You have been asked to give a speech to all of year 10 on the topic "Odd One Out" and what you have learned from it. Use examples from your print text, visual text, an item from the stimulus booklet and your own text.
Have you ever had the feeling that you just don't fit in? Do you ever feel like you've gone somewhere and worn the wrong thing? And you walk into the room and feel everyone give you the look? Do you ever feel like everyone is staring at the pimple you"re imagining on the tip of your nose? We all feel like the odd one out some time in our lives, whether it's because we don't have the right colour hair or because we"re from a completely different culture that everyone else.
The odd one out is a topic covered in year eleven English, and culture was viewed to be one chief cause of the segregation and alienation of individuals whom feel that they are odd ones out. Aside from cultural difference, people can be considered the odd one's out due to their physical appearance, their lifestyle, or even due to past experiences they have been subjected to.
Australia, being a multicultural nation, has many different cultures within itself, but even though there is such a variety, many people feel estranged and out of sorts. They feel that everyone is looking at them oddly and judging them by the way they appear, the way the look and the way they live. A great number of these individuals find that they try to change themselves and their lifestyles to fit in with those around them, so they don't feel like the odd one out. These minor changes usually cause them to feel uncomfortable with themselves and put on an act, which prohibits them from accepting themselves for who they are and doesn't allow others to get to know them for what they are. Being from a different background myself, I come to understand many things which Olive goes through in The Willow Tree and Olive such as a simple lunchtime, when she has the need to throw out her lunch and be hungry because of little girls saying "Yuck, what smells like sick?" Simple comments such as these begin the segregation of individuals from the rest.