I'll use the first one as an example which I skim read in two minutes. What I did is look for potential symbols and word choice and at times anecdotes. You need to know what to skip and what isn't powerful enough to support your message and this is often in the middle of the text where the author rambles on about whatever. So overall just look at the beginnings and ends. Also, with each paragraph, just read the first sentence and if you can tell it's not important, skip. This text shows the importance of wonder in many ways. For example:
- "The sun's rise and the sun's retreat bookend our days with awe." Here, the syntactic parallelism of the sun reinforces the celestial motif to render how one's aspiration and wonder are central to the human pursuit for progression and harmonic future. Maybe you could talk about how going into the unknown (retreat part) drives our sense of wonder and curiosity. Also, collective language 'our' scrutinizes how this is a collective experience inherent in the human spirit. See how I'm making up stuff and not knowing what the actual extract is about.
- Refer to the repeated and conspicuous word choice of 'awe', not much to say except it enhances the importance of wonder and imagination. Say how the repetition challenges one's assumptions of the insignificance of wonder by connoting 'awe' to diverse experiences to exemplify it's pertinence.
- "I lost myself many times in dark holes and swamps": Here, Baird's first-person, self-reflexive voice highlights the centrality of wonder in the individual experience. Here, maybe you can talk about the paradox of how everyone's discovery and sense of wonder is different through the contrasting tactile and connotative visual imagery of "dark holes and swamps" (symbolizing wonder leads to adversity) and "sun's rise." (wonder leads to new beginnings). Different experiences stem from this overarching sensation. Allows responders to canvas their own sense of wonder onto the text.
- "encircled by campfires and eucalypts... open your eyes and just listen" Here, the naturalist imagery, imperative active voice, and muted auditory imagery paints a picturesque image for contemporary audiences to reconcile how wonder is tethered to nature and heritage (eucalyptus = indigenous Australians in my mind), a stark contrast from the "#wellness" pastiche which ferments the modernized digital era. Baird uses this universal symbol of a hashtag to secure a stronger connection to modern audiences and elucidate this message of the importance of wonder.
- NB: when doing evidence, use the "What, how, why" structure.
Now, these are just a few points I found and I had all the time in the world to write this so in the exam my answer would be a mere fraction of this, but see how I take a few quotes I saw in that 2 minutes and inflate them out of proportion. This question is only 3 marks so I would use 2-3max pieces of evidence. Really, text and human experiences are about connecting different parts of the rubric to techniques. If you're stumped for techniques, I would recommend looking at the matrix education list of techniques and get the most important ones that apply to every text e.g. narrative voice, modality, imagery, motif, etc.
