Several themes of American values are displayed throughout Johnathan Dayton and Valerie Faris� �Little Miss Sunshine�. Try to avoid these kinds of very generic opening sentences. We know there are themes in the text, so saying something like this is unnecessary. A stereotypical family in the United States of America is considered to a prosperous middle-class family, consisting of a respectful relationship with one another. The road trip movie displays the Hoover family as an underprivileged family consisting of members with negative relationships to with one another, presenting them as failures on a virtual scale of �winners and losers�; however a journey allows them to understand and bond with one another, generating a new fundamental perspective of the sense of belonging within each protagonist. Good intro, there are a few minor issues with expression here, and it's a bit summative, but overall pretty decent.
The film begins to construct upon expression. You can't 'construct upon' something; try a different verb like 'depicts' or 'establishes' the dysfunctionality of the protagonists, as they did not gain do not possess the determination to achieve the purpose of an American stereotypical family are you sure? They may not be a stereotypical family, but they're still fulfilling the basic function in terms of having jobs and producing offspring; I'm not sure what your point is here. The Hoover family is demonstrated as dysfunctional, <--no need for a comma here throughout the opening sequence of the film, as it introduced introduces (keep a consistent present tense) characters individually, through a close up. so why do these close-ups show their dysfunctionality? Why does the fact that they're introduced one by one have any bearing on their characters? You're on the right track here, but you need to spell out your logic a little clearer. Moreover, the film also began with a pulse-like non-diegetic music, while adding a new sort of instrumental music every time a new character is introduced to reflect upon their personality. For example...(?) How does the music reflect their characters? It's a great pick-up, but you need some proof. The music also displayed that reveals how each character was is related to one another, as it combined together, expression as one whole soundtrack. Okay, you've got a fair bit of discussion here, but at this point, you need to 'zoom out' a bit and say something about the function of these elements. What does this opening say about the nature of the Hoover family? What does it say about their similarities/differences, or about how unified/distant they are? Dysfunctionality was also portrayed in the scene, <-- no comma needed here after the opening sequence, as Sheryl provided the Hoover family with convenience food, and not prepare home-cooked food, which displays dysfunctionality, as the mother of the house is portrayed as quite lethargic. You might even draw attention to the part where one character (I forget who... it's been a while 
) says something like 'we have chicken every night' or at least implies that they have it very often, which suggests that this isn't just a temporary lapse in Sheryl's ability to provide for her family, but rather is part of a pattern of lazy and neglectful behaviour. From memory the dinner that they get is, like, a bucket of greasy KFC chicken or something, so you might even comment on the visual symbolism of something so grotty and imperfect. Dayton and Faris also used several key features to make �Little Miss Sunshine�, much darker than a typical road comedy, by utilising several sexual references, detrimental derogatory language and drug use, which was is demonstrated by the character of Edwin Hoover. It is predominantly displayed in the scene, when the family was in the VW bus, as Edwin �didn�t wanted [Dwayne] making the same mistakes, [as he] made when [he] was young� this doesn't demonstrate sexual references or derogatory language at all. You could argue it kind of hints at drug use, but it's not a key feature here; there are plenty of other scenes you could choose to demonstrate this though - including the dinner scene since I think Edwin is the one who swears at that point(?) The quote determines that Edwin didn�t wanted Dwayne to follow his footsteps, as Edwin began to live his life, too late correct e if I'm wrong, but doesn't he still swear and do drugs? He dies of a drug overdose, doesn't he? So what do you mean by 'living his life' exactly, since it seems like he's just carrying on with the same behaviour. The dysfunctionality of the Hoover family reflects upon the concept of winners and losers, as they weren�t achieving any sort of success, gaining the title of a �loser�. who determines that they're "losers?" Do you think this is something the audience is meant to think? If so, make that clear in this sentence. If not, what are we supposed to think instead?
The film gradually introduces the concept of winners and losers, <-- shouldn't be a comma herein two independent definitions, displaying the awareness of the importance in achieving success. The Hoover family is depicted as losers throughout the film, according to Richard�s �nine step to success� GOOD! This is much better than the end of your previous paragraph because you've defined the parametres of what it means to 'win' and 'lose.' Thus, while we may judge the Hoover's to be 'losers' if we're using Richard's model of success, we might actually consider them 'winners' in other ways because they become so close over the course of the film, as the protagonists did not achieve any of their goals and ambitions. The ironic scene, where the title, �Little Miss Sunshine�, overlaps the close-up on Frank�s depressed face with natural lighting, displayed that Frank is considered as a loser, due to his suicide attempt. It was portrayed that United States of America is a competitive country, where only winners could survive. This isn't strictly relevant to the film. The concept was also displayed, when Olive tries to impersonate the �winner of the American beauty pageant�, as she desired to achieve similar success as her, but, the lack of beauty and her obesity might be going a bit far She's a bit more rounded than some of the other girls in the competition, but she's hardly obese. Plus, I think the... style of dance she chose at the end was more to blame for her loss than her body type. Having said that, I believe there's a scene where she's looking in the mirror at herself and kind of tracing her belly, so you could definitely unpack that visual metaphor in terms of how she views herself., also displayed her as one of the losers in the American society. According to Edwin�s theory of winners and losers, Olive �is not a loser�, as in his definition, �a real loser is someone who's so afraid of not winning, that they don't even try�. The quote simply signifies, that the protagonists are not losers, as they tried to achieve their goals and ambitions. And how does this differ from Richard's idea of winning and losing? Which of these two models seems like the one the directors want us to adopt? In the scene, <-- no comma where Dwayne discovers that he is colorblind, he immediately fells into has an emotional break down; a long shot displays him confessing that the members of the Hoover family �are fucking losers!� The quote demonstrates the values of a stereotypical teenagers, as Dwayne �hated� his family. Did he really, or was he just lashing out? I think this evidence demonstrates more that he had a lot of pent up feelings about his family that all exploded at once when he realised he couldn't follow his dream. But underneath that, he still cares for his family, especially Frank and Olive, as he comes back around after his meltdown, and is actually a much healthier character by the end of the film. Although, the Hoover family was displayed as losers throughout the film, the journey to the Little Miss Sunshine beauty pageant, re-unites them as a family. What evidence do you have for this? Again, you're right, but you need to back yourself up. You don't want the end of a paragraph to bring up a totally new idea that hasn't been supported at all yet.
Essay structure (based on these paragraphs) is looking pretty good, and aside from a few little issues, you seem to have a good understanding of the text, which is the foundation for all your analysis, so of course it's great that you've got that pretty much under control.
Over this year and next year you'll start to write more essays that are based on highly specific prompts, rather than no prompt at all, or very vague ones like 'Discuss the portrayal of the Hoover family in LMS' or something. Your ability to write in a way that targets the prompt and argues a relevant and effective contention is probably the most major goal in English, and as such is the most influential factor in determining the mark. However, I'll put that to one side for this piece and concentrate more so on the progression of your ideas and the quality of your expression.
It seems like you would benefit from some really extensive essay planning, and I don't say that because you're doing lots of things wrong (since that's not the case) but because many of the issues you're having stem from a bigger, overarching concern which pertains to the order of your ideas and evidence.
For starters, you want every body paragraph to have a
point or a
target that it has to reach by the end; this is your 'concluding sentence,' and everything within that paragraph should be helping you reach it. The concluding sentence is like this big 'KA-POW!' moment at the end where you say something like 'Therefore Little Miss Sunshine shows audiences that being a winner in life has more to do with your intentions and your ability to try and achieve your goals than whether you actually succeed in achieving them' or 'Thus the director reveals that the Hoovers may be dysfunctional, but suggests that they are able to draw strength from this and love one another in spite of the fact that the rest of society might choose not to.'
Simply put, a sentence structure like:
Zooming-out word, the author/director/text/film >verbs...<eg.
Ultimately, the director implies...Hence, the film reinforces...Consequently, 'Little Miss Sunshine' celebrates...would help immensely here.
But you also need to ensure that the contents of your paragraph are backing this concluding point up sufficiently. If you view your end point as a kind of argumentative focus, then you can understand why you don't want to contradict yourself within the paragraph (e.g. 'The Hoovers are losers' ... 'The Hoovers aren't losers') because your assessor will get to the end and be like.. wait... you said the opposite before!?
In this sense, you can kind of reverse-engineer a paragraph such that all the evidence you choose is going towards your goal, so if you were to come up with an essay plan, start with that final point and work backwards.
Then, for each paragraph, you can compile the evidence you want to explore, and pay close attention to the order you choose. By hyper-critical here; 'what does this point have to do with my argument?' 'Does this evidence actually support me?' 'What am I trying to say here?' 'Why should this piece of evidence come before the next one?' Doing this will make your brain more active when writing, as you'll be considering your options at every turn, and eventually this process will become basically automatic, and you may not even need to plan at all.
But for now, see if you can abide by something like:
Paragraph 1: Topic sentence = __________
Evidence:
� description; "quote;" link to next point
� ^
� ^
� ^
� ^
Concluding sentence = ___________..or something similar. You don't have to stick to it too rigidly when writing, but at the very least, it will aid your thought process and help you identify any trouble spots.
Few more little points:
Careful with your word choices; there were a few that didn't quite fit. If in doubt, look up definitions, synonyms, and/or examples of a word used in a sentence. You've still got ages to address such concerns, but the sooner you do so, the greater the vocabulary you'll have at your disposal later.
Try to always use the present tense when commenting on texts (i.e. 'The author suggests...' instead of 'The author suggested...') It's just an English convention thing, but it can irk assessors sometimes, so just keep it consistent.
& Keep an eye on your comma placement as you tended to put too many in, especially towards the beginning of sentences.
Best of luck!
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