Student+Essays+about+Tomorrow,+When+the+War+Began

**__ Tomorrow, When the War Began year 11 2007 Student Essays Tomorrow, When the War Began __** Extended Written Text Essay __Tomorrow, When the War Began,__ by John Marsden. Topic: Describe a valuable lesson that you learned from a major conflict in the text you have studied. Explain why the lesson has been valuable to you. A valuable lesson to be learnt in the extended text __Tomorrow, When the War Began,__ by John Marsden was the value of bravery when you are faced with change; specifically discovering bravery you never knew you had! This lesson is highlighted in the scary conflict between the soldiers and Ellie when Ellie uses quick thinking and blows up the lawnmower, and the soldiers along with it. She discovers bravery she never knew she had. This lesson is valuable to me and other teenagers as it is relevant to today’s world because normal, everyday people can become heroes if they are in dangerous situations. Firstly, the lesson of undiscovered bravery is valuable as it demonstrates how much we can change in situations of danger. By this I mean Ellie’s brave actions offer to normal people, showing them that in situations of d anger they too could discover a bravery they never knew they had and change into a better more heroic person for it. “I felt then and still feel now that I was transformed by those four steps…I was now a force to be reckoned with” Ellie says of her dramatic transformation from average schoolgirl to brave heroine. Ellie’s transformation at that moment of danger is a valuable lesson to us all that we too can become heroes and heroines in situations of danger, finding unknown strengths and bravery in order to save our lives and the lives of our loved ones. Secondly, the conflict between the soldiers and Ellie offer us valuable lessons in bravery when our situations change. Ellie’s small town of Wirrawee was once a peaceful, even boring place. Somewhere you would think it very unlikely to run into armed soldiers. But when it is occupied by enemy forces, Wirrawee changes drastically. The town now looked so different and to find bravery when your once familiar surroundings have become unrecognisable and unsafe is very brave, indeed. Sitting in the once easily recognisable garden of family friends, Mrs Alexander, knowing that enemy soldiers are approaching, Ellie must have felt terrified. Life as she knew had turned upside down. A news report later confirmed this “Enemy forces occupy all the coastal towns…40 people are dead.” These were not things Ellie would normally think of when she though back to the old Wirrawee. The lesson of finding bravery in situations of unfamiliarity is extremely relevant and valuable. It represents how we too can still feel brave, even if our once familiar surroundings become unrecognisable. Lastly, the major conflict offered us valuable lessons in adapting to new found bravery. Ellie found bravery that night when she blew up the lawnmower and soldiers but the bravery came so suddenly she had to adapt just as quickly. “We had to rewrite the scripts of our lives” Ellie says of the changes. Their whole lives had to be rewritten just like that, in a short space of time. They had to adapt to their changes, like coping new found bravery; everyone thinking you are a hero, when deep down you still processing the change. Ellie does have issues with her new found bravery at first, people thinking she was a hero and that fact she had killed, but eventually she adapted; she had to if she wanted to survive. This lesson is extremely valuable as it shows us just how discovering bravery can be hard to adapt to. In conclusion, the major conflict between the soldiers and Ellie presented readers with a valuable lesson about bravery and adapting to bravery. This lesson was valuable to me and other teenagers as it demonstrated how we can transform to become brave in times of need, shows us how to find bravery when out situations change and how we can adapt to newly found bravery.

__ Tomorrow, When the War Began THEME ESSAY by Adam Lovell with some Mrs V thrown in! __ A theme that I found important in the extended text __Tomorrow, When the War Began,__ by John Marsden was change. Change is when people have things happen to their circumstances and are forced to think or believe differently. Change was important because it was a dominant theme in the novel as the characters – young teenagers – were forced to cope with the devastation of their lives and their environment caused by war. The theme of change is also important because it is something that affects us all at some time in our lives. We never know what the outcome will be for us, and just hope that our personal skills will make us resilient enough to cope with whatever life brings us. We see the theme of change in the character of Homer. At the beginning of the novel we learn about Homer’s behaviour at school. He was an irresponsible, troubled youth who enjoyed being the class clown. Ellie says “He was wild and outrageous. He didn’t care what he did or what anyone thought…” Homer always seemed to be in trouble. Halfway through the novel we start to see Homer changing into the leader of the group. Ellie says “It’s hard to think that this fast-thinking guy [Homer] was once hardly even trusted to hand out the books at school.” At the end of the novel we find Homer being the commander of the group, devising plans and giving people orders. Ellie says about Homer’s latest plan to blow up a bridge in Wirrawee to stop enemy movements, “It was a high risk plan, but a brilliant one.” From start to finish in the novel Homer grows into a trusted, responsible leader who is very mature and quick thinking. This is all because of a change in Homer’s environment and circumstances. No longer can he run around and play games as he could before the war started. Therefore change was a dominant theme in the novel for the character of Homer and is relevant because change is something that effects us all at the sometime in our lives. We also see the theme of change in the character of Ellie. At the beginning of the novel we learn about Ellie’s life as a country girl who is a ‘tomboy’. Ellie was brought up on the farm and had no worries doing practical farm things like: driving the landrover, tractor, working with stock and mending fences. Ellie however, is unsophisticated and not that in touch with her feelings. She has never faced a war situation where she has had to hide, dodge bullets and murder to keep herself and her friends alive. We see the first sign of change in Ellie’s personality when they are sneaking to the showgrounds where all Wirrawee’s residents have been held prisoner. Ellie doesn’t know if she will have the courage to go into the showgrounds but she does. She says, “I felt then, and still feel now, that I was transformed by those four steps. At that moment I stopped being an innocent rural teenager and started becoming someone else, a more complicated and capable person. A force to be reckoned with… not just a polite obedient kid.” From this example, we can see that the theme of change was important to John Marsden’s development of the character of Ellie in his novel __Tomorrow, When the War Began.__ Another example of change is the changes to Wirrawee. At the beginning of the novel we see Wirrawee as a quiet and small town where it seemed like nothing bad had ever happened. Now things were “being blown up by rocket launchers at the first sign of danger” according to Mr Clement. We see more evidence of change to Wirrawee when Robyn is telling Ellie about the condition of Lee’s restaurant. “The place is a mess, windows broken, tables and chairs smashed.” From these examples we can clearly see that the town of Wirrawee has undergone a massive amount of change going from a nice peace place to a hell of devastation. In conclusion, the theme of change was very important in the extended text __Tomorrow, When the War Began__, by John Marsden because it was a very dominant theme in the novel. We see it in action through the character development of Ellie and Homer who were forced to respond to the devastating changes to their rural town of Wirrawee and its surround countryside. These changes were brought about by an invasion of Australia. Change is also an important and interesting theme because it is something that occurs to all of us at one time in our lives. We all just hope that we have the personal skills to be resilient enough to cope with what life throws at us!