way of exploring this inter-relationship - the relationship between the individual and their cultural context.

• Communication, Culture and the Individual (Site A)
• Cultural Contexts and Practices (Site B).

You will have to present a portfolio consisting of two readings and one presentation. You will be required to present this portfolio electronically e.g as Word documents or as a webfolio.

• What is a reading?
• What is a presentation?
• What will my presentation be about?

What is a 'reading'?
A reading is an investigation or piece of research of an area of communication, culture and personal identity. You have to do TWO readings for this unit. They are worth 50% of the coursework marks for AS Level. For some ideas about possible titles, click here

The first reading (500 words)is intended to explore the first aspect (or site) of this coursework - the individual and their personal identity. This idea can be explored through ONE of these three topics:

Site A

• Clothes make the person
• Good Taste/Bad Taste
• Speak that I might see you: language and personal identity

The Chief Examiner says: "This site asks us to focus on the ways in which personal identity is negotiated, both psychologically (internally) and through social interaction.  We start by considering how we get to be the people we are. It therefore both addresses our understandings of ‘the self’ and the ways in which we understand our ‘selves’ and construct and present our specific cultural identities.

In terms of content focus, this site will encourage the critical reading of ourselves as culturally-significant texts.  In other words it will be asking us to make sense of such phenomena as clothing, hairstyles, body adornments, language, personal possessions and personal taste in the context of our socialisation into British society. "

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Site B

Your other, wider investigation or reading (1000 words), is exploring the second idea/site of the cultural context in which an individual operates and some of the cultural practices they might engage in. For some ideas about possible titles, click here

To help students do this they can use ONE of these three cultural contexts:

• Popular music - songs that saved my life
• Retail therapy - the meanings of shopping
• In my room: personal places

The Chief Examiner says: "This site offers opportunities to consider the different ways in which we ‘speak’ to our culture and it to us and the different ‘places’ (physical and psychological) in which we do this.  This will, on the one hand, involve an exploration of significant communicative codes (verbal and visual, primitive and technological) and on the other a consideration of significant personal and social contexts, ranging from the physical confines of your bedroom to the psychological context provided by your close friends.

Here ‘socialisation’ can essentially be viewed as the interaction and influence of a set of significant sources: family, religion, education, media, peers.  These influences can be seen working through individuals, through cultural codes and through the constructed environment.

The challenge is to make interesting and effective use of the explicit content below in your investigations and explorations of these sites!"

The last thing you will need to do for your coursework in this unit will be a PRESENTATION. The presentation is worth the other 50% of the coursework marks for AS Level.

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What is a 'presentation'?

As far as the Exam Board is concerned 'a presentation' is something which includes both audio and visual elements (except if you have a registered disability e.g hearing problems etc). Whatever you produce must be suitable for an audience of your peers - in other words, Communication and Culture students. You don't actually have to deliver the presentation to this audience necessarily, although you are welcome to do so.

Your presentation should be approximately 6-8 minutes long (or to put it another way, a good 6-8 minutes of your audience's undivided attention) Because of the nature of some formats (websites, electronic Mood Boards, Photo Story, even Powerpoint) 'length' is not always the issue. For help with this, see the link to Webfolios and digital portfolios.

The format you choose for your presentation needs to be able to be digitised and uploaded to the web - Powerpoint, a website, videofiles such as avi or wmv files etc. For a list of free software to help you with this click here. Remember, you are going to include AUDIO and VISUAL elements (unless you have a disability which means you cannot manage this).

Audio elements may include any or all of the following:
• Speech
• Music
• Sound effects

Visual elements may include any or all of the following:
• Still images
• Moving images
• Graphics
• Animation
• Written text

If you are hearing impaired or sight impaired you may submit presentations with only sound or only visual components of similar length.

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What will my presentation be about?

The subject of your presentation is My culture: who I am in context'. The readings you have done have prepared the way for you to bring the two SITES together. The idea is that you choose to look at your own identity in relation to your cultural context and cultural practices. You decide on your exact subject, but you should use the topics in each of the two sites to help you focus on a title and at least two of the following concepts:

• Power
• Value
• Identity
• Representation

The idea of this presentation is to look at how you, as an individual, deal with the struggle between who you want to be and who your culture or society is allowing you to be. You will be showing the examiner, in your presentation, how you understand the way your individual identity is 'negotiated' in the context of social and cultural norms e.g what sort of woman are you - are you 'girly', a 'tomboy' or do you refuse to fit into either of these stereotypes of female identity? How do you show this through your choice and use of language? If you are male, do you use graffiti as a way of expressing your identity?

For more information about how you might use the topics within the two SITES to prepare a presentation, click on the topic list in the left-hand margin.

To summarise, here is what the Chief Examiner says:

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