Significant discoveries can act as a powerful catalyst effecting a change in the preconceived beliefs of an individual. In the documentary Go back to where you came from, participant Raye Colby had her initial beliefs and assumptions about asylum seekers firmly challenged though a social experiment which ultimately provoked a transformation in her beliefs. In Raye’s introduction, a short interview is used to allow Raye to directly express her initial beliefs and emotions toward Asylum seekers:“When I saw the boat crashed coming into Christmas Island, I thought serves you bastards right.” Her use of high modality and negative emotive language portrays her distaste for “boat people” and refugees, especially those coming to Australia. This enables us to understand the strong beliefs she holds, before any discoveries were made. The initial significant discovery Raye made occurred in conversation with Maisara Masudi. Maisara explains that her first child died due to horrible living conditions as a refugee, that she didn’t have enough money to buy medicine as simple as panadol for her baby. Afterwards, the camera cuts to Raye, we see a close up of her looking shocked, stating it was ‘not easy for me to hear that’. Raye connects with her own difficulties with carrying children, and her reflection that she can ‘understand where she’s coming from’ enables us to see how Raye connects to the human experience she shares with Maisara. This step challenged her beliefs that “it’s not fair they just get all this freedom”. In episode three Raye meets with Deo, the brother of Bahati Masudi and his family in a poverty stricken Kenyan refugee camp. After the experience Raye reflects, “Like Deo said; ‘We just have to survive’ and that’s about all they’re doing in there is surviving because it’s certainly not living.” Raye’s tone of voice is soft and a slow calm piano is edited into the background, with numerous shots of Raye looking off into the distance into the sunset showing her saddened emotion. This indicates that the significance of Raye’s meaningful discovery has been achieved through her experiences and connections with the refugees she has encountered. Thus, Raye’s process of discovery is realised through these meaningful moments that have enabled her beliefs about refugees to be completely transformed.

The meaningful and significant moments in the process of discovery are what cause individuals to reconsider their assumptions and beliefs about human experience and the world. ‘Saul’s Conversion’ in Acts 9: 1-31 explores this process of discovery by which Saul; a Jewish authoritarian, has his beliefs about the world and God challenged and transformed. Saul’s predetermined beliefs were outlined immediately in verse 1, “Meanwhile, Saul was still breathing out murderous threats against the Lord’s disciples” The use of negative emotive language in ‘murderous threats’ highlights Saul's hatred toward Christians, enabling us to understand the very strong Jewish beliefs he held - that he believed Jesus was not the son of God and anyone who claimed Him to be must be killed for blasphemy. Saul’s initial, strong beliefs in his hatred toward Christians parallels Raye’s initial beliefs in regard to her hatred toward refugees. Saul’s discovery of Jesus had particular ramifications that were meaningful and challenged his beliefs,‘Saul got up from the ground, but when he opened his eyes he could see nothing.’.....’For three days he was blind’. A motif of Saul becoming blind is used here to symbolise a link to Saul’s enlightenment and subsequent transformation of his beliefs. The motif explains to us that God used blindness to force Saul to reflect on what he was doing wrong; persecuting Christians. Similarly, Raye had her beliefs challenged when she connected with refugees like Maisara about shared human experiences. Hearing about the death of her baby had ramifications on Raye, causing her to break down in tears and consider the way that she had been pushing refugees aside and not caring about them just like Saul did to Christians. In verse 19, we view how Saul’s renewed understanding caused ramifications based on his transformed beliefs. ‘At once he began to preach in the synagogues that Jesus is the Son of God.’ This contrast in behaviour is highlighted by Saul’s change from threatening to murder those who say Jesus is the son of God, to becoming one of those people who proactively preached the fact that Jesus is the Son of God. This enables us to fully understand the great transformation that occurred in Saul’s beliefs due to his meaningful discovery, running parallel to Raye’s transformation where she no longer threatens to shoot refugee’s but embraces them.

Significant discoveries have the power to challenge and transform an individual's preconceived ideas and values. Adam from Go back to where you came from reassesses his values after the unexpected and confronting discoveries experienced during his involvement in the social experiment. Adam’s initial values are indicated in episode 1 through voice-over narration summarises “In Adam’s Australia everyone needs to play by the rules, especially asylum seekers who arrive by boat” whilst a low angle camera shot depicts a stern looking Adam standing on the lifeguard tower. This 

portrays Adam as prideful and firm values connected with Australian law. Adam’s first confronting and meaningful discovery was his experience at the Villawood Detention Centre, reflecting afterwards,”it shook me up a bit. A bit of a reality check actually.” He discovered, “the guy I was speaking to was on his third attempt. If he get’s denied he’s definitely not going back to Iraq, so it’s suicide for him.” Adam’s shocked tone of voice and facial expressions convey how confronting this experience has been and his need to reconsider his current values associated with asylum seekers he previously referred to as ‘criminals’. We understand that this was unexpected, making it meaningful for Adam as he becomes more knowledgeable on the harsh reality connected with the experience of asylum seekers. In episode 3, Adam articulates his complete transformation, voice over narration informs the audience, “The participants are now 20 days into the experiment, Dr David Corlett has arrived to assess its impact”. During the debrief, David asks the participants for their thoughts on Jordan as a place of first refuge. Adam emphatically replies “they’re got a sh*t house life here there’s no permanent solution for them, they can’t get a job, they’ve got very very limited health care, their status is still illegal here, they can’t go home, they’re in no man’s land.” Adam’s use of expletive highlights his anger and frustration, while the listing of the difficulties facing refugees is reflective of his reassessment of values based around the experiences he has witnessed. He then goes on to state that he would ‘get on the boat’ and try to make that journey to Australia further evidence of his shift from asylum seekers being ‘criminals’. As seen, through the use of a variety of techniques we are able to understand the complete transformation in Adam’s values through his meaningful discoveries. 

An individual's values have the ability to be transformed through confronting and significant moments in time. ‘Saul’s Conversion’ in Acts 9: 1-31 explores how a confronting and significant discovery through Saul’s conversion transformed the value Saul placed on upholding the law to be ‘right’ before God. Prior to Saul’s discovery he sought permission from the high priest to punish Christians, ‘so that if he found any there who belonged to the Way, whether men or women, he might take them as prisoners to Jerusalem.’  The use of low modality in ‘if’ and ‘might’ are used to highlight the use of cause and effect of Saul’s actions. It suggests that should Saul finds those who ‘belong to the Way’ (intertextual reference to Jesus who stated ‘I am ‘the way the truth and the life, No one comes to the Father except through me.’ John 14:6) then he would take them as prisoners. This proves Saul’s distaste toward Christians and Jesus, emphasising Saul’s strong connection with Jewish law, like Adam’s firm values connected with Australian law. Saul’s discovery was immediately confronting and was also significant “He fell to the ground and heard a voice say to him.” “Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me?” “Who are you, Lord?” Saul asked. “I am Jesus whom you are persecuting” The firm, questioning tone gives us a reflection of God’s power as Saul falls to the ground due to the complete shock and immediate confrontation from God. The repetition of the personal pronoun when God speaks  emphasises that this message is to Saul. The questioning,  ‘why do you persecute me?’ reveals how God is provoking Saul with this confronting discovery to realise the ironic and hypocritical nature of his current values whereby he would punish Christians for committing blasphemy but reject Jesus. This explains why God chose to instigate a confronting discovery for Saul. Thus, God’s decision to provide Saul with a confronting and potentially transformative discovery offered him the opportunity reassess these values. The use positive emotive language in the word ‘fearlessly’ in ‘He told them how Saul on his journey had seen the Lord and that the Lord had spoken to him, and how in Damascus he had preached fearlessly in the name of Jesus’ highlights the transformative power of this meaningful and impactful discovery on his values. He no longer values the Jewish law he kept so precious and close to his heart, but now instead values Jesus as the Messiah - his Lord and saviour which completely changed his actions toward Christians. This connects with Adam’s meaningful discovery when he realises the complexity of the refugee experience, and no longer places such high significance on the law, explaining that he did not see asylum seekers as ‘illegal’ to emphasise his reassessment of his initial values. Through the use of a various language techniques we can understand the transformation of Saul’s values due to his confronting and meaningful discovery. 

Moments of significance are those which humans remember and consider when reflecting on one's life. It is these moments which form the basis of an individual's beliefs and values. This has been explored through the documentary Go back to where you came from and ‘Sauls Conversion’ in Acts 9: 1-31 of The Bible (New Living Translation) through the use of a variety of documentary, film and language techniques. The impact of the process of discovery was explored with close reference to how it had the power to transform the beliefs of individuals based around personal experiences. The confronting and significant nature of discovery was explored through Adam and Saul in order to understand how this can cause a reassessment of pre-existing values. Thus, these ideas enable us to understand that through meaningful and significant discoveries an individual's beliefs and values about their world can be transformed.  

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Then it hits me. I feel it, and grab hold of it and hug it tightly to my chest. It pulls me out from the depths of the darkness. I’m tugged away from surrounding high pressure water trying to invade my soul, like the demons do. 

I surface.

I feel the remedy of the free whispy spirit roam inside of me, it fulfils my empty lungs. I’m saved. The demons are gone and I’m healed, cleansed, safe. 

My imaginative writing response considers the transformative notion of discovery in a physical and spiritual sense. The extract highlights a boy’s fear for water. His experience is at a friends party in which he is rendered powerless by his mates and thrown into a pool however he cannot swim. The boy explicitly describes the process of him falling to the depths of the pool where he is at the hands of the water and the devil around him. All hope seems lost for him as he is engulfed by his greatest fear; water. But then a sudden discovery, a floatation device, maybe a pool noodle bumps into him. He holds on to the object and is pulled out of the water. The persona explains this transformative discovery in ways that are physical and spiritual. This discovery transforms an experience void of hope, reviving the persona’s spirit and enabling the teenager to surface the water. The discovery provided life in a physical and spiritual sense as the persona describes breathing in the air as if it were spiritual cleansing of the body. This he describes as a remedy which transforms his body  which he believed was engulfed by the devil in his fear of the water around him.  

Upon gaining this task I was dreading keeping Advanced English. The task to begin with looked like so much work, all of which I needed to be doing whilst completing assessment tasks or studying for tests for every other subject. The main reason it was so daunting is that it consisted of four different components. However, the task proved to be not so difficult after all. Ms Atkins helped in many ways to make the task easy and smooth running, making it quite a success. One of the reasons as to why I was so motivated to complete the task was my choice to use a passage from the bible as my related text. My first priority in life is giving glory to God and learning about him, since he is my Creator, Saviour and Heavenly Father. Therefore being able to use the story of ‘Saul’s Conversion’ made the P-E-E-L analysis for my related text thoroughly enjoyable as it impacted upon my understanding of discovery and my full understanding of how significant Sauls discovery was. Go back to where you came from was also a very interesting text to use for discovery. I much prefer using films or documentaries than plays or poems which also kept me interested in the task, helping me not to procrastinate. Although all of these things benefited me in my success to be motivated to do the task I was still worried about the time constraint due to the captaincy role I had to fulfil. This is where credit goes to Ms Atkins for my success in this assessment. Ms Atkins gave us a three day extension which both allowed me to finish this task at a higher quality as well as my Business report and CAFS IRP which have also been due around the same time. Moreover, I have had success from the feedback I received from Ms Atkins indicating where I could improve, for all parts of this assessment. This made the process a lot easier and gave me confidence that I would be able to get closer to achieving full marks. Also, in addition to this, the notes that Ms wrote also allowed me to have a synopsis of each episode, assisting me in finding key meaningful discoveries for me to use for Raye and Adam in my essay. Although I was away for the lesson in which the class used padlet, I gained a quick understanding from Ms Atkins in one lesson. I am not phased by this website due to my uncreative nature. I do like how it separates the different parts of our assignment for viewing, however I only copied and pasted my assignment once everything was done as padlet was not as easy to access as Google docs, and would be harder to gain feedback from it. Overall, I’m happy with how I progressed in this assessment and the final result of all parts I’m submitting.