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Re: Sample Literature Essays

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EvangelionZeta

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Ohh, I'm doing Philip Larkin's poetry as well. I get a bit lost when writing about his poems. How do you feel about Larkin?

^ Wow! that vocab of yours - magnifique! EvangelionZeta, did you write that up in an hour?? That's crazy long - 1300 words. I can hardly manage three pages of moderate-sized writing in two hours! I can tell that you have subtly incorporated your own interpretation into the analysis of the text - something that i didn't really understand until about two weeks ago~ Which texts are you guys doing? Quote from: saaaaaam on September 28, 2010, 10:36:42 am Ohh, I'm doing Philip Larkin's poetry as well. I get a bit lost when writing about his poems. How do you feel about Larkin?

Quote from: saaaaaam on September 28, 2010, 10:36:42 am Ohh, I'm doing Philip Larkin's poetry as well. I get a bit lost when writing about his poems. How do you feel about Larkin?

I have mine, but I cringe when I read them (they're from 2007) If nobody else has any samples, I'll PM them to you.

Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte Wuthering Heights is an account of a love that is tumultuous, all-consuming and transcends ordinary standards of human behaviour. It deals with a passion so powerful that it influences the lives of two generations. The fact that ‘separation’ is impossible for Cathy and Heathcliff and yet Cathy enforces such a separation leads to consequences that affect their lives and their children’s lives. Heathcliff is brought to Wuthering Heights by Mr Earnshaw and is immediately rejected and made to feel like an outsider. Brontë’s depiction of Heathcliff as a ‘dark-skinned gypsy’ with the ‘manners [of] a gentleman’ is deceptive, as he is shown to be capable of malicious and extreme behaviour. It is only with Cathy that he can reveal himself – his eventual separations from her, both self-imposed and after her demise, lead him to remove himself even further from acceptable social behaviour. Wuthering Heights deals with a concept of love that goes beyond the confines of conventional morality. The love between Cathy and Heathcliff is one of uncontrolled passion that binds the two of them together into one entity and knows no right or wrong. By Cathy’s own admission, ‘If he were annihilated, the Universe would turn to a mighty stranger…I am Heathcliff’. The love between them is not a mere emotion but a ‘necessary’ primal force that has forged a spiritual connection between them – Cathy believes that they are essentially the same person with the ‘same soul’. However, in this scene she displays a practical nature in considering her marriage to Edgar in terms of how it can aid Heathcliff. She believes that marrying Edgar will allow her to ‘aid Heathcliff to rise’ and this is the ‘best’ motive for the marriage. Naively, Cathy pursues the belief that she can marry Edgar but never ‘consent to forsake Heathcliff’ – in her mind, Edgar should accept and even understand her bond with Heathcliff. Even as Nelly, a trusted confidant, pleads with her to understand that it is ‘folly’ to marry Edgar for ‘the worst motive’. It is futile, however, and Cathy temporarily transfers her affection to Edgar – knowing that her love for him is as passing as the ‘foliage in the woods’. Heathcliff, unknown to Cathy, has left the Heights to get away from a girl who told Nelly that ‘“It would degrade me to marry Heathcliff, now; so he shall never know how I love him; and that, not because he’s handsome Nelly, but because he’s more myself than I am. Whatever our souls are made of, his and mine are the same, and [Edgar’s] is as different as a moonbeam from lightning, or frost from fire.” Ere this speech ended I became sensible of Heathcliff’s presence…He had listened till he heard Catherine say it would degrade her to marry him, and then he staid to hear no further.’ After a three year hiatus, Heathcliff returns to Gimmerton determined to avenge himself upon all those who once scorned him. His pride drives him to ‘kiss’ Isabella because, as he tells Cathy, ‘I’m not your husband, you needn’t be jealous’. However, her jealousy is not ‘[of] Heathcliff’; rather it is ‘[for] Heathcliff’. The use of the word ‘for’ implies that Cathy has shouldered the burden of Heathcliff’s jealousy, so that he is free to love Isabella – if he so chooses. Cathy does this as another of her acts of ‘kindness’ towards Heathcliff – and he is unable to ‘seek revenge’ upon her, admitting that ‘If I imagined you really wished me to marry Isabella, I’d cut my own throat!’ The depth of Heathcliff’s desire to seek revenge can be linked to his ‘cuckoo’ like beginnings. Heathcliff’s story is that of the cuckoo bird – which lays its eggs in other birds’ nests – as he usurps Hindley in his father’s affections. By bringing Heathcliff back from Liverpool, Mr. Earnshaw ‘breeds bad feelings in the house’ as his own son, Hindley, begins to ‘regard his father as an oppressor rather than a friend’. The favouritism shown to Heathcliff is epitomized by the departure of Hindley to a boarding school – the son is sent away, the foundling kept close and nurtured. Eventually, after the death of Mr. Earnshaw, Hindley inherits possession of Wuthering Heights and proceeds to become ‘tyrannical’. ‘He drove [Heathcliff] from their company to the servants, deprived him of the instructions of the curate, and insisted that he should labour out of doors instead, compelling him to do so, as hard as any other lad on the farm.’ This treatment is what drives Heathcliff – his pride will not allow him to forget the injuries of his childhood and it inflames a passion for revenge. This desire is so overpowering that he is willing to sacrifice Hareton, Hindley’s son, in order to avenge those who have mistreated him. Once, upon accidentally saving the infant his ‘countenance expressed…the intense anguish at having made himself the instrument of thwarting his own revenge’. However, his ultimate vengeance is at hand. After returning from his mysterious disappearance, he takes up lodging at the Heights – he doesn’t care ‘how long he waits’ for revenge as long as he can ‘do it at last’ – and sets his plans in motion. Encouraging Hindley to drink and gamble, Heathcliff finally usurps ownership of Wuthering Heights, before twisting Hareton into a pawn – ‘[Hareton] is damnably fond of me’. The malicious destruction of the Earnshaw line is only the beginning – the Linton family, who stole Cathy from him, also feature in his plans. Marrying Isabella Linton, Edgar’s sister, for no reason other than to ‘gain a foothold in the Grange’ and to use her as ‘Edgar’s proxy in suffering’. His child by Isabella, named Linton, is the rightful heir of Thrushcross Grange, and he uses him to gain control of the manor. Telling Nelly, the narrator that, ‘My son is prospective owner of [Thrushcross Grange] and I should not wish him to die until I was certain of being his successor. Besides, he’s mine, and I want the triumph of seeing my descendent fairly lord of their estates; my child hiring their children, to till their father’s lands for wages – That is the sole consideration that can make me endure the whelp – I despise him for himself, and hate him for the memories he revives!’ By this stage, Linton has grown to his teens and Cathy, the initial object of Heathcliff’s passion has died. His life is now consumed by revenge – Heathcliff only tolerates Linton because he is the instrument through which he can ruin Edgar. His only interest in Linton is whether he will live to marry Edgar’s daughter and thus inherit Thrushcross Grange – once the marriage is complete, Linton’s life is ‘not worth a farthing’. Throughout the novel we are left to wonder, as Nelly does, if Heathcliff really is vindictive. We are lost in the passionate love between him and Cathy – the love that is so ‘eternal’ it cannot be destroyed – and, like Nelly; we are ‘completely deceived’. Heathcliff, believing Cathy has chosen Edgar over him, leaves Wuthering Heights and sets off to begin his new life – however, their bond drags him back, pretending to be seeking revenge on her. It is evident from their first meeting that the love between them is as strong as ever – Heathcliff was ‘in hell’ till he saw her. His desire for revenge is still present, driving him to destroy Hindley. Heathcliff’s attempts to settle the scores are interrupted by Cathy’s untimely death and after her death his sole purpose becomes revenge. After he exacts this revenge, he begins to approach his own death – knowing this; he admits to Nelly that thoughts of Cathy have never left him. Despite it being eighteen years since her departure, ‘her features are shaped in the flagstones…in every cloud, in every tree’. Heathcliff has been pushed to the edge of reason by her death; in his own mind he questions ‘what right [she] had to leave him’. His life, without her, is a meagre existence – such is his love that he believes that he belongs with Cathy in body and in spirit, in life and in death.

Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen Many of Austen’s characters are guilty of self-delusion, few, however, are capable of self-honesty or reflection. Elizabeth Bennet originally seems to belong to the latter, ‘[priding] herself on her discernment’. But, as the story progresses and Wickham’s true character is exposed, Elizabeth realises the error of her judgement. She realises that she has acted ‘despicably’, displaying all the qualities that she had formerly attributed to Mr Darcy. Elizabeth realises that ‘till this moment, I never knew myself’. Elizabeth is honest about her feelings early in the novel. Charlotte Lucas suggests that Mr Darcy has ‘a right to be proud’ because he is a ‘fine young man’, who has good family and fortune. This not only provides an insight into Charlotte’s practical character, which is later characterized by her marriage to Mr Collins, but also into Elizabeth’s. Her response is very revealing. She displays admirable honesty and maturity in admitting that ‘that is very true…and I could easily forgive his pride, if he had not mortified mine’. Elizabeth’s ‘mortified’ pride, due to Darcy overlooking her at the dance, leaves her with a predisposition to believe Wickham’s allegations. Usually discerning, she is completely convinced that Wickham has been wronged. However, if Elizabeth were to be more objective, she should have questioned why Wickham, a total stranger, should reveal so much of himself. Eventually she does question, realising that his ‘behaviour to herself could…have had no tolerable motive’ and concluding that he was ‘encouraging the preference which…she had most incautiously shown’. Mrs Bennet, throughout the novel, displays a copious amount of self-delusion. The pinnacle of this is at the Netherfield ball, where she loudly boasts of ‘her expectation’ that Jane will marry Mr Bingley. By speaking so prematurely of her prospective son-in-law, she prompts Mr Darcy, not only to ‘separate my friend from your sister’, but to form a lasting opinion of her. The Netherfield Ball is almost a magnet for self-delusion, with the majority of the Bennet party acting shamefully; Lydia and Kitty flirt outrageously, Mary commandeers the piano and Mr Collins is guilty of more presumptuous pride than Mr Darcy. Mr Collin’s portrayal as self-deluding is extended by his proposal to Elizabeth. When he proposes to her, he does it in the wrong manner – just as Mr Darcy did initially. Darcy rails against ‘the inferiority of her connections’ and the acquisition of relations ‘whose condition in life is so decidedly beneath my own’. Mr Collins is quite frank about the fact that he considers Elizabeth to be lucky to have the chance to marry someone who had such ‘connections with the family of De Bourgh’. Both of these characters consider Elizabeth’s hand in marriage a certainty – neither considers the possibility of rejection. When Elizabeth travels to Hunsford, to meet with Mr Collins and his new wife, we see the contrast between the Bennets’ ‘connections’ and those of Mr Darcy. When she sees that Darcy’s promised wife is ‘sickly and cross’ Elizabeth decides that for Mr Darcy, Miss De Bourgh is a ‘very proper wife’. When the party dines at Rosings, Austen reinforces a distinction between the social standing of Elizabeth’s ‘connections’ and Mr Darcy’s. This is done through subtle use of language when describing the opulence of Rosings, as well as the depiction of Lady Catherine. Mr Collins assures Elizabeth that ‘she will not think the worse of you for being simply dressed. She likes to have the distinction of rank preserved’. Elizabeth, who could witness ‘money without trepidation’ was unfazed by Lady Catherine’s ‘condescension’. So far, Mr Darcy has ‘among his own connections [been] esteemed and valued – that even Wickham had allowed him merit’, but Lady Catherine seems to delight in using her power to manipulate others. Austen makes it clear that in 18th century England, social status was determined by  family – or as is often referred to in the book, ‘connections’. This clearly illustrates the value placed upon marrying well and elevating one’s social position. The importance of marriage is highlighted by Darcy’s first proposal to Elizabeth. He is proposing despite ‘the scruples that had long prevented my forming any serious design’. These scruples had to do with Elizabeth’s family and their lowly ‘condition’. Displaying both pride and prejudice, Darcy believes his feelings towards her family to be ‘natural’ and ‘just’, refusing to ‘conceal my struggles’ or pretending to act out of ‘unqualified, unalloyed inclination’. He shows no consideration for Elizabeth’s feelings when he assumes that this offer will be accepted. Elizabeth, in return, reveals her true opinion of Darcy – he is arrogant, conceited and has a ‘selfish disdain of the feelings of others’. All of these things have accumulated to form ‘so immoveable a dislike’ that Darcy is the ‘last man in the world’ she would want to marry. He bears the rejection ‘with assumed tranquillity’ showing ‘no feeling of remorse’, but it is the accusation that he is not ‘a gentleman’ that ‘tortures’ him. Both Elizabeth and Darcy have shown remarkable frankness in admitting what they think of the other. Elizabeth soon learns, however, that Darcy’s villainous treatment of Wickham is fabricated. This realisation leaves her feeling ‘humiliated’. The repeated use of exclamation marks emphasises Elizabeth’s disappointment in her lack of perception – ‘How humiliating is this discovery!’. Her ‘abilities’ upon which she ‘valued’ herself, had let her down. With this discovery, she is forced to reflect on everything that she thought she knew of them, until ‘she grew absolutely ashamed of herself – of neither Darcy nor Wickham could she think, without feeling that she had been blind, partial, prejudiced, absurd’. Through the novel, Austen explores the detrimental effects of pride and prejudice. Initially, Mr Darcy is a haughty, unlikeable man; however, by the end of the novel, he has completed a journey towards self-awareness and love. The same is true of Elizabeth – she no longer prides herself so much on her perception, to the exclusion of all else. Both of these characters have learnt to honestly acknowledge their own faults, rather than being blind to them. The marriages at the end of the novel not only serve to satisfy the romantic interests in the story, but also provide a harmonious resolution of conflict. The negative traits of pride and prejudice, which stem from self-delusion, have been reconciled within each character.

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Did that by computer earlier in the year, but I've produced pieces of the same length in 60 minutes.  It's just practice though. We're doing Hamlet and Emma.  :p

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VCE English and EAL, English Language, and Literature guide - units 3 & 4

• Writing about protest

Guide to research and literary criticism of current texts used in VCE English and English as an Additional Language (EAL), English Language, and Literature

• Get started
• Short stories
• Multimodal - Films
• Multimodal - Other
• Australian texts
• Writing about country
• Writing about personal journeys
• Writing about play
• Writing forms
• English Language Units 3 & 4
• General resources
• Other literature
• Literary theory and interpretation
• Researching literature online

Outline from the VCAA

Page 22 of the VCE English and English as an Additional Language Study Design gives guidance on Writing about protest

"Explorations of conflict and contest, what it means to protest, the value of protest, the outcomes of protest, personal stories of protest, struggle and war."

The following eBook encyclopediae may be helpful for background on protest movements. Peruse the contents or the index to locate specific protest.

• for example Australian Aboriginal Protests by Gary Foley
• LGBTQ Rights

  Government, politics, and protest  : essential primary sources / K. Lee Lerner, Brenda Wilmoth Lerner, and Adrienne Wilmoth Lerner, editors. Detroit, Mich: Gale.2006

See our guide to Protests, activism & dissent in Victoria

• Gillespie, Mark, ‘ Friday Essay: On the Sydney Mardi Gras March of 1978 ’, The Conversation (posted 19 February 2016) (A)
• Pankhurst, Emmeline, ‘ Freedom or Death ’, The Guardian (online) ‘Great Speeches of the 20th Century’ (series)
• Vonnegut, Kurt, ‘Harrison Bergeron ’ [Online], in Welcome to the Monkey House [print]
• Wyatt, Meyne, Monologue from City of Gold , Australian Broadcasting Corporation (official channel), Q+A episode broadcast 8 June 2020 (A)

Emily Pankhurst

Key text : Pankhurst, Emmeline, ‘ Freedom or Death ’, The Guardian (online) ‘Great Speeches of the 20th Century’ (series)

Students could focus on figurative language and extended metaphor in their own work, using Pankhurst’s text as a model. VCE English and English as an Additional Language (EAL) Text List 2024 p.20

Emily Pankhurst & her times

• Clark, Emily  Emmeline Pankhurst’s “Freedom or Death” Speech Energizes Connecticut Women in 1913 by Emily Clark
• Boase, Tessa. Mrs Pankhurst’s Purple Feather : Fashion, Fury and Feminism -- Women’s Fight for Change   Minneapolis: Aurum Press White Lion 1, 2018.
• Adams, Beverley. T he Rebel Suffragette : the Life of Edith Rigby Barnsley, South Yorkshire ;: Pen & Sword Books Limited, 2021.
• George, Denise. Mary Lee : the Life and Times of a “Turbulent Anarchist” and Her Battle for Women’s Rights Mile End, South Australia: Wakefield Press, 2018
• Purvis, June. Emmeline Pankhurst : a Biography   London ;: Routledge, 2002.

Political speeches

• featuring excerpts of 70 of the world's greatest speeches in history and drama

Julius Caesar, Act 3 Scene 2 | 2012 | Royal Shakespeare Company. Mark Antony turns a hostile crowd

The Speech that Made Obama President - includes the speech and analysis of the sppech

Adrian Mitchell presents his angry denunciation of the Vietnam War in his poem To whom it may concern from the First International Poetry Incarnation, an evening of American and British Beat poetry, took place on 11th June 1965

Vonnegut, Kurt, ‘Harrison Bergeron’ [Online]

Key text: Vonnegut, Kurt, ‘Harrison Bergeron ’ [Online], in Welcome to the Monkey House [print]

Task: Students could explore the use of satire as a form of protest, experimenting with irony and wit in their own writings. ( VCE English and English as an Additional Language (EAL)Text List 2024 p.20

Analysis of the story

• A collection of essays on the story

Examples of political satire

Fake interview aired by the BBC

The satirical group the Yes Men impersonated a spokesman from Dow Chemicals, fooling the BBC who interviewed the 'spokesman' announcing that Dow would accept full responsibility for the Union Carbide Chemical disaster in Bhopal India.

It was an attempt to publicly expose the lack of action by the company for the victims.

Articles about the hoax

this article discusses the effectiveness of this interview.

Graff, V. (2004, Dec 13).  Meet the yes men who hoax the world: The two men behind the Bhopal interview stunt reveal how they did it - and why they now feel sorry for the BBC The Guardian  

Unnamed article (2004, Dec 05). BBC apologizes for airing Bhopal hoax: Chicago Tribune

Gedye, R. (2004, Dec 04). Bhopal anguish as BBC hoaxed. The Daily Telegraph

A modest proposal

• Jonathan Swift's famously savage satire on the plight of the poor in Ireland published in 1729. Hoping to shock public opinion he proposed that children of the poor be given to the wealthy as food.
• Discussion on the text - BBC Podcast
• Ian McBride, The Politics of A Modest Proposal: Swift and the Irish Crisis of the Late 1720s , Past & Present , Volume 244, Issue 1, August 2019, Pages 89–122,

Framework of ideas

• Framework of ideas Outline of the Framework of Ideas

Mark Gillepsie - ‘Friday Essay: On the Sydney Mardi Gras March of 1978’

Key text: Gillespie, Mark, ‘ Friday Essay: On the Sydney Mardi Gras March of 1978 ’, The Conversation (posted 19 February 2016) (A)

Task: Students could explore the use of a personal reflection, or a historical reflection, experimenting with a hybrid of factual and sentimental styles within their own writings. VCE English and English as an Additional Language (EAL) Text List 2024 p.19

Items on the 1978 Mardi Gras

• The First Gay Mardi Gras from Website https://www.78ers.org.au/ retrieved 28/9/2023
• Thomas, A. (2018). Before Mardi Gras. Overland , (231), 10–19.
• Sydney mardi gras: NSW police apologise over '78er' arrests and bashings:   (2016, Mar 04). ABC Premium News

Items on AIDS in Australia

• Power, Jennifer. Movement, Knowledge, Emotion : Gay Activism and HIV/AIDS in Australia   Canberra, Australia: ANU Press, 2011.
• Willett, Graham, and Yorick Smaal, eds. Intimacy, Violence and Activism : Gay and Lesbian Perspectives on Australasian History and Society Clayton, Victoria: Monash University Publishing, 2013.
• Ware, Cheryl, HIV Survivors in Sydney : Memories of the Epidemic Cham, Switzerland: Palgrave Macmillan, 2019.

Personal reflections

• Hart, John. Stories of Gay and Lesbian Immigration : Together Forever?   New York: Harrington Park Press, 2002.

Robinson, Peter. Gay Men’s Relationships Across the Life Course   Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire: Palgrave Macmillan, 2013

Meyne Wyatt, Monologue from City of Gold,

Key text: Wyatt, Meyne, Monologue from City of Gold , Australian Broadcasting Corporation (official channel), Q+A episode broadcast 8 June 2020 (A)

Task: Students could explore the use of a personal reflection, or a historical reflection, experimenting with a hybrid of factual and sentimental styles within their own writings.  ( VCE English and English as an Additional Language (EAL)Text List 2024 p.20)

• Coram, S., & Hallinan, C. (2017). Critical race theory and the orthodoxy of race neutrality: Examining the denigration of Adam Goodes. Australian Aboriginal Studies (Canberra), (1), 99–111.
• Note also the further suggested sources adjacent to these articles

Martin Luther King Jr.

The famous "I Have a Dream"  speech by Martin Luther King Jr. before 250,000 on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C  during the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom on August 28, 1963.

Martin Luther King "Ï have been to the Mountaintop" speech, delivered a day before he was murdered.

• choose pdf link for full text
• Articles from United States newspapers at the time of the Ï have a dream speech
• Articles on Martin Luther King from 1968 - the year he was murdered

Poltical ephemera, First World War

  Mutch, T. (1916). The protest: against the conscription of human life for military service abroad . Sydney: The Australian Worker.

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The Ultimate Guide to the VCE English Study Design

English Study Designs are notoriously difficult to understand, let alone read. Following the introduction of the new VCE English Study Design in 2023 , we are going to unpack it in a simple, organised fashion, to help inform you of everything you need to know for VCE English.

We will go through each unit, outlining all the material knowledge, skills and topics that are vital to your VCE English journey. 

VCE English Study Design Structure Key changes from the previous VCE English Study Design Unit 1: Reading and exploring texts + Crafting texts Unit 2: Reading and exploring texts + Exploring argument Unit 3: Reading and respond to texts + Creating texts SACs for Unit 3 Unit 4: Reading and responding to texts + Analysing argument SACs for Unit 4

VCE English Study Design Structure

The 4 Units in VCE English are split up as follows:

Unit 1: Reading and Exploring Texts + Crafting Texts

Unit 2: reading and exploring texts + exploring argument, unit 3: reading and responding to texts + creating texts, unit 4: reading and responding to texts + analysing argument.

It is important to notice the correlation between Units 1 and 3, as well as Units 2 and 4. Although they have different titles, they are fundamentally the same.

Key Changes from the Previous VCE English Study Design

• The ‘Comparative Essay’ component has been completely removed from the Study Design.
• Creative Writing (‘Framework of ideas’) is now a component (‘Section B’) of the external examination for 3/4 English. 
• You will write Argument and Language Analyses on written persuasive texts and persuasive pieces in another form (such as audio or visual) in 3/4 English.

This unit is generally your first introduction to Creative Writing, you will create or add to stories through a provided text or theme. Additionally, you will start writing VCE standard essays, which tends to be a surprise jump in quality expectations for many. 

Area of Study 1: Reading and Exploring Texts (Essay Writing)  

At the beginning of your VCE journey, you’ve likely been writing essays for a couple of years. Every student has at least gone through the process of analysing a text and then answering questions about it.

However, don’t underestimate this section, the study design often introduces students to new expectations and requirements for essay writing that can be difficult to achieve without extensive practice. 

You will have to write an essay for assessment  in this Area of Study. The VCE English Study Design Outcome outlines that you are assessed on:

– Extracted from the VCAA websites on the ‘Planning’ page

From this, we can gather that you are assessed on your ability to execute three skills:

• Context. This relates to how well your essay addresses the question you are responding to. This tends to be where English VCE students lose most of their marks. It is critical to ensure your whole response is catered towards the question. 
• Knowledge. You need to show a deep understanding of the text’s characters, themes and author’s intent. This can be shown through your use of quotes, explanations and ultimate conclusions. 
• Writing and Grammar . This is a skill that must be developed over the course of your schooling journey. I don’t want to sound like a broken record, but reading and writing is the only way to improve in this area. 

Need to write an expert-level feature article for VCE English ? Here’s a few tips to help you ace the criteria sheet…

Area of Study 2: Crafting Texts (Creative Writing)

You will engage with a set of ‘mentor texts’, these are texts that align with a ‘ Framework of Ideas ‘ (overarching theme and ideas) created by your school.  The mentor texts can be a range of different forms, such as short stories, speeches, and poetry. You will use these mentor texts to make a creative text of your own.

According to the outcome, you will be assessed on your ability to:

In summary, the creative writing task is based on your ability to:

• Create a text for a specific purpose.  You must design your piece for a context and audience, and attempt to express, explain, reflect or argue.
• Demonstrate an understanding of the mentor texts. Your writing will need to be clearly influenced and guided by the mentor texts you investigated.
• Justify the decisions you made when writing the text. After writing your piece, you may be asked to create a description that explains why you took the text in the direction you did. 

Unit 1 Assessment Summary

Wondering what you could be assessed on in this unit? Here are the types of assessments you can end up with for each Outcome:

– Extracted from VCAA’s website under the ‘Assessment’ Page

Apart from more essay writing, this unit focuses on ‘Exploring Argument’. This involves analysing an opinionated piece and outlining why it does a good job at persuading the audience to agree with their proposal, also known as a language analysis. Additionally, you will perform an Oral Presentation on a chosen topic recently discussed in the media.

Area of Study 1: Reading and Exploring Texts (Essay writing)

This area of study is the exact same as Area of Study 1 in the previous unit. Don’t believe me? Well here is the outcome for this unit:

Sound familiar? In this Area of Study you will also be assessed on your essay writing . 

Yes, there are slight differences in the key knowledge and skills sections between the two Area of Studies. However, these are simply to ensure teachers introduce you to different styles of texts for essay writing. 

Additionally, these areas of study deliberately cover similar content!  Thanks to the design of the curriculum, there’s nothing new to learn here, you’ll just need to continue to improve on your essay writing skills. 

Area of Study 2: Exploring Argument (Analysis of Argument and Language)

Oral Presentation

The Oral Presentation aims to help you understand the thought process that goes behind making an opinionated piece. In the Oral, you will craft a speech that aims to convince the audience of a specific perspective on an issue. 

You may have to perform an Oral Presentation on a topic that has recently been in the media for assessment . The Oral will assess:

• Public speaking skills. Good body language, clear articulation, and different tones of voice will be required. 
• Argument building. How do you position the audience to eventually agree with your point of view?
• Knowledge of the chosen issue. Are you well versed in both sides of the argument? Do you have evidence to support your argument and refute possible weaknesses in your perspective?

Want help with your Oral Presentation? Have a look at The Comprehensive Guide to Acing your VCE English Oral Presentation.

Exploring Argument (Argument Analysis)

Language analyses are not the same as essays. Do not mix up the two, you must view them separately in order to do them both well. This task requires you to concisely unpack a persuasive piece which can be in written, audio or visual form. 

The assessment will likely require you to write an Argument and Language Analysis on a persuasive piece . This is shown by the Outcome, which states:

Generally, you will be marked on the following:

• Identification and exploration of techniques used to build the argument. How have language techniques, argument techniques, writing techniques and imagery assisted the writer or speaker’s argument?
• Understanding of the audience. How would the readers be influenced by the writer or speaker’s different techniques used in argument?
• Ability to display how the argument is developed. What is the writer or speaker trying to achieve throughout different points of their piece?
• Writing and Grammar. In a ‘language analysis’, you are expected to write extremely clearly and to the point, avoiding all the ‘fluff’ you would have in an essay.

Check out our full guide on How to Write an Argument Analysis for VCE English !

Unit 2 Assessment Summary

Curious about the assessments for this unit? Here are the types of assessments you can end up with for each Outcome:

Area of Study 1: Essay Writing 

Yep. You guessed it, this Area of Study is the exact same as the other two essay writing Areas of Study. This is shown by once again familiar outcome:

Area of Study 2: Creating Texts

In this Area of Study you will be building upon your skills learnt in Unit 1. Your school will select three mentor texts for you to read from a list provided by VCAA. These mentor texts now align with a ‘ Framework of Ideas ‘, you will explore one framework in extreme depth and write about it in a SAC and eventually the exam.

The Frameworks are as follows:

Writing about country Writing about play Writing about protest Writing about personal journey.

You will be assessed on the same skills as in Unit 1. Meaning you have design your piece to a specific context, audience and purpose, as well as explain your decisions made in the writing process.

This is one of your last chances to refine your skills before the English Exam. The text you write will be required to align with one of the four broad ideas which you can engage with in the exam. So, this can provide a strong foundation for your exam preparation!

Unit 3 SACs 

Below is a table extracted from the VCAA VCE English Study Design. It outlines the SACs you will undertake during Unit 3 English. Outcome 1 is your essay writing SAC, Outcome 2 is your creative writing SAC.

This is your final essay writing Area of Study for VCE English. It is important to realise that the standard of writing goes up with each Area of Study. 

These more complex expectations are a main reason why you are expected to practice essay writing in each Area of Study. These expectations take a lot of practice to consistently achieve!

You should also note that the text you use in this Area of Study will very likely be the one you use in Section A (essay writing component) of the English Exam, as it will be the freshest text in your memory during the exam period. 

Area of Study 2: Analysing Argument

Finally, the last area of study, and just like the rest of Units 3 and 4, you’ve already done this before!  This section requires you to do language analyses and an Oral Presentation. 

The Oral Presentation must analyse a form of media that has appeared since the 1st of September the previous year. 

For the Argument Analysis, you will make one on a written text and another in a different form, such as audio or visual. You will be required to use the same skills as in Unit 2, Area of Study 2. Once again keep in mind that you will h ave to do a language analysis in Section C of the English Exam .

Unit 4 SACs

Below is a table extracted from the VCAA VCE English Study Design. It outlines the SACs you will undertake during Unit 4 English. Outcome 1 is another Essay writing SAC. Outcome 2 involves the Argument and Language Analyses SACs.

That’s all! 

Th e VCE English Study Design may seem too detailed, a tad unnecessary or confusing. However, you will slowly realise throughout your VCE journey that it makes a lot more sense than what you originally thought. VCAA deliberately created this study design so that Units 1 and 2 of English prepare and essentially rehearse students for Units 3 and 4.

Therefore, make sure to take your Year 11 studies seriously! I promise that you will be grateful by the end of your English journey, if you take advantage of this well crafted Study Design structure. 

Making the step up to Year 12? Here’s how to ACE it…

Are you looking for some extra help with working through the VCE English Study Design? 

We have an incredible team of VCE tutors and mentors!

We offer specialised English tutoring in Melbourne with expert tutors ! Get in contact today to secure your expert coach.

We can help you ace your VCE English SACs and ace your upcoming VCE assessments with personalised lessons conducted one-on-one in your home or online!

Looking for a local tutor in  Footscray ? Or needing  support for the  VCE  in  Doncaster ? We offer one-on-one tutoring, in your home or online!

We’ve supported over  8,000 students over the last 11 years , and on average our students score mark improvements of over 20%!

To find out more and get started with an inspirational VCE tutor and mentor,   get in touch today  or give us a ring on  1300 267 888!

Max Huyton is the VIC Growth Marketer for Art of Smart and a Laws and Commerce student at Monash University. In his other life, Max spends his time reading and writing whenever he gets the chance and cooking extremely mediocre dishes for friends and family.

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VCAA Examiner's Reports - Simple DO's and DON'T to Boost Your Marks

What if you could read the minds of your exam markers? Assessor’s reports are basically gold mines for improving exam performance. They go through common student mistakes, how to fix them, and what good (and bad) answers look like, which is especially important in a subject like VCE English, where marking is highly subjective.  

While we still highly recommend you read these reports for yourself – among other things, the sample writing is worth taking a look at – this list condenses the common, important advice from the last six years’ worth of reports.   

General Advice on Essay Writing

What you should do to score higher:.

  DO organise your time “so that enough time is left to proofread” (2017) at the end of your SAC or exam.  ‍

DO answer the “actual question” (2019, 2020) “This is of critical importance and applies to all parts of the examination. It [is] disappointing to see clearly competent students failing to address the set question or twisting its meaning to suit their own purposes. Relevance to the topic is of primary importance in each section of the examination” (2019). “Students must answer the question on the paper.” (2020)   

DO choose your material carefully. You “must learn to judiciously choose textual material that is relevant to the set question and be brave enough to put the rest aside” (2021).   

DO make sure your handwriting can be read. “Basic handwriting legibility is emerging as a significant issue. Students need to be aware that assessors can only mark what they can read…. Students and teachers are encouraged to engage in classroom practice of pen-and-paper responses” (2021).   

DO plan. “Many very long answers were heavily descriptive and reliant on detailed and unnecessary quoting. Using the first five minutes of the time allocated to the task to plan a clear and coherent response would result in sharper, shorter, more controlled essays” (2022).   

What you SHOULD NOT do:

DON’T summarise. “There is little need for summary in any of the three sections. While the context of a particular point or indeed the text itself may need to be established, some students used too much of their available time presenting the plot. Students may assume that assessors have an intimate knowledge of the texts.” (2018)    DON’T prepare answers. Not only does this “ignore the topic altogether” (2018), “previously learned and memorised elements” (2021) are unengaging as they can never be as fully relevant, rendering them less insightful than ideas geared towards the topic at hand. “There is a difference between ‘preparing answers’ and ‘preparing well’” (2020).    DON’T use “unnecessarily extensive quotation”. “There is no benefit in retelling the story or summarising the author’s views and values in general”. (2020)   

Section A: Single Text Response 

There are many misconceptions about this component of the exams. Many focus on memorising quotes, vocabulary, answering questions. Examiners expect more than just quotes and plot summary. This section will summarise their advice and pet peeves in greater deatils.  

What you should do to score higher in Text Response:

DO analyse using more than just quotes. You should demonstrate an understanding of the “diverse ways” (2018) or “many ways” (2020) in which multiple elements of a text convey meaning. For example, the “textual form” (2017, 2018) is extremely important, as in a graphic novel or film visual imagery is used to convey meaning. The 2019 and 2021 assessor’s reports mention the “construction elements” of a text, which includes poetic and figurative techniques, that can and should be used as evidence.   

DO use metalanguage, accurately and precisely. This “enables complex ideas to be communicated clearly and fluently” (2020), enhancing the quality of your essay. Metalanguage is especially useful for identifying techniques, such as figurative language or the range of film techniques employed by directors.   

DO be willing to “challenge” the topic (2019), presenting a contention which deals with the key ideas of the topic without entirely agreeing to the proposition.    ‍

DO carefully, carefully consider the “wording of the topic” (2019, 2021). Not only is it recommended to use a dictionary to clarify the meaning of any uncertain words (2019), but analysing the “nuances of language in a topic” (2020) and the resulting “implications of the topic” (2020, 2022) are vital to a high-scoring response. It will guide your focus to an essay which is relevant and allow you to generate more interesting ideas if you strictly and intensely examine the words you have been given to work with.   

DO aim to connect your ideas and themes within your essay. This demonstrates a high level of knowledge, and is more likely to generate a “thematic discussion of the topic” (2019), instead of a list of examples, creating more interesting and fluid writing.   

DO acknowledge, in instances of studying a collection of poetry or short stories, that you are “commenting on the collection” (2019). It is important to present a “thematic discussion” (2019) of the entire body of work, not just selected pieces, to satisfy the demands of this exam section.   

DO use a “clear structure as a framework” to present your essay (2020). This means writing in an “analytical/expository form” (2020), using multiple paragraphs which are focused on arguments, that all link to a clear and sustained contention. Structure of the whole essay, and structure within paragraphs, is key to presenting your ideas with clarity. Your essay is, at its core, aiming to present analysis in order to form an argument, and your structure should aid you in this goal.   

DO express an argument. As basic as it sounds, the “need to present an argument” (2021) is often ignored, with students expressing lists of examples, or ideas connected to the topic, rather than presenting their own proposition in response to the topic. It is called a text response for a reason!   

DO make your conclusion worthwhile. Rather than viewing the conclusion as a summary, use it to succinctly present your “sophisticated reading of both text and topic” (2021). It is an opportunity to provide clarity to your ideas, and leave a final impression of elegance.   

DON’T dismiss any elements of the topic. Ensure you have a “precise understanding of the words that comprise the task” (2017), and ‍

DON’T “rewrite the topic to suit [your] own preconceived approach” (2018). This is the most consistent complaint of these reports across this study design, because it represents a fundamental failure of this task – in essence, you haven’t actually answered the one question you’ve been asked.   

DON’T use “a variety of polysyllabic words” because you think it makes you sound smart (2021). “To do so indiscriminately can sometimes impede communication” (2021), rendering your writing both pretentious and useless. Focus on presenting sophisticated ideas in simple language, rather than decorating simple ideas with sophisticated language. “Clarity is the key to effective communication” (2021).   

DON’T “memorise a response” (2019) of any kind. Even memorised introductions or singular paragraphs lack “connection to the set question” (2019), rendering them worse than useless: they have wasted your time.   

DON’T begin your essay’s introduction with  “lengthy, general observations about the text” (2022). At best, this just delays the beginning of your actual analysis, but at worst it wastes valuable time, and comes across as you “[lacking] confidence to directly address the question” (2022).   

DON’T try to talk about everything. “Inevitable, there will be content that students cannot discuss” (2020), so choose wisely, and choose what is most relevant.   

DON’T “conflate key ideas presented in the topic” (2020), or omit them. Once again, carefully considering all parts of the topic should be the foundation for your response.   

DON’T spend your time listing examples (2020). This is a task of analysis, and so evidence without an explanation of why it builds your argument will not help you form a high quality essay. “Those who simply discussed characters or plot points, without explaining how these were connected to the ideas and values of the author, struggled” in 2021.  

DON’T “dismiss the topic” (2021). While challenging the topic is encouraged, it does not allow you to write something irrelevant to the initial topic. If the topic mentions one character, you cannot write an essay about a totally different character – there must be some mention of the key character. Similarly, a topic which mentions certain themes is not inviting you to write an essay that ignores that theme, and promotes a different one as the most important. Explore the ideas you have been given.   

Section B: Comparative Text Response 

What you should do to score higher in comparative text response:.

DO ensure you “examine distinctions” (2017) as well as similarities. “Often, it is the differences in the texts that offer thoughtful insights and development of the topic” (2017).   

DO use “precise topic sentences” (2019) to convey your argument and upcoming conceptual exploration. A topic sentence which just mentions the examples you will use, or very broadly touches on the themes you will explore, is nowhere near as useful as one which establishes the precise line of argument you will make.   

DO use metalanguage to “[illuminate] meaningful comparisons and contrasts, recognising that textual events and protagonists are effectively vehicles for highlighting ideas and issues” (2019, 2020).   

DO view topics extremely closely. “Topics should never be viewed as loose prompts, but rather as carefully worded questions that offer clear parameters about what is to be explored” (2021). The phrases “careful consideration”, or “close consideration of the wording” (2020), are used when it comes to reading and unpacking your selected essay topic. As the 2020 report eloquently states, “No words in a topic are redundant”.   

DO ensure you are exposed to “different styles” (2020) of essay questions. This is an element of preparedness.  For Section B, this means especially topics which use quotation instead of a propositional statement to prompt a discussion of ideas.  

DO establish the concepts you’ll explore in your introduction. The Expected Qualities (ie the marking criteria for the exam) mention conceptual sophistication as a feature of a high-scoring response, and responses which “approach the question in a richly conceptual manner” were commended in 2020. Establishing such complexity in the introduction begins with the right impression, and ensures that your essay is geared towards a sufficiently thorough exploration.   

DO use a “tight and careful argumentative structure” (2021). “Structuring a clear and unified argument with which to resolve the chosen question…necessitated a clarity of intent from the outset of the comparative essay, as well as regulated and carefully sequenced topic sentences, leading to a logical conclusion” (2022).   

DO continue to evolve your argument throughout the essay. Crafting a “sustained and built upon” (2021) contention, which grows in nuance as evidence is analysed, demonstrates an organic and insightful thought process and strengthens the quality of your final conclusion.   

DON’T think you are adequately comparing just because you use terms like ‘similarly’ and ‘in contrast’. “These in themselves are not comparison. They are only the framework for connections to be made” (2017).  To reiterate, “using the words ‘conversely’ or ‘similarly’ and then offering more information about the second text is not an effective means of comparing the two texts” (2018).   

DON’T offer too much textual information, at the expense of analysis. “Offering a general narrative about the texts” (2017), “an account of the attributes of protagonists” (2019), “excessive plot focus or lengthy descriptive passages” (2017) harms “the capacity to focus on the essential ideas and issues” (2020). In other words, it limits the thematic exploration of your essay, as spending too “much time telling the story or setting the scene” (2018) wastes the time that should be used unpacking language and making connections between the themes of your texts.   

DON’T try to cover everything. “Many students insisted on covering the breadth of the text, which did not leave enough time for detailed focus on the most important sections…[use] the text to explore the topic rather than trying to discuss the entire text” (2018).   

DON’T confuse ‘compare’ and ‘discuss’. Some topics do “not necessarily invite qualification. They [are] decisive and asking for conclusions to be made through comparison” (2018). If a thematic idea is named, and the instruction is to compare the two texts’ explorations, you cannot dismiss the given idea and write about another theme.   

DON’T waste your introduction by making it generic. “Opening with imprecision, such as ‘both the novel and the film came with many advantages, disadvantages, similarities and differences’, or with a dictionary definition – ‘freedom the condition of being free or unrestricted is key them explored … ’ – will be unsuccessful, as this does not suffice to outline a complex notion to be further examined” (2019).   

DON’T try to make the topic what you want it to be. If you only “address one key word in a given topic”, you will “thereby [miss] its overall intended direction” (2022), writing an irrelevant essay which cannot score as highly as one which is slightly messier, but much more relevant to the question you’ve been asked.   

DON’T attempt to make your writing more linguistically complex than it needs to be. “The expression used should facilitate a complexity of thought, without being pretentious, such that logical reasoning is continuously apparent” (2022).   

Section C: Argument Analysis

What you should do to score higher in argument analysis:.

DO address the image. The Expected Qualities are specific in “defining the term ‘language’ as ‘written, spoken, and visual language’ and thus it [is] expected that students respond to any visual presented in the material” (2017).   

DO read the ‘Background Information’. This “sets the context from which the writers’ base their pieces” (2017), and allows you to more fully engage with the arguments presented.   

DO use comparison if you’re able to. While not mandatory in the examination, comparison can be used “to offer astute insight in how arguments and language were used by the writers to persuade” (2017).   

DO practice. Not that it should need to be said, but “students who scored most highly showed a confidence in analysing argument and language that comes with regular and authentic engagement with persuasive writing in many forms” (2017).   

DO write a fluent, contextual introduction (2018, 2022). “The best responses identified the overall purpose and intended audiences of the advertorial and letter, and used this as their context to structure their analysis of the key stages of the respective arguments and their purpose in positioning the reader” (2019, 2020). In essence, outlining the context demonstrates understanding, and allows for holistic analysis of the argumentative piece.   

DO analyse the construction of the piece (2017, 2018). “Students identify contentions, supporting arguments and relevant language use but [do] not always demonstrate understanding of how the argument develops and functions, how language is used to persuade and why it is intended to impact on the audience in a particular way. This is analysis” (2021).   

DO use “simple, accurate descriptors of tone” (2019, 2020). This also applies to tonal shifts throughout a piece. Complex vocabulary is not necessary, and using a word due to its sophistication, rather than its accuracy, harms the precision of your analysis. It is the analysis of “how the tone and/or tone change impacted the argument and audience” (2020) which will allow the nuance and sophistication of your ideas to be conveyed.   

DO comment on “language in context” (2019). Establishing the general connotations of a word is useful, for example, but linking it to exactly how it applies to the author’s argument is where it makes its true impact.   

DO note if there is more than one audience. Many articles have a “mixed audience” (2020), and recognising how different techniques appeal to audiences differently elevates your analysis, allowing it to be both more precise, and cover a broader range of persuasive techniques.   

DO be as specific as you can. Employ “a clear focus on particular arguments” (2020), and avoid creating a general discussion of what was said.   

DO focus on the “complexities” of the author’s argument (2021, 2022). Also mentioned in 2020, this practically means examining what wider motives the author might have for putting forth this argument and his/her ethical considerations.   

DO draw on pieces of language from across the article. Focusing on only one section of the article means losing valuable material, and likely indicates you have missed a key argument, or at least persuasive technique. “An ability to work across the material”, particularly when examining how one argument is dealt with in multiple ways, is “another mark of higher-scoring responses” (2022).   

DON’T label techniques if you aren’t going to analyse them. Students “[listing] a series of techniques” was a complaint in every single assessor’s report for this study design (that is, from 2017 through to 2022). One piece of advice is consistently repeated in reference to this problem: “Identification is only the first step”. You “need to analyse how and why the argument is being developed in this way, and what persuasive impact on the audience is intended” (2019).   

DON’T skim over material. Particularly when more than one persuasive piece is given, “there is no expectation that discussions be equally balanced,” but “the material presented needs to be dealt with meaningfully” (2017).    

DON’T fall into summary. “Achievement in Section C [is] limited by student dependence on summary, restatement and paraphrasing, and their failure to analyse” (2021). To watch out for this, the pattern of comments such as ‘he speaks about’, ‘he then goes onto’, ‘he talks about’ and ‘he mentions that’ are clear indicators that the student is simply summarising and restating argument, not analysing it” (2020, 2021).   

DON’T use excessively long quotations. A “reliance on extraneous quoting” makes “lengthy paragraphs” which are “simply forms of summary and paraphrasing, with dozens of single words and phrases in quotation marks making up the bulk of the work. Students may be under the misapprehension that they are analysing language when they do this; in reality, they are simply copying from the paper. Any quoted language should be accompanied by analysis. Otherwise, the quoting becomes part of summary.” (2022)   

DON’T ignore connotations. “Why did the author choose to use these particular words? How did they add weight to the argument? What impact was [the author] seeking to have on his audience by using them?” (2020).  

DON’T make evaluative judgements. This is “not relevant to the examination task” (2020) and, just to reiterate, it “has no relevance in examination analysis” (2021).   

DON’T list a series of tonal descriptors. “Gratuitous listings…caused some concerns. Students needed to show evidence of particular tone descriptors, link it to the author’s language choices and show how this impacted the argument and the audience” (2021). “Unnecessary”, “exaggerated” and “contradictory” listings of tone were also condemned in 2022.   

DON’T be general. “Too many students offered a general discussion rather than analysing specific impact on the audience” in 2019, and the use of “comments such as ‘grab the readers’ attention’ or ‘to get the reader interested’ are too generalised and vague” (2019).  

DON’T structure your essay based on the chronological order of the material. Moving “through the material paragraph by paragraph…often [results] in excessively long and repetitious responses” (2022).   

DON’T write “lengthy, descriptive introductions” (2022). “These [add] very little quality to the analysis, and the student [is] wasting valuable time that would [be] better spent on examining the development of the argument.” (2022)  

Conclusion 

And, lastly, one final piece of advice – arguably, the most important. From the 2017 assessor’s report, the oldest in the current study design: DO “write with confidence”.   

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Woolf Essay Prize 2024

The Woolf Essay Prize 2024 has now closed. Check back here in January 2025 for the 2025 competition!

In 1928, Virginia Woolf addressed the Newnham Arts Society on the Subject of ‘Women and Fiction’, and from this talk emerged her seminal text,  A Room of One’s Own . Newnham is very proud of its place in the history of women’s education, and we are delighted in the continuation of the Woolf Essay Prize.  A Room of One’s Own  raises a number of questions surrounding the place of women in society, culture, and education, and the competition allows students to contemplate these themes and ideas while developing the independent research and writing skills essential to university-level study.

This year, the Woolf Essay Prize is open to all Women in Year 12 (or equivalent), regardless of school or country. For more information, including the question list, word limit, and submission details, please consult the Information and Questions document. The deadline for submission is 09:00am BST on Monday 8th July 2024. For any queries not answered here, please contact [email protected].

The Woolf Essay Prize will run separately to our Essay Writing Masterclass Programme , which encompasses a variety of subject interests.

This prize may be of particular interest to those studying English Literature, History, Politics, Philosophy or Sociology, but we absolutely welcome entries from interested students studying any combination of subjects.

Find out more about  studying English Literature  at University of Cambridge

Meet  Shakespeare scholar Dr Bonnie Lander-Johnson

Please note information submitted as part of this competition will be used by the College for the purposes of assessing your essay as part of the Woolf Essay Prize. Certain personal details (questions 24-33 in the submission form) may also inform research which includes evaluation of the effectiveness of this programme for different types of participant, and equalities monitoring. All essay submissions are retained by the College permanently in the College Archive, with winning entries additionally published on the Newnham College website. If you have any questions about the use of your data, please contact [email protected] in the first instance.

Information about how your personal information will be used by us in connection with the administration of this event/activity, and for related purposes, is available here .

George Clooney argues in new op-ed that Democratic Party needs a new nominee

WASHINGTON - American actor George Clooney, a high-profile supporter of President Joe Biden, argued in an op-ed that the Democratic party needs a new nominee.

“We are not going to win in November with this president. On top of that, we won’t win the House, and we’re going to lose the Senate,” wrote Clooney in a New York Times piece published Wednesday. 

“This isn’t only my opinion; this is the opinion of every senator and congress member and governor that I’ve spoken with in private. Every single one, irrespective of what he or she is saying publicly.” he added. 

Clooney, a self-described lifelong Democrat, was among a group of A-list celebrities that co-hosted a glitzy Hollywood fundraiser last month for Biden’s campaign that brought in $30 million.

But in his op-ed, Clooney said Biden was not the same person at the fundraiser in Los Angeles that he’s known for years, writing that the one battle Biden can’t win is the “fight against time.”

"It’s devastating to say it, but the Joe Biden I was with three weeks ago at the fund-raiser was not the Joe “ big F-ing deal ” Biden of 2010. He wasn’t even the Joe Biden of 2020. He was the same man we all witnessed at the debate," Clooney wrote.

Actor and filmmaker Rob Reiner wrote on X, formerly Twitter , that Clooney "has clearly expressed what many of us have been saying."

"We love and respect Joe Biden. We acknowledge all he has done for our country. But Democracy is facing an existential threat. We need someone younger to fight back. Joe Biden must step aside," he wrote.

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VCAA 2020 Analysing Argument | Language Analysis - Part 1

July 15, 2021

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Go ahead and tilt your mobile the right way (portrait). the kool kids don't use landscape....

For a detailed guide on Language Analysis, what you're expected to cover, how to prepare for your SAC and Exam and more, check out our Ultimate Guide to VCE Language Analysis .

[Modified Video Transcription]

Analyse the VCAA 2020 Article With Me 

I'm so excited to be doing the VCAA 2020 English Exam with you. I have done these Analysing Argument pieces before on YouTube, but this is the first time that I'm doing one live. I wanted to do one live with you guys because I wanted to interact with you, for you to be able to ask me questions and for you to see how my brain works in a live setting. When it comes to analysing - and you know I've got an edited version for you - you don't see me thinking through and understanding what's happening in the article itself. So, I think it will be really handy for you to see my thought processes because sometimes, yeah, you can see somebody's analysis, but if you don't quite understand HOW they arrived at that analysis, then it's not that helpful for you. It's like reading an essay that's already been done by an A+ student and you go, yeah, okay, I kind of get that, but how did they get there? How did they find that language technique to begin with? How did they find that argument? So that's what I want to work with you guys today.

You can download VCAA 2020 English past exam HERE , which is what we're going through today. If you've already read it before, even if you've done it before, I'm confident I'll still be able to give you some new, interesting perspectives and to pick out some new language techniques for you guys. So, go ahead and make sure you download that and print it out. I think printing things out is usually a better option than trying to annotate online, unless you've got an iPad or equivalent. The exam is absolutely free - it's the last few pages of the exam, starting at page 11.

Let's just get into it. I don't think I have any other housekeeping pointers except that throughout this live stream, I'm going to direct you to where you can actually go and get the A+ completed essay I've got for this article. While we're going to be analysing this together now, I think it's handy for you to be able to see an A+ completed version of everything that we've talked about. Then you can take it from the very beginning (the analysis), then the annotations and then you can finally see the written-up version. Being able to take you through that entire process from start to finish is going to be so wholesome, so fabulous.

Pay Attention to the Background Information

Whenever you look at section C, which is Analysing Argument also called Language Analysis (I'm going to interchange these two terms), you really need to ensure that you read the background information. I know it's super obvious, but background information is there for a reason, do not skip over it! 

They didn't just give you an entire extra page just for the sake of it. Usually, the background information is a really great place for you to understand conceptually what is going on in this article. If we didn't have this background and therefore context to the article, there's a chance that you might accidentally come up with the wrong contention. You might misinterpret the arguments as something else. The background information is really just there for backup. It's a great place for you to ensure that what you're understanding from the article is actually correct because usually the background information is filled with facts and these facts will help shape your understanding of the article.

Let’s Read the Background Information Together

‘The shire of Byways in regional Victoria depends on both farmers and tourists for its prosperity. The local community is concerned about the increased recreational use of drones by many of the tourists visiting the area. The following is the transcript of a speech’

Ah! Interesting - 'transcript of a speech' is something that makes me go already yep, I need to make sure I note this because as soon as I recognise that it's a speech, it means that my audience, I don't call them readers, I call them listeners . 

Simple things, small things will help differentiate you from other students. Someone else might not pick up that this is a speech and they'll just say readers the entire time. And no, you're not really going to get marks deducted for it, but there's an element of finesse I suppose. If you just notice that small nuance and you're able to present that in your essay, it makes the examiner or assessor more confident that you know what you're doing.

'by young farmer Warwick Bandle at a public meeting'

Interesting, ‘public meeting’.

'called by the Byways Shire Council to discuss the community’s concerns.'

It's interesting because I'm already getting this community vibe from this background information. The fact that it's regional Victoria, the fact that it's actually a very specific council, the fact that he's at a public meeting. People have taken time out of their day to go to the council meeting. Who goes to the council meeting? People who care. This is just something that I'm kind of noting for myself as I go into my analysis because then I'll be able to develop my analysis in a particular way. 

'Bandle provided two images to be projected on a screen to accompany his speech.' 

Okay, cool, all this does is tell me that I just need to be wary that there are two images and that I, as a student, need to talk about them .

Analysing Paragraph One

He says, 'Good evening, everyone', already indicative of a speech, I'm just going to write that down. Remember that it's a speech!

'Drones and their inexperienced users are proving to be a costly problem for us farmers. Drones are not toys. What happens when a drone flies out of range? What happens when the battery runs out? A drone being flown out of control, or crashing out of the sky, can be lethal.' 

Wow. Okay, this is what I think when I read an article, I genuinely think about my own personal response. I mean, I am actually the audience of this article. No, I'm not there at the council listening to him live, but I'm still a person who's absorbing what he's saying. I trust my instinct and my gut feeling, and that kind of leads me to develop my own unique interpretations. The reason why I said 'Wow' is because he uses the word 'lethal'. To me, it's a little bit of an exaggeration. I mean I'm sure drones have killed people before, but I guess it's like an I'm serious about this, we're not joking around and he's making it seem like this is a serious problem and that we need to address it seriously. So in that sense, I guess we could talk a little bit about tone. What tone do you think he's using?

Viewers from our live stream suggested:

Nice! I like all of these. I don't think there's anything wrong with them. When it comes to English, it's a matter of your own interpretation. As long as you can back it up, then you've got yourself straight. You can go and find my 195 Tones PDF , which you can download for free. You can use that whenever you analyse an article, it has a bunch of tones listed there for you so that you never run out of tones! 

He's already set this tone for the remainder of the article. I'm interested in what he's going to say next. Otherwise, I think the fact that he's serious or alarmist is reaffirmed by what he's saying. He says, 'drones are not toys'. Okay. This is not a game, we're not playing around, we're not fooling around. And I suppose that's important for him to establish because drones are kind of seen as toys, at least for me anyway. When drones first came out, it was kind of like a toy aeroplane that you drive around with your remote control. So, I think he's dispelling that idea or that conception or perception of drones immediately so that we can be on board with whatever he's saying next.

LSG’s Specificity and Simplicity Strategy

I just wanted to point out, this is pretty obvious, but rhetorical questions. There's not necessarily much I would say at this point in time with rhetorical questions, and that's because of my SPECIFICITY and SIMPLICITY strategy . If you don't know much about that - I haven't talked much about it on my YouTube channel - it's a strategy that I developed for myself in Year 12 when I couldn't figure out why I wasn't getting full marks in English and yeah, okay, I was a nerd, I was already getting 17 or 18 out of 20, but you know, the high achiever in me was kind of like, why am I not getting 19 out of 20? Why am I not getting 20 out of 20? Why am I losing these one or two marks?

I realised later on that it's because I wasn't being SPECIFIC enough with my analysis. So, when it comes to some of the comments (referring to comments from live stream) you guys have written, one of you wrote down 'emotive language'. If you're one of my students, you know that you don't use emotive language. Emotive language is way too broad. It's way too general to really mean anything. Instead of saying emotive language, why don't you say exactly what emotion they're appealing to. You're then taking that general vagueness of whatever emotive language means and replacing it with something very specific, and therefore, it's going to be more meaningful for you to write about, but also for your assessor to understand what you're going on about.

So in case you don't know, I have study guides (it is called Lisa's Study Guides after all). In How To Write A Killer Language Analysis I actually go through this golden strategy of SIMPLICITY and SPECIFICITY . This is what helped me get an A+ in my Analysing Argument and in my end of year exam. If you're interested, then I'd highly recommend that you go and check out the study guide. It's a world of value I promise.

More Analysis of Paragraph One

We're still only on the introduction, which is crazy, there's just so much to say when it comes to this stuff. 

‘Just imagine the damage that can be done by a falling drone. Imagine, then, these drone users, realising that they have lost their drone, searching, crashing through crops, or leaving gates open and letting livestock out. And finally, when they don’t find the drone, it’s just left to rust away in the field until harvest time, when it’s swept up, damaging the harvester.’

I guess there's this idea of 'imagine'. He's building upon that alarmist attitude, which I'll pull from what you guys are saying, and by asking us to 'imagine' the worst-case scenario, it's making us feel more and more concerned, right? Just by reading this, I go ew, I don't want these drone users to be losing their drones in my farm space, in my land . 

One other point for you to think about is, I was talking before about how I am part of the audience too, right? But the next step from that, for a more advanced analysis, is to think about who is HE talking to? If we go back to the prior page, he's at a public meeting to address the community's concerns. You could say that part of the audience would be farmers, people who care about their livestock, people who care about the invasion of privacy and people stepping on their property. Remember this as you analyse, because it's going to make your analysis way more specific, and bonus tip, assessors, teachers, examiners - they love it when you can be specific with who the audience is. It shows that you're capable and you get it.

Even just in this first paragraph, we've managed to talk about quite a bit.

Let's Look at Your Questions:

• I think my target audience is probably farmers. I say probably just because I want to keep reading to understand exactly who he's talking about, these are just my assumptions, just from reading the first part of the article.
• In terms of how you can incorporate tone into a body paragraph, you can do it as simple as actually just talking about the tone or you can integrate it with another language technique. Remember just before we were talking about rhetorical questions and how the repetitive use of 'imagine' kind of builds upon that sense of concern in the audience? You could link that back to his tone and say, 'By building up this concern, he's using his serious tone in order to persuade the audience to...' .

Analysing the Photograph

You absolutely need to talk about it. We've got this photograph of this girl who seems to be a bit of a dark shadow and because she's a dark shadow I'd say that it's like she is an anonymous person. The sense is that this could be anyone and by making the person anonymous, like a blank face, it's easier for us to hate on them because it kind of takes the humanity away. If you don't know who it is, they're just drone invaders. They're people who don't respect our land. That's one point that I would talk about. 

Then you've got that really focused point of view of the drone itself. It makes sense because the drone is the topic of this conversation, so it's the focal point you could say, and it reconfirms or reaffirms that idea of it just crashing out of the sky, crashing through crops or being left to rust away. Remember, imagine that we're in the council meeting, he's put this image up for us and he's saying this. I think about it as how does having the photograph there on a presenter with him talking about it, how does that change how I respond? I think about how I feel and what I think, which is something that we talked about in one of my previous videos, called How to write a Language Analysis (Analysing Argument) - we talk about the TEE rule. In my opinion, when I have that photograph right there in front of me, it definitely makes me angrier. It's more confronting because it's in your face and it definitely riles me up more. So, you could include that in your analysis as well. 

Pay Attention to the Structure of Articles/Arguments

The way that he has structured his argument, in the sense that he's structured where he positions his photograph (which is basically right after his introduction), makes me feel more inclined to agree with him. Whereas, if it was just him saying it (without an image as proof), then I'd actually have to just take his word for it. But, here's proof people are doing this!

A viewer says ‘she's dressed for the city and outside of, not part of the community’ - I love it, well done!

Another viewer says ‘the camera angle gives the allusion that she's dominant’ - interesting.

I think to extrapolate what you're saying, that dominance, as somebody who's part of the local community, I don't want that. I don't want somebody else to be dominating over my crib, my place! So it's kind of making me really deterred and making me want to steer clear. It makes me want these people to steer clear of my space.

A viewer says ‘the lack of crop suggests that drones have destroyed the normal way of farming’ - yeah, absolutely! Not only is there rubbish in their plot of land, but if anything, the drone has added to the destruction.

She's dominant, therefore she's a threat.

A viewer says ‘she believes that the black and white makes it gloomy and sad’ - a hundred percent. This is actually a really good point. Sometimes you can get so absorbed in the analysis that you only think about what's there in front of you, but a great way to create contrast and to understand what's there when it's so obvious is by considering what things would be like if it were otherwise. Basically, what I'm saying is, think about why it is black and white. Why is it not in colour? If it was in colour, how would that change your perception of what's happening here? Thinking about what's NOT there helps you understand what IS there.

You can talk about how it's good versus evil.

I wanted to just share with you guys because I won't be able to go through all of this today, but I did mention before that I do want to show you the A+ sample essay. It's in my How To Write A Killer Language Analysis study guide in Chapter 16, Section 10. We've actually recently updated it with the 2020, 2019 & 2017 past English Exams, so it's all A+ essays for you. Plus we have several A+ essays for single articles, double articles and triple articles with images as well. 

We've talked a little bit about the photograph, which by the way, we could keep finding more and more, but I think it gets to a certain point where you kind of have to figure out what's valuable for you to talk about and what's not so much. Once you get good enough at Analysing Argument, you should have an excess of language techniques to choose from and then it's just a matter of deciding which ones are going to give you that advantage and which ones are going to help you stand out from the rest of the cohort.

Analysing Paragraph Two

‘It’s time our council started to defend the farmers rather than the tourists’

That's juicy - ‘our council’

What I'm thinking about here is, he's saying 'our council', but he's using inclusive language - 'our'. There's this sense of ownership, this is our space, this is our community.

'Defend farmers rather than the tourists'

Now he's creating a dichotomy between farmers and tourists. I love the word dichotomy; essentially, it just means a true opposition - farmers versus tourists. The way that I remember the word is di as a prefix usually means divide or division, to split things in half. So it's creating this dichotomy of us versus them. And the way that I build upon this - I'm just thinking ahead with an essay - is I'd probably connect it to this girl; there's this sense of ‘us’ and ‘them’. ‘Them’ is a threat. ‘Them’ is an outsider. ‘Them’ is all the things that we mentioned before, but ‘us’, he hasn't said too much about ‘us’ yet. So maybe he's going to build upon that here. 

'The farmers are the backbone of this community'. 

Okay. He is building upon it. This paragraph seems like it's more about the farmers and building the 'us'

'farmers are the backbone of this community, many of us having lived in this area for generations.'

This has been our space forever and look at these intruders coming in now. How rude!

‘While we understand the importance to our town of visitors supporting businesses and, indeed, have welcomed the holiday-makers, when they start causing havoc while searching for their wayward drones it’s time to say, ‘Enough!’’

'when they' - there's that dichotomy again - ‘start causing havoc’. 

Another word that kind of adds to that sense of them being a threat, them being intruders while searching for their wayward drones is ‘it’s time to say, ‘Enough!’’.

Build Your Vocabulary

I actually don't know what wayward means, so if this happens, and this stuff happens all the time, what I do is actually look it up in the dictionary and understand it because I know that if I don't know what this word means, it probably means that the majority of other people also don't know what this word means. It, therefore, gives me a potential advantage, because if I'm able to analyse it, there's something that not as many people would have analysed. 

So, wayward means difficult to control or predict because of willful or perverse behaviour.

In my own interpretation, I guess it's unpredictable. If I build upon this idea more, I guess there's a sense of loss of control and this builds upon that idea that farmers are losing control of their plot of land and their privacy. You can kind of see this is how my mind works and I just try to sync everything back up to the contention and to what he's saying essentially. That's actually quite a bit that we went through in that little bit there.

I'm just going to have a look at your comments now.

A viewer says 'dichotomy simplifies a debate for an audience to make it seem a neutral position is not possible and consequently one must pick a side.' Thank you, that's actually really helpful.

Analysing Paragraph Three

'Don’t get me wrong! I’m not just another technophobe' 

Oh, quickly. I just want to go back while we understand the importance of our town, of visitors supporting businesses, I think there's this acknowledging the opposition, acknowledging that there are benefits in having visitors. He's not completely tunnel-visioned. He is being fairer, or at least that's how he's portraying himself, and that makes me at least more inclined to side with him because I'm seeing that he's a little bit more rational and he's not just saying, oh, screw them . It's not just his way or the highway, there is some give or take, so that kind of makes him more credible in a sense.

The reason why I thought about that just then is because this next part, ‘Don’t get me wrong! I’m not just another technophobe’, builds to this idea as well. I'm just going to say acknowledging the opposition . There, you can finesse that by replacing the word opposition with something else. That's fine. 

‘I'm not just another technophobe’

He's kind of anticipating people's reactions to what he's saying and he's going no, no, no, I'm not like that. It's all good, not just another person complaining about technology.

As a young farmer’

I just find that hilarious. He's young guys, okay?! He's not some old person, I guess that’s the stereotype, that old people don't fare well with technology, which I don't think is true by the way. I think everyone's getting on board with technology these days. But, he's kind of reaffirming, I'm young guys, I'm a cool guy, I'm not anti-tech at all. He literally says it 'I'm introducing new tech'. I'm on board with that, you know, ‘we’re using drones’. 

Shifts in Tone

Now he's kind of talking about the benefits of drones, the time and the money they save. 

‘There is absolutely no way we want to ban drones.’

I think this is a really interesting way he's structuring his argument. He's kind of started off going, drones, they're so bad for you . Then he's showing this picture, which is kind of like drones, they suck. And then in this paragraph here, he differentiates farmers from outsiders, and then he kind of takes a turn and goes, no, I love drones, don’t get me wrong. I think there's this analysis there for you and I'd actually love for you guys to write down in the comments section what you think is going on? Why is he structuring his argument like this?

A viewer says 'there's a shift in tone' Absolutely! Love it. Great pickup.

Here's a tip for you guys. A shift in tone usually means that there's a new argument coming. They usually tie in together pretty well, so if you see a shift in tone, you can kind of hedge the bet that it's a new argument. This is particularly helpful if it's an article that's really hard. Usually for SACs, teachers will choose articles from newspapers and we all know that newspaper articles are way tougher than VCAA articles. If you don't know, it's true. 

Another viewer says 'it may be the start of rebuttal' Interesting.

A viewer asks 'will these annotations be provided for our personal use at the end?' - I'm only actually uploading the annotations into my study guide . So, they will be accessible there. Otherwise, it's just access through the live stream video (linked at top of page), which will be posted up afterwards as well.

A viewer says 'By stating he's young and uses drones, it showcases his argument isn't based on personal bias towards young people or drones, but is a legitimate problem.' - Hmm. With your analysis, I'm not a hundred percent sure what you're saying. I think it could be a little bit clearer. Give that a go. Just try rewriting it, see if you can make it even more concise.

Let’s Recap What We’ve Analysed So Far

So we've managed to annotate the background information, paragraph one, the photograph, paragraph two and paragraph three. We still have one more paragraph left and this next page with the image.

Unfortunately, I have to wrap it up there, but if you want to see me annotate and analyse the rest of this article, head over to Part 2 on Youtube where I finish this off.

Have a go at analysing the rest of the article yourself though!

Don't forget that I've got my How To Write A Killer Language Analysis study guide. If you want to head over there you can access/download the annotations + a complete A+ essay based on this article.

Get our FREE VCE English Text Response mini-guide

Now quite sure how to nail your text response essays? Then download our free mini-guide, where we break down the art of writing the perfect text-response essay into three comprehensive steps. Click below to get your own copy today!

Access a FREE sample of our How To Write A Killer Language Analysis study guide

• Learn LSG's unique SIMPLICITY and SPECIFICITY strategy which has helped hundreds of students achieve A+
• Includes annotated sample A+ essays (including responses to past VCAA exams)
• Learn how to analyse single articles and visuals , and comparative analysis (analysing 2 or 3 articles/visuals together)
• Different types of essay structures broken down so you understand what to do and what not to do with confidence

For a detailed guide on Language Analysis including how to prepare for your SAC and exam, check out our Ultimate Guide to VCE Language Analysis .

[Video Transcription 1]

Hey guys. Can you believe it is November already? Holy cow. Time flies so quickly. All my Year 12s have finished now, so if you're still here with me ... you must be in Year 11 or below, or you could be a Year 12 that's already finished, but you still enjoy my videos. I'm on to you. If you didn't know already, I do have a personal YouTube channel. So head on over there if you guys have finished the year for English because I'd still really love to stay in contact with you. I've previously done this segment before and when I started it, everyone fell in love with it. So I created the segment a while ago now, and I have done one article... Actually it was two articles so far. If you haven't looked at those ones, I'd recommend you go ahead and check it out. But this one, I'm going to do a 2001 analyzing argument article. The reason why I choose really old articles is because I feel like the more recent ones you probably end up doing at school, or you will probably do it in your own time. If not, you've probably already done it. That's why I want to leave those ones to you guys, maybe eventually I'll get up to it. But I want to be able to show you guys a little bit more, so that's why I choose really old ones, but it's still relevant to the course. Don't think that just because it's done in 2001, which is forever ago, what, were you born there? Oh, my gosh. I just realized that some of you could have, yeah. Anyways, the aim of today is just to go through the article, try to identify what the language techniques are and understand how they are persuasive or at least how the author intends them to persuade the audience. Actually, down the track we will talk more about structure, more at looking at arguments, that type of thing. But the goal here is more just about identification and understanding language techniques. So let's just get started. With this particular one, you'll see that it is on a website, so you could analyze that in itself. But since I don't have it in front of me, I'm not going to, and I'm just going to look at the actual article itself. "Keep healthy the informed way. Get in early. Get your Medi-Info card today." Automatically this might appeal to readers because it's saying "Keep healthy the informed way," as though if they don't take onboard whatever this person is recommending them, then they won't be informed and so they're missing out on something. There's also this sense of urgency, "Get in early." "All of the world health professionals and their patients are waking up to the possibilities of the Medi-Info, MI Card." So "All over the world" is indicative of a global profile so this indicates that if it's good enough for the rest of the world, then surely it must be good enough for Australians like you and me. So that may invite readers to jump on-board with whatever this Medi-Info Card is about. "Health professionals and their patients." "Health professionals and their patients" goes to show that if these people are recommending it and they are embracing the card, such as doctors or dentists or physiotherapists, then it's a really fantastic endorsement about that card and the product and what it's worth. Therefore, we should also support the product, too, either that could fall under the fact that they have credentials and so we trust them. "Waking up to the possibility." So "possibilities" definitely has positive connotations. It's this idea of endless potential and so there is a lot to be gained from the card. "Driven by breakthrough technology, the microchip-powered and credit-sized Medi-Info Card contains the info that carers and patients need to have now, on the spot, on time, on the screen." So "breakthrough technology" itself, "microchip-powered," they both indicate that this idea is cutting-edge. For us, this may persuade readers because there's this idea that the latest tech often means the most effective or it's most likely to enhance your living. The fact that it's credit-sized means that it is also portable. It's lightweight. What do you think this could mean for readers? It's user-friendly. How does this persuade them? It could persuade a person to adopt this card and take it on-board because it seems like it's convenient, it's easy to use. And it's not going to be a burden on them because all they need to do is really just throw it into their wallet. Now "on the spot, on time, on screen" really seems to push the idea of what do you think? Sorry, if it's out of focus. It's because I'm not looking at the camera. It could appeal to our desire to have things instantaneously. We're in the generation where things pop up in our face all the time, like notifications, shipping happens overnight. We just want things straightaway. So it could be that, but also this idea that this card is available any time and the information is accessible for you 24/7 so it's convenient. So I'll put that in below as well. "This is the ultimate cool techno accessory." Okay. "Cool techno" itself is a bit of slang, or you could say that it's colloquial language to try to appeal to readers who may be interested in the latest tech, or people who want to keep up with the trend or the latest fashion accessories, for example. But there's this added benefit, it will actually save your life. Then this person moves on to say, "Imagine you have an accident and are taken to hospital. Without the MI card in your wallet, can you be sure that vital information won't be missed? Think what the card might reveal." "Imagine itself" is a hypothetical situation. It's trying to get readers to see that the MI is a valuable tool. It has benefits that readers just cannot ignore and just between you and me, it could also appeal to our sense of FOMO. FOMO is not something that you would write into your essay itself, but there's this fear that if you don't have it, well, then what could potentially happen? It could be really bad. So then there's all these dot points about what the card reveals, so it's those features, that for you, it comes back to the idea that all of these are the benefits that you can have. You can have also reassurance as a result because you know that all your information is there. People can access it when they need to, or when you're in times of need so then that in itself could relate to this idea of safety or comfort. "All this and more can be downloaded fast from your MI Card. No forms to fill in. No stressful interviews about your medical history. No gaps because you're too stressed to remember your health details or insurance information." Okay. This idea that it can be downloaded fast is, again, convenient. It's not going to take up too much of your time. It's going to be really quick as well. "No forms, no stressful interviews," so these two together will eliminate any of your negative experiences that you've previously had working with health professionals or the health sector. There's this idea of this simple, straightforward approach and this idea that there are no gaps, either. You might be fearful that because you're not providing all the information that you have because you just don't know it, then maybe you won't get the right type of treatment or people won't be able to look after you properly. But in this case, there's this sense of security that you'll be looked after. "And there's more. It can even show you that in the event of your death, you want to live on as an organ donor." Organ donor itself has positive connotations. Everybody knows that if you're an organ donor, wow, you're very selfless and you're very giving, so this is like an added bonus that can make you feel better as a person. "You could give someone else the chance of a new life." If you're able to do this, it puts you in power, so you could say that you feel empowered as a result. "What about security?" All of this section here maybe you could say specifically appeal to an audience who might be more concerned about security and about the information being put online or into this tool. Then the rest of it, it's pretty straightforward as well. It'll work pretty much anywhere, so this idea that you're always going to be covered. "You can trust our technology. Get the Medi-Card Info today. Keep healthy the informed way," and then the rest of it, "Send in your stories of medical emergencies." Because I just want to keep this short, I think I'll leave it there. You could say that with this part, there's this very enthusiastic tone that's carried through the entire thing. Okay, cool. So I am just going to leave it there. I hope that was helpful to some extent, just to get you started and to get you thinking about some of the language techniques that might be there. How did you guys go? I would actually really love to hear what kind of language techniques you found in the comment section below. But if you've got any questions for me, then please leave them as well because I know I haven't gone into this in immense detail, but yeah, hopefully you're able to walk away and learn something from it. So if you like this type of thing, don't forget, I have an online course that's called How To Achieve A Plus In A Language Analysis? There's lots and lots of information there and videos that are around five hours long for you. Around 300 students have taken the course and it's rated something like 4.5 and above, so hopefully that's a good indication that it is actually really helpful. So next week when I see you guys, we're going to go into part two, the article where it's about the family doctor. So I'd encourage you guys to go and analyze that yourself, and then let's reconvene next Friday and work through it. Hopefully this will prepare you guys in Year 11 for your end-of-year exam. Bye guys!

[Video Transcription 2]

Hey guys, so welcome back to part two. If you were here last week, then you know that I have already analyzed part one article for you and now we're moving into part two. You can just download the PDF for this language analysis article just down below in the description box, but let's just get started. Okay, so, "I am a doctor with over 35 years experience." So automatically this doctor is establishing his credentials. So with credentials, it usually means that as an audience, we are impressed and we are respectful of this person and trust their opinion, especially if it's 35 years. "I know what it is to be called to a local school in an emergency and find a child suffering from asthma, unable to tell me what medication has previously been prescribed. I know what it is to see older patients, day after day who experienced wariness and confusion in trying to remember all the medication they are taking." So when he says, "I know what it is," these are first hand experiences. It shows, again, and compounds on the idea that this guy is indeed experienced in the field and we should trust anyone, I guess, we should kind of trust the doctor, right, because he's exposed to this type of stuff every single day. It also shows that he is empathetic, which is a great quality to see in a doctor, because he seems to suffer as well when his patients are suffering. So with that in mind, as an audience, we are more inclined to like him and to value his opinion because he has directly been impacted as a result. When he talks about a child with asthma, it's a very interesting scenario to choose, he could have talked about anyone, he decides to talk about a child. So potentially what this could do is appeal to a particular audience, for example, it could be parents, it could be other people suffering asthma, for example. But let's say if we're parents, generally we're... I say, we like I'm a parent, I'm not a parent. But we're protective towards young people, and you want to remove them from needless suffering as a result. Again, "Those who experienced weariness and confusion," potentially that could appeal to the elderly. So, if you're somebody who's older and you're starting to experience the fact that you're getting a little bit confused or you're forgetting things, then this might really appeal to you and speak to you because it could be the answer that you're looking for. "I recently heard about the pain and distress of a patient who suffered an epileptic fit while far from home. Unfortunately, everyone around him, unaware that he had mild fits, assumed he was drunk and ignored him." So this part here, like recalling a story, it shows the unfairness of the situation. That this person who was having epileptic fit, would have a much more positive outcome should he have had an MI card. And we feel sorry for him because nobody should have to experience their illness and be alienated or judged on by the community or by the public. So as a result, we may be encouraged to go out there and get our own and MI card or recommend our friends or family who we know are, who may be suffering from illnesses to get an MI card. "We can all sympathize with this lad", so that itself is quite easy. What is it, guys? Inclusive language. So if you don't know already, inclusive language engages the audience because it encourages them to feel included and responsible in whatever the author is talking about, so we feel like there's something that we can do in this case. "This lad," that's quite colloquial, why do you think he does that? So maybe it shows that this doctor isn't just a doctor who's distant and unfeeling, but he sees us, patients, as people and as friends, people that he cares about. And so, again, we're more inclined to listen to this doctor because we see him in a positive light. "He can no longer feel confident when he goes out." So this is, again, like so unfair, nobody should go out and feel like they can't be confident. If this is something that's taken away from the person, but a Medi-Info Card could help relieve them of that, then maybe they should do it, maybe we should stop advocating for MI cards. "We can all sympathize," do you guys know what that is? Generalization. Generalization is when it's indicated that everyone agrees, like we can all sympathize because if you don't seem like you sympathize, well then you're kind of that a-hole in the corner that's like being rude and not caring while everyone else is. So of course you're kind of more inclined to want to agree and sympathize and therefore support MI card. "As a doctor," so yet again, that kind of goes back to like the credentials. "I know that in emergency, he would have been given vital help he required immediately." So this sense of instantaneous, there's no waiting involved, everything happens straight away. So we can trust Medi-Info, it's going to do its job at making sure that people are well looked after. "All Australians," same thing, generalization. "Young or old, sick or well, bush or city, close," so this starts to appeal that to lots of different people. "Lives that are free from anxiety," so appeals to their sense of freedom or this idea that this person couldn't feel confident anymore. We don't want them to go out there and feel anxious either, right? You can see from all the different lines and where they're going, that I try to make connections to other parts of the article as I go through the piece, because I think it's really important to be able to look at things on more holistic scale than rather just one thing on a micro level. This means that you're able to better understand the contention, as well as the arguments that the author uses to build up that contention. So let's finish this one off, "The Medi Card doesn't waste people's time," for people who are very conscious of their time and want to be productive, it could appeal to them. "Safe and secure," excellent, so we know that. We spoke about this last time with the MI, giving you security and comfort. And also you can also say that there's alliteration here, it's just as a side note though, I would much rather you guys talk about security and safety and how that appeals to people. And "My work as a doctor would improve," I mean, if you really wanted to, you could even like put that together with as a doctor, and then it goes back to credentials. "If I had more time to talk to my patients, they would be improved." Duh, duh, duh. Cool. "To me, your Medi-Info Card means peace of mind for everyone." Okay, so what do you guys think of that? I'm not going to analyze it, I'm going to ask you guys to analyze it and put it down in the comment section below for me. So with this one, I analyzed a lot, but I'm sure there's still heaps more that I haven't quite looked at. And so I want you guys to put down in the comments below, what are the different types of analyses that you've pulled from this article, let's share around and help each other out. The more we can collaborate and work together, the more we can lift each other up. So if you needed more help with analyzing arguments, you guys can definitely check out my study guide where I have an entire section, which covers everything from how to analyze, language technique list, structure, high response essays, low response essays, so you can see the difference and everything is annotated for you in those essays so that you understand why they actually did well or not so well. So that's it from me, I will see you guys next Friday, and chat to you then. Bye!

If you'd like a comprehensive explanation of everything you need to know to ace your SAC or exam, check out our How To Write A Killer Language Analysis ebook.

For a step-by-step explanation of exactly how to write A+ essays, with examples to help you understand what to do and what not to do with confidence, check out our How To Write A Killer Language Analysis ebook.

Language Analysis is all about how the author persuades. That means in all your essays, the word ‘persuade’ is bound to be present in almost every sentence. Here is an example in a response to the 2009 VCAA exam:

Voxi employs inclusive language such as “we” in an attempt to  persuade  readers to also feel a sense of excitement towards future technological developments.

However, if you’re repeatedly writing ‘persuade’ throughout your essay, it will become repetitive and bland. So to make it easier for you, below is a list of synonyms for the word ‘persuade’. Next time you write an essay, hopefully it won’t be littered with ‘persuade’ but other vocabulary instead!

To see more phrases and sentence starters that you can integrate into your Analysing Argument writing, see this blog .

‍ [Modified Video Transcription]

Today we're going to go through the 2019 past VCAA English Exam ( grab a copy of the exam here so you can analyse with me). As you probably know, if you've watched my videos before, you always want to make sure you read the background information when it comes to Analysing Argument. 

I'm going to use Analysing Argument and Language Analysis interchangeably by the way, but I'm talking about the same thing okay? 

Background Information

The background information is pretty important because it gives you context for what is happening in this article. Without reading the background information, you might just head in there and possibly even come up with an entirely different context altogether, which might screw over your actual analysis and the author's intention. So, never skip the background information. Make sure that you read it and also pick out the gems that you find in it. 

What I've always found is background information is great for picking keywords - words I might want to use throughout my own Language Analysis. It also has really good details about the article. In this case, you can see that there's a member of the public who has responded, which tells us a little bit about the author; it's a 'response' as well, so there's going to be two articles; it's an advertorial - an advertorial is a paid advertisement that looks like an article (I'll use the word advertorial as I'm describing the article in my introduction), and, I also know where it's been published. This is already really good information for you to start using in your introduction. 

Finding Your Own Interpretation

Let's move into the analysis itself. By the way, this is my first time doing this analysis, so we're doing it together. What you'll find is that I come up with particular interpretations that you might not have come up with. I might miss something, you might miss something, and what you'll find is my interpretation is not the only interpretation out there. If you come up with something else, it's totally fine for you to go ahead and analyse it, as long as you can back it up. This is what English is all about, so don't stress if I haven't matched up with you in exactly what I'm saying. You can also use my interpretation as a double interpretation. So, what you could do is go into your essay, write your interpretation and if mine compounds on top of yours pretty well, if it's a great addition to what you're saying, add it in and bam! You're showing your examiner that, you're somebody who can look at one particular technique from several different perspectives and that's kind of cool.

Moving on to the Analysis

So, 'A Better, Faster Shopping Experience'. From what I can already see here is there's this sense of convenience already being brought up. Now, at this point in time, I don't know what the point of that convenience is, but I know for me as a shopper, if I can get something for a better experience and I can get it done faster, then hells yeah, I am all for that. Think about yourself in the reader's shoes, after all, you really are the reader reading this article. Think about how it's starting to impact you. 

I've done a video about the TEE rule previously that goes through T echnique, E xample and the intended E ffect on the audience. Make sure you're familiar with that because I will use a lot of that in today's analysis.

'An open letter to our valued customers. As you know, Hailey's Local Store is not your average grocery store.'  

Interesting. The 'As you know' is pretty familiar. It's this familiarity that this person is sharing with us (the author's name is Hailey, so I'll just say Hailey). She says 'As you know, Hailey's Local Store is not your average grocery store' and repeating that familiar 'As you know' reminds the audience - us - of our long-term relationship with the store. So, in a sense, she's drawing upon our good will and our trust in the local shop, which creates this differentiation between herself (as somebody who's more proactive and customer-centric) and your bigger grocery stores. 

'We're a little bit different - we always put our customers first.' 

At this point, we start to feel valued. We know that we are her priority. Her priority isn't about profits, which a lot of stores are about, it's about the people, and as a result, we're more inclined to look at her in a favourable way.

'We offer lots of healthy meals, many specials, locally source food and, as you know, we abolished plastic carry bags four years ago - long before the big stores.'  

This whole sentence is pretty good because it shows us that she is somebody who is forward-thinking and she has actually carried through with her claim that she puts her customer first. We know that because she follows it up with:

'Why did we do those things? Because you told us that was what you wanted and needed.' 

She's got historical proof of putting customers first, which again, serves to build this rapport and relationship between Hailey and us as her customers.

If I look at the first paragraph as a whole, I see that she's building this up, she's setting this up in a particular way and whatever direction she's going to head in next, we're more inclined to follow her, to believe in her and to support her because she's shown us that she has supported us first. She's helped us out, so why can't we help her out? Again, I haven't read the rest of this article yet so these are just the thoughts that are going through my mind as I'm reading this first paragraph - just to give you a little bit of insight into my brain.

In this first paragraph, I can see that she's using a pretty welcoming and warm tone. If you have a look at the photograph that's been placed at the top of this article - and remember that with particular images they're strategically placed, so if it's placed at the start of the article versus at the end, think about how that impacts your perception of the photograph - for me, the first thing I see when I look at this article is the photo and I see a smiling happy owner. As you can see, the first paragraph serves to back up this photograph as well, with what she's talking about in terms of prioritising customers and valuing customers. You can also see products behind her, which look fresh and full and her shelves are full, so in that sense, it furthers this impression of the local and grounded nature of the store. It feels homey and this invites that comfort and trust from us.

Then, as we move into our second paragraph, I'm seeing a lot of exclamation marks, which gives me the sense of this upbeat, exciting environment, or even tone you could say. I think she's doing this because she wants us to jump on board with cashless payments as well, and to not see them as something that's a burden for us. She ties the advantages of cashless payments directly to the customer’s experience of the store by frequently repeating personal terms, such as 'you' and 'your' throughout these first couple of paragraphs. By the way, I'm not going to write down all the language analysis, because I think there's just not enough space, but me chatting about it with you is good enough. Let's move onto the next paragraph.

'you won't need to go rummaging through your bags for coins. You won't ever have to worry that you don't have the cash to cover your essential food supplies - your card will ensure that you do'.  

Not only is she highlighting the advantage. Here, she's arguing for the advantages of cashless payments by showing you the inconveniences of having cash in phrases like 'you won't need to' and 'you won't ever have to'. I also like the phrase 'rummaging through your bags for coins'. It gives this sense of how cumbersome the nature of physical money is in comparison to cashless payments.

In the next paragraph, she highlights cashless payments with the words 'Simple!' which reiterates her point (from the previous paragraph) about how cumbersome coins can be. She finishes off this paragraph with a 'Welcome to the twenty-first century.', so there's this sense of being forward in her decisions and that we should be as well - because nobody wants to be left behind in history. A lot of us like to think of ourselves as people who are open-minded, open to change and will take up things that are better for us, things that are more convenient for us.

So, she's saying that this is it for twenty-first century, join us over here rather than way back when, when we had to use coins. She also highlights 'mobile phone[s]', 'smart watch', 'smart ring' - many things that a lot of people have and this just compounds that idea of, 'yeah, this is a no brainer' essentially. Why shouldn't you move to cashless payments if you're already immersed in this tech world of having mobile phones, smart watches, smart rings, etc.?

She moves into talking about the wider economic context of Australia in this next paragraph. That sense of time I was talking about, comparing the now - the twenty-first century - with a decade ago, you can see that link right here. It's very obvious now. She creates a strong impression of societal inevitability of this technological change, especially because she cites statistics - '70 per cent of household spending was in cash; now it's half of that.' I can see in the next paragraph that she uses expert opinion as well - the 'Governor of the Reserve Bank of Australia'. This all connects to this main phrase that we are in a ‘turning point’ now, that cash will be rapidly phased out until we become a cashless society and we should join her; we should make moves on this otherwise we're going to get left behind. 

I like that she's bringing in Australia because it also brings in this additional sense of pride on our behalf. We're Australians, we're proud that we've been one of the biggest users of electronic payments in the world, we're the ones who are making waves, we're the ones who are putting our feet forward first. So, you could talk about appeal to patriotism here as well. It's interesting because here she says that she's a leader, or 

'We've always tried to be a leader in our community and respond to our customer's needs.'

What do you think when you think of a leader? Typically for me, I admire leaders. They're somebody I look up to and I want to follow in their footsteps essentially. So by positioning herself as a leader, I think that's pretty interesting because she's telling us, ‘Hey, I've done all this thinking, I have initiative, I am forward-thinking, so come with me, join with me on this cashless payments movement.’

'you'll breeze through a check-out'  

I like the word 'breeze through', or just 'breeze' because it connects again, back to this idea of convenience with a faster shopping experience, and it is juxtaposed against that cumbersomeness of 'rummaging through...bags for coins'. Something to think about is: as you analyse an article, you don't just have to analyse it chronologically or talk about it chronologically in your essay either. If you see things that connect later on, connect them in your essay and put them together, because what you're showing your examiner is that you can see not just the minor details - i.e. language techniques in each sentence - but you can actually zoom out and see the overall picture, how the arguments are coming together and how she's structuring her piece so that we walk away with a certain perspective. Think about that in a two-step method. There's the zoom in where we're looking at sentence by sentence and what techniques are there, which is basically what we've been doing, but at the same time, you can zoom out and have a look at how the different techniques all come together and work as a whole. If this is something that you're not too comfortable with just yet, just stick with the chronological order and working through the sort of minor details. And then on your next read, you can read through with the focus of, 'okay, what if I was to look at this from a more holistic perspective?' 

We talk about this 'zoom in' and 'zoom out' technique in How To Write A Killer Text Response .

Ahh! I didn't even look ahead enough, there are more words and more phrases that connect to the idea of convenience and ease. It’s 'faster', ‘will save you time', 'safer' as well?! There's a new appeal. It's not necessarily new, it's just a different angle you could come from. If you wanted to talk about the sense of security, that appeal to safety, then you could do that as well. 

'it means not having to spend hours sorting, storing and securing cash'

So, more cumbersome notions. And then in comparison,

'more time', 'We understand the concerns a minority of our customers may have.' 

I love when they do this, acknowledging the opposition essentially is what she's doing. She's saying, ‘yup, like, I can hear you, not all customers want this. Some of you don't.’ And my assumption is that she's going to back it up with her own rebuttal. This not only pulls along the people who are already supportive of her, but she's also trying to pull along those who are a little bit more sceptical of this idea of cashless payments. So let's see, she says, 

'What if you prefer cash, don't feel comfortable using credit or debit cards, or don't have a mobile phone or smart watch? We don't want to leave anyone out. For the next three months we will offer cashless payments, but still accept cash to people to give people time to adjust.' 

It's interesting because she is again, building up this position of hers, where she is friendly, she is helpful, she is thoughtful and she cares about her community. Something you could also say, and this is if you're looking at things more pessimistically, is that she's doing this more so for herself. By saying that these people have three months, there's this unspoken pressure that's happening as well. She's putting pressure on the minority and emphasising the supposed inevitability of a cash-free shopping experience. Even by just saying 'minority' that's in a way applying pressure as well, because it's saying that you are part of this smaller group, the smaller group of people who won't come with us or have not yet come with us, so join us. There's a very clear expectation that these customers need to adapt and catch up. 

Want to see these ideas and annotations turned into a full A+ essay?

If you want more, I have also got a fully written up 2019 essay based on the articles that we're analysing today in my How To Write A Killer Language Analysis study guide. In that study guide, not only do I have the essay for 2019, I also have a fully written up essay for the 2017 & 2020 VCAA English Exams , and we're always working on adding ones from future years as well. Plus, there's heaps of sample A-plus essays in there already and heaps of information that I think will be super helpful for you before you move into your SAC. So please, go ahead and check that out! It's loaded with value and I know it'll be worth your money.

Let’s briefly discuss the background of the article before we dive into the analysis…

• So, the background information tells us that “Biodiversity is the term used to describe life on Earth — the variety of living things, the places they inhibit and the interactions between them.”
• The article at hand is a transcript of a speech given by Professor Chris Lee at the International Biodiversity Conference 2010.
• The purpose of this conference is to review the progress made towards achieving the target and to look beyond 2010.

Now, let’s analyse the opening of the speech. Take a second to read through Lee’s speech opener...

Firstly, we can analyse the way in which Lee addresses his audience. Rather than using a phrase like "Hi everyone" or a similar greeting, he actually refers to his audience as his "fellow delegates" which allows him to speak in a particularly candid and honest manner. He wants to be transparent about the reality of the situation with his peers, rather than trying to impress an audience or something similar.

Overall, this anecdote appeals to the emotions of the audience and plays on an apparent devotion/commitment presumably made to the environment by the delegates of a Biodiversity conference. Lee uniquely seeks to persuade his audience by using the information he knows about them – their past commitments.

More specifically, we can dive into the pejorative mood of the adjectives he uses to describe the second scene, which is one of destruction, especially compare to the images he presents first. The "lush jungle" with a variety of "interesting flora and fauna" on the banks of a "clear river" appears particularly idyllic in juxtaposition with the images of the "scorched earth", "gooey mudslide", "sepia tinge" and "barren sticks hopelessly groping for life."

In the last sentence, the repetition of the word "gone" reminds Lee's "fellow delegates" of what will be lost if action on biodiversity is not taken.

Now, we know that in any given Language Analysis article, there are so many things to analyse, which I’ve demonstrated with all of the things we managed to focus on in that single paragraph.

Often, students will be able to identify lots of techniques and as such, lots of elements to analyse, but they struggle to choose between these techniques when it comes to writing their responses.

I’d highly recommend that you download a free sample of my eBook, How To Write A Killer Language Analysis which talks about techniques you can use to pick what to write about in your essays. We won’t have enough time to talk about those techniques today, so we’ve written them down for you in the eBook.

Now that we’ve looked at how Lee has started his speech, let’s skip forward to a later section of the article. Take a second to read through the section.

One of the first things that may jump out at you is this repetition of inclusive language; "we are", "we have". However, this is way too obvious! For an upper level response, we want to steer clear of the cliche techniques and analyse ones that have more value and show off our own perspective of the article.

Utilising the statements, "everyone in the lecture theatre knows this" and "clearly, it is our lack of unity", Lee includes the audience and holds all of the delegates accountable through declaring the reasons for failure as simple matters of fact.

Here, Lee trivializes the actions of the organisation in creating "glossy brochures" with "wonderful words" as marketing tools to create the impression that meaningful action is being taken. Lee exposes such actions as deceitful and calls for "real action", seeking to persuade his audience into putting their effort into actual gains in the biodiversity fight.

Want to know more? I'd highly recommend checking out LSG's FREE Ultimate Guide to VCE Language Analysis for more great tips, resources and advice.

And that’s it! I hope this has been helpful in showing how to analyse a speech as a Language Analysis prompt.

Be sure to check out the free sample of my eBook below for more!

Whether you’re analysing at one article or two, there are plenty of things you can write about. In this, we’ll look at the structure of articles, the placement of different arguments and rebuttals, and other things you can use to nail your essay!

There are four main parts of an article:

What: The arguments that support the contention

When: Their placement in the article

How: The language techniques used to support them

Why: The overall effect on the reader

Try to address all these elements of the article in your essay, as it’ll ensure you’re not leaving anything out.

WHAT: Arguments

The arguments an author uses can usually fall into one of three categories - ethos, pathos, or logos.

Ethos arguments are about credibility, for example, using quotes from credible sources or writing about a personal anecdote.

Pathos arguments target the emotion of the reader. Anything that might make them feel happy, angry, sad, distressed and more can be classified as this kind - for example, an argument about patriotism when discussing the date of Australia Day.

Logos arguments aim to address the intellectual aspects of the issue, and will often have statistics or logic backing them up.

It’s important to mention the different arguments used in the article and it can be useful to take note of the category you think they fit into best. It’s also helpful to mention the interplay between these elements.

WHEN: Structure

Certain elements of the article can have a different effect on the reader depending on where the author places them.

If an author places their rebuttal at the beginning of the article, it can set up the audience to more readily accept their following opinions, and separates them from contrasting views from the get go. You can see this in the 2013 VCAA exam , where the author argues against opposing views early on in their article. In it, the author references the opposition directly as they say ‘some people who objected to the proposed garden seem to think that the idea comes from a radical group of environmentalists’, and rebut this point by proposing that ‘there’s nothing extreme about us’.

The placement of a rebuttal towards the end of the article can have the effect of the author confirming that their opinion is correct by demonstrating why opposing opinions are not, and can give a sense of finality to the article. It’s sometimes used when the author’s contention is a little controversial, as it’s less aggressive than a rebuttal placed at the beginning.

In some articles, the author won’t include a straightforward rebuttal at all. This can imply that their opinion, and theirs alone, is correct and must be supported - as it’s the only opinion that exists. Check out the 2018 VCAA exam for an example of this kind of article. ‍

Contention:

An author’s contention is the main claim they’re trying to prove throughout their article.

Placing their contention at the beginning is the most direct method, and has the effect of positioning the reader to the author’s beliefs from the outset.

A contention placed at the end of an article can have the effect of seeming like a valid, logical conclusion to a well-thought through discussion. To see this in effect, you can look at the 2014 VCAA exam , where the article leads up to the author’s final contention that the governments needs to ‘invest in the next generation of technology’.

The contention can also be repeated throughout the article. The author may have chosen to present it in this way in order to continue reiterating their main point in the audience’s minds, aligning them to their views. An article that uses this technique is on the 2016 VCAA exam , as the author repeats multiple times that a ‘giant attraction’ must be built to encourage visitors and put the town ‘on the tourist map’.

The different ways an author orders their arguments is also something worth analysing.

A ‘weaker’ point might be one that the author doesn’t spend much time discussing, or that isn’t backed up with a lot of evidence. In comparison, a ‘stronger’ argument will generally have supporting statistics or quotes, and may be discussed in detail by the author.

If an author starts with their strongest point and ends with their weakest, they may be attempting to sway the reader’s opinions to align with their own from the beginning so that the audience is more likely to accept their weaker points later on. Take a look at the 2017 VCAA exam to see this kind of technique, as the author’s arguments - that ‘superfluous packaging’ will cause irreversible environmental damage, that the changes they want to implement are easy, and that students should prepare their own snacks rather than have takeaway - get less developed as the article continues.

On the other hand, ending with their strongest point can give the piece a sense of completion, and leave the reader with the overall impression that the article was strong and persuasive.

Want to learn more about these different article components and see how different A+ essays incorporate these elements? If so, check out our How To Write A Killer Language Analysis ebook for all of this and more!

HOW: Language

This refers to the different persuasive language techniques used in the article and their effect on the reader.

The main thing to remember is that the study design has changed from Language Analysis to Analysing Argument . This means you’ll need to focus on the language in relation to the argument - such as how it supports the author’s contention - rather than on the language itself.

If you’re after some more resources, you can look at some Quick Tips or this video:

WHY: Effect

There are many different ways you can describe what the author is trying to do through their article, but they all come down to one thing - persuasion, that is, the writer of the article is trying to get their audience to agree with them. Linking different arguments, their placement and the language that supports them to the overall authorial intent of the article is a great way to enhance your essay.

For some more information on this area, check out this blog post !

Finding out that your school has selected to study a Shakespeare play as your section A text can be a pretty daunting prospect. If I’m honest, I wasn’t all too thrilled upon discovering this either...it seemed as though I now not only had to worry about analysing my text, but also understanding what Shakespeare was saying through all of his old-fashioned words. 

However, let’s not fret - in this post, I’ll share with you some Measure for Measure specific advice and tactics, alongside excerpts of an essay of mine as a reference. 

Before you start reading, How To Approach Shakespeare: A Guide To Studying Shakespeare is a must read for any student studying Shakespeare.

Historical Context 

Having a basic understanding of the historical context of the play is an integral part of developing your understanding of Measure for Measure (and is explored further in Measure for Measure by William Shakespeare ). For example, for prompts that open with “What does Shakespeare suggest about…?” or “How does Measure for Measure reflect Shakespeare’s ideas about…?” it can be really helpful to understand Shakespeare’s own position in society and how that influenced his writing. 

There’s no need to memorise certain parts of Shakespeare’s history - as that would serve no purpose - just try to gauge an understanding of what life was like in his time. Through understanding Shakespeare’s position in society, we are able to infer his stances on various characters/ideologies in the play. 

• Measure for Measure is often regarded as an anti-Puritan satire. Although Shakespeare’s religion has been a subject of much debate and research, with many theories about his faith being brought forward, many believe that he was a secret Catholic. He is believed to be a ‘ secret’ Catholic, as he lived during the rise of the Puritans - those who wished to reform the Church of England and create more of a focus on Protestant teachings, as opposed to Catholic teachings. It was often difficult for Catholics to practice their faith at this time. 
• Angelo and Isabella - particularly Angelo, are believed to embody puritanism, as shown through their excessive piety. By revealing Angelo to be “yet a devil,” though “angel on the outward side,” Shakespeare critiques Puritans, perhaps branding them as hypocritical or even unhuman; those “not born of man and woman.” Thus, we can assume that Shakespeare would take a similar stance to most of us - that Angelo wasn’t the greatest guy and that his excessive, unnatural and puritanical nature was more of a flaw than a virtue. 

Tips for Moving Past the Generic Examples/Evidence Found in the Play 

It’s important to try and stand out with your examples in your body paragraphs. If you’re writing the same, simple ideas as everyone else, it will be hard for VCAA assessors to reward you for that. Your ideas are the most important part of your essay because they show how well you’ve understood and analysed the text - which is what they are asking from you, it’s called an ‘analytical interpretation of a text,’ not ‘how many big words can you write in this essay.’ You can stand out in Measure for Measure by: 

1. Taking Note of Stage Directions and Structure of Speech

Many students tend to simply focus on the dialogue in the play, but stage directions can tell you so much about what Shakespeare was really trying to illustrate in his characters. 

• For example, in his monologue, I would often reference how Angelo is alone on stage, appearing at his most uninhibited, with his self-interrogation revealing his internal struggle over his newfound lust for Isabella. I would also reference how Shakespeare’s choice of syntax and structure of speech reveal Angelo’s moral turmoil as he repetitively asks himself “what’s this?” indicating his confusion and disgust for his feelings which “unshapes” him. 
• Isabella is shown to “[kneel]” by Mariana at the conclusion of the play, in order to ask for Angelo’s forgiveness. This detail is one that is easily missed, but it is an important one, as it is an obvious reference to Christianity, and symbolises Isabella’s return to her “gentle and fair” and “saint” like nature. 

2. Drawing Connections Between Characters - Analyse Their Similarities and Differences. 

Drawing these connections can be a useful way to incorporate other characters not necessarily mentioned in your prompt. For example, in my own English exam last year, I chose the prompt “ ...Power corrupts both Angelo and the Duke. Do you agree? ” and tried to pair Angelo and Isabella, in order to incorporate another character into my essay (so that my entire essay wasn’t just about two characters).

• A favourite pair of mine to analyse together was Angelo and Isabella. Although at first glance they seem quite different, when you read into the text a little deeper you can find many similarities. For example, while Angelo lives alone in his garden, “succumbed by brick,” requiring “two keys” to enter, “nun,” Isabella, wishes to join the nuns of Saint Clare where she “must not speak with men” or “show [her] face.” Shakespeare’s depiction of the two, stresses their seclusion, piety and restriction from the “vice” plaguing Vienna. What’s important about this point is that you can alter your wording of it to fit various points that you may make. For example, you could use this example to prove to your assessor how Isabella’s alignment with Angelo signals Shakespeare’s condemnation of her excessive puritanical nature (as I did in my body paragraph below) or, you could use these same points to argue how Angelo was once indeed a virtuous man who was similar to the “saint” Isabella, and that it was the power that corrupted him (as you could argue in the 2019 prompt). 
• Another great pair is the Duke and Angelo. Although they certainly are different in many ways, an interesting argument that I used frequently, was that they both were selfish characters who abused their power as men and as leaders in a patriarchal society. It is obvious where Angelo did this - through his cruel bribery of Isabella to “lay down the treasures of [her] body,” however the Duke’s behaviour is more subtle. The Duke’s proposal to Isabella at the conclusion of the play, as he asks her to “give [him her] hand,” in marriage, coincides with the revelation that Claudio is indeed alive. It appears that the Duke has orchestrated the timing of his proposal to most forcefully secure Isabella and in this sense, his abuse of power can be likened to Angelo’s “devilish” bribery. This is as, through Shakespeare’s depiction of Isabella, it is evident that she has little interest in marriage; she simply wishes to join a convent where she “must not speak with men,” as she lives a life of “strict restraint.” The Duke is aware of this, yet he demands Isabella to “be [his]”-  wishing to take her from her true desire and Shakespeare is able to elucidate Isabella’s distaste through her response to this: silence. By contrasting Isabella’s once powerful voice - her “speechless dialect” that can “move men” - with her silence in response to the Duke’s proposal, Shakespeare is able to convey the depth of the Duke’s selfishness and thus his similarity to Angelo.

We've got a character list for you in Measure for Measure by William Shakespeare (just scroll down to the Character section).

What’s important to realise about these bits of evidence is that you can use them in so many different prompts, provided that you tailor your wording to best answer the topic. For example, you could try fitting at least one of the above examples in these prompts: 

• ‘Give me your hand and say you will be mine…’ The characters in ‘ Measure for Measure’ are more interested in taking than giving. Discuss. 
• ‘More than our brother is our chastity.' Explore how Shakespeare presents Isabella's attitude to chastity throughout Measure for Measure .
• ‘I have seen corruption boil …' To what extent does Shakespeare explore corruption in Measure for Measure , and by what means? 
• ‘Measure or Measure presents a society in which women are denied power.’ Discuss.

How To Kick Start Your Essay with a Smashing Introduction

There’s no set way on how to write an introduction. Lots of people write them in many different ways and these can all do well! This is the best part about English - you don’t have to be writing like the person sitting next to you in order to get a good mark. I personally preferred writing short and sweet introductions, just because they were quick to write and easy to understand. 

For example, for the prompt...

“...women are frail too.” 

To what extent does ‘Measure for Measure’ examine the flaws of Isabella? 

...my topic sentences were...

• Isabella is depicted as a moral, virtuous and pious woman, but it is this aspect of her nature that paradoxically aligns her with the “tyrannous” Angelo. 
• Shakespeare explores the hypocrisy and corruption of Isabella as a flaw, as she deviates from her initially “gentle and fair” nature.
• Despite exploring Isabella’s flaws to a large degree, Shakespeare does indeed present her redemption at the denouement of the play. 

...and my introduction was: 

William Shakespeare’s play, ‘Measure for Measure’ depicts a seventeenth century Viennese society in which disease, misconduct and licentiousness are rife. It is upon a backdrop of such ordeals that Shakespeare presents the character of Isabella, who is initially depicted as of stark contrast to the libertine populate of Vienna. To a considerable extent, ‘Measure for Measure’ does indeed examine the flaws of the “gentle and fair” Isabella, but Shakespeare suggests that perhaps she is not “saint” nor “devil,” rather that she is a human with her own flaws and with her own redeeming qualities. 

Instead of rewording my topic sentences, I touched on them more vaguely, because I knew that I wouldn’t get any ‘extra’ points for repeating them twice, essentially.  However, if you feel more confident in touching on your topic sentences more specifically - go ahead!! There are so many different ways to write an introduction! Do what works for you! 

Body Paragraphs 

This body paragraph included my pairing between Angelo and Isabella. My advice would be to continue to incorporate the language used in the prompt. In this paragraph, you can see me use the word “flaw” quite a bit, just in order to ensure that I’m actually answering the prompt , not a prompt that I have studied before. 

Isabella is depicted as a moral, virtuous and pious woman, but it is this aspect of her nature that paradoxically aligns her with the “tyrannous” Angelo. Where Angelo is “of ample grace and honour,” Isabella is “gentle and fair.” Where Angelo believes in “stricture and firm abstinence,” Isabella too believes that “most desire should meet the full blow of justice.” This similarity is enhanced by their seclusion from the lecherous society in which they reside. Angelo lives alone in his garden, “succumbed by brick,” requiring “two keys” to enter, whilst Isabella desires the life of a nun where she “must not speak with men” or “show [her] face.” This depiction of both Angelo and Isabella stresses their seclusion, piety and restriction from the “vice” that the libertine populate is drunk from. However, Shakespeare’s revelation that Angelo is “yet a devil” though “angel on the outward side,” is perhaps Shakespeare’s commentary on absolute stricture being yet a facade, a flaw even. Shakespeare presents Isabella’s chastity and piety as synonymous with her identity, which ultimately leaves her unable to differentiate between the two, as she states that she would “throw down [her] life,” for Claudio, yet maintains that “more than our brother is our chastity.” Though virtuous in a sense, she is cruel in another. Although at first glance, Shakespeare’s depiction of Isabella’s excessive puritanical nature appears to be her virtue, by aligning her with the “devil” that is Angelo, it appears that this is indeed her flaw. 

Conclude Your Essay by Dazzling Your Assessor!  

My main tip for a conclusion is to finish it off with a confident commentary of the entire piece and what you think that the author was trying to convey through their words (in relation to the topic). For example, in pretty much all of my essays, I would conclude with a sentence that referenced the entire play -  for example, how it appeared to be such a polarising play, with largely exaggerated, polarising characters/settings (eg. Angelo and the Duke, or the brothels that stood tall next to the monastery): 

Ultimately, Shakespeare’s play ‘Measure for Measure,’ depicts Isabella as a multifaceted character. She is not simply one thing - not simply good nor bad -  her character’s depiction continues to oscillate between the polar ends of the spectrum. Although yes, she does have flaws, so too does she have redeeming qualities. Though at times deceitful and hypocritical, she too is forgiving and gentle. Thus, as Shakespeare’s play, ‘Measure for Measure,’ does centre on polarising characters in a polarising setting, perhaps through his exploration of Isabella’s flaws alongside her virtues, he suggests that both the good and the bad inhabit us.

Measure for Measure is usually studied in the Australian curriculum under Area of Study 1 - Text Response. For a detailed guide on Text Response, check out our Ultimate Guide to VCE Text Response .

Text Response  is seen, often, as ‘bipolar’: weeks of inactivity followed by sharp spikes of panic as you churn out 20,000 words in six days. If not, students fall for the “quantity=quality” trap, pumping out essay after essay as their one form of study.

Don’t get me wrong. Diligence is key. But here’s what many miss :  Essays are the  END PRODUCT,  not the starting point. To begin, foundations are required:

Step 1: Deliberate Reading

Remember: the better and sooner you engage with your text, the easier to write on it. So. Even when first reading,  have a pen in hand ! At this stage, nothing fancy is needed ---annotate what you can. Circle, highlight and underline anything that catches your attention.

Afterwards, a helpful tip is the “21 words” exercise, which forces you to summarise the text’s messages as  early prep  for topic sentence construction.

“Macbeth, a dark, brooding tragedy, explores the corruptive effects of extreme ambition through the moral decay of a great man.” (21)

“Whilst seemingly about human flaw, Macbeth declares that all mortals are in fact vulnerable to supernatural forces beyond their control.” (21)

LESSON LEARNT:  First impressions matter. The author ALWAYS seeks to make readers feel and think a certain way. Even before you write, you should be tapping into these currents as best you can. All early thinking,  guaranteed , will turn into priceless essay ammunition because you’ve given time for your thoughts to develop and mature.

Step 2: Understanding Context

VCE English involves the study of some sophisticated literature. Authors/filmmaker have used the written word to  comment  on past and present society. For a high score, then, you too must understand these contexts.

---Joseph Mankiewicz’s 1950s film  All About Eve : a satirical jab at the post-war ideal of a traditional nuclear family ---Hannah Kent’s  Burial Rites:  critiquing the patriarchy of 19th century Iceland

Step 3: Note taking

Now we’ve gained some understanding of the text, time for rigorous and more detailed analysis. There are three tiers involved.

1. Chapter summaries

Basically a timeline of significant moments: what happens and what is said. Note the  STRUCTURE  of the text: is it chronological or non-linear? Is it a circular narrative? Why is this structure  employed , and what is its literary function for the broader story?

2. Event significance

This is where we begin to understand not only WHAT HAPPENS and WHAT IS SAID, but WHY. Go back to each chapter and write down the significance of each defining moment. What does it show about a character or theme? Does it reveal an author’s viewpoint on a certain idea?

Put these thoughts into “essay” sentences.  This way, you are constantly practicing how to ANALYSE complex ideas . Come SAC or exam time, you will have already honed your written expression to a far more sophisticated level and what’s more, increased your familiarity with  RELEVANT CONCEPTS. This approach is far more efficient than starting off by writing essays on random topic questions. Build up the knowledge base first!

3. Language

Now, it’s time to elevate your analysis to the divine by understanding the text’s CONSTRUCTION: HOW significant events, significant people are portrayed, and what it all means. Go back to each chapter and look for compelling language/filmic devices, including its impact:

Metaphor Juxtaposition Imagery Sentence length Setting Word choices Intertextual references Symbolism/motifs Camera angles Diegetic/non-diegetic sound

Step 4: Themes and Characters

After close reading and closer analysis, we come to the last stage: bringing all the elements together by zooming BACK OUT FOR A BIG PICTURE VIEW OF THE TEXT: its themes and underlying ideas, its central characters, and the lasting messages conveyed as a result.

Notes on Themes

By now, a ‘theme’ no longer has to be a one word affair like in our younger years: “identity” “friendship”, “tragedy”, “ambition”, “evil” etc. Rather, a theme is closely linked to the text’s  views and values:  put simply, it can express opinion.

E.g. “The struggle for personal identity”

“The unbreakable bonds of childhood friendship”

“The vulnerability of all ordinary men to extraordinary tragedy”

“The harms of excessive ambition”

“The pervasiveness of evil”

Once you’ve identified the themes, use the notes you’ve made on  context, plot, significant events and language , to help support your interpretation.

Notes on characters

Using the previous evidence you’ve gathered, you can now also make detailed and insightful character studies. Obviously, a focus on their defining traits, relationships and flaws is important.

However, in Year 12, what is more crucial is understanding what the character  represents. After all, an author will never craft someone out of thin air. Just like a theme, a character is used as a vehicle to express opinions on the nature of society and humans in general.

Now you’ve finished the four steps. Using your understanding of 1) big ideas and 2) close evidence, you’re ready to start writing!

Of course, along the way, there are a few extra tricks one can deploy.

• Read academic/critical/high scoring essays

Exposing yourself to the widest possible range of academic literature---whether it be your friend’s 20/20 essay or a New York Times review on the text----is a sure fire way to juice up vocab.

• Keep reading the text

Whenever you’ve got spare time, open up the book or film you’re studying and refresh your memory! This way, you’ll really internalise what you’re studying. Quote learning will be easier, you’ll form a genuine attachment to the characters… overall, the insights will flow all the faster. To learn more about studying for Text Response, read our Ultimate Guide to VCE Text Response .

Happy studying!

Whether you consider yourself a Frankenstein expert, or someone who is a bit taken back by the density of the novel and Shelley’s writing, do not fret! Below I will outline 3 tips which, will hopefully give you a clearer perspective on how to approach writing on Frankenstein! Let’s get started!

1. ALWAYS TRY TO TALK ABOUT SHELLEY’S CONCERNS

Since the book was set during the Age of Enlightenment and the Romantic era, Shelley essentially used Frankenstein as a vessel to criticise and warn readers against many of the values upheld during her era. It’s therefore crucial that you address this!

The late 18th century and the first decades of the 19th century were exciting times for science and exploration. Shelley’s two main protagonists, Walton and Frankenstein, both passionately sough to discover what had previously been hidden. Walton wanted to be the first to find a passage through the Arctic Circle; Frankenstein wanted to be the first to create manmade life, to uncover the mysteries of Nature.  Both men claimed to be desirous of benefitting humankind but both wanted glory more. This obsession to win accolades for their discoveries will destroy Victor, and turn Walton for a while into a hard taskmaster over his crew.

Juxtaposed against these two characters is Henry Clerval. Clerval, too, has an inquiring mind but he also cares about humanity, family and friends. He represents the balanced human being who is sociable, compassionate, intelligent and loyal to his friends. Victor’s ability to reanimate the dead, to bring to life his gigantic Creature using the newly discovered electricity, makes him a genius but also a monster. In his inexperience he botches the work producing a hideous and terrifying creature with, ironically, initially all the virtues of the ideal man of he world. Repulsed by his amateurish handiwork, Victor abandons his creation, setting in place the vengeance that will unfold later.

Try to ground any response to Shelley’s text in the enormous enthusiasm for new discoveries and new geographic phenomena that attracted lavish praise for those who went where others feared to tread. It was this praise that drove Walton and Frankenstein to exceed reasonable expectations becoming reckless and careless of the consequences of their actions.

2. ALWAYS TRY TO DRAWS LINKS AND CONTRAST DIFFERENT CHARACTERS AND THEMES!

Walton, Frankenstein and the Creature are interconnected in so many ways – whether it be their isolation, ambition, desire for companionship, desire for vengeance or the Romantic values they share. I’ve also noted that it is also really easy to connect themes in Frankenstein as the tragic story-arc of the novel is built upon many different causes. What I mean by this is that there is a clearly define relationship between isolation, ambition and vengeance (and ultimately tragedy) in the sense that isolation is what led to the brewing of unchecked ambition which essentially causes the resultant tragedy.

Take Frankenstein for example: having left his loving family and friends, who provided him with love and companionship for Ingolstadt, there was no one to hold him back from his natural tendencies towards unchecked ambitions, leading him to creating the monster who out of spite towards society kills all of Frankenstein’s loved ones, leading them towards the desire for mutual destruction. Being able to see these links and draw them together will not only add depth to your writing but it also arms you with the ability to be able to deal with a wider array of prompts.

3. ALWAYS TRY TO LOOK FOR MORE NUANCED EXAMPLES AND DISCUSSIONS!

While Walton, Frankenstein and the Creature can be discussed incredibly thoroughly (and by all means go ahead and do it), but it is also very important to consider the novel as a whole and talk about, if not more thoroughly, on the minor characters. While characters such as the De Laceys, villagers and the rustic in the forest can be used to highlight the injustices brought upon the creature and people’s natural instincts of self preservation and prejudice, innocent characters such as Elizabeth and Justine can be used to emphasise the injustice of society and the consequences of unchecked ambition and isolation.

Henry Clerval (like previously mentioned) can be contrasted against Walton and his best friend Frankenstein to show that as long as we have a balanced lifestyle and companionship, ambition will not lead us to ruin. Characters such as the Turkish merchant can also have parallels drawn with Frankenstein in telling how our selfish desire and actions, born out of inconsideration for their consequences, can backfire with great intensity. Lastly the character of Safie (someone I used a lot in my discussions) can be compared and contrasted with the Creature to show the different treatment they receive despite both being “outsiders” to the De Laceys due to their starkly different appearances.

Mentioning these characters and utilising these contrasts can be monumental in showing your understanding of the novel and by extension, your English analytical ability.

[Video Transcription]

‍ Hey guys, I'm Lisa, welcome back to Lisa's Study Guides. Today, we're going to be talking about Frankenstein and breaking down an essay topic for it. So in the past, I've done plenty of videos looking at different types of essay topics and breaking them down by looking at keywords and then going into the body paragraphs and looking at those ideas. This time round, the takeaway message that I want you to leave with is understanding what types of evidence you should be using inside your body paragraphs. Specifically, I wanted to talk about literary devices or metalanguage. Mary Shelley, the author of Frankenstein uses so many literary devices that it's impossible to ignore. If you are somebody who is studying this text or other texts that you use and are heavily embedded with literary techniques, then it's really important that you don't just use dialogue as part of your quotes, but actually reading between the lines. I'll teach you on how it's not just about finding dialogue, which you include as quotes inside your body paragraphs, but reading between the lines, so looking at literary devices like metaphors, symbols, imagery, so let's get started. Mary Shelley's Frankenstein constitutes escaping critique of the prioritization of scientific advancement over human welfare and relationship. Dr. Frankenstein is fascinated with science and discovery, he is consumed with the idea of a new and more noble race by stitching up dead body parts from a cemetery. He feverishly works away at his experiment until one day the creature is born. Frankenstein is horrified at the living thing he has made and completely rejects the creature, leaving it without a parental figure. The creature is left alone to look after himself. He educates himself and on repeated occasions tries to approach people in society, however, is rejected every time because of his monstrous appearance. As a result, the creature becomes enraged at humanity and Frankenstein's unfair treatment towards him and consequently exacts revenge on Frankenstein and his family. The essay topic we'll be looking at today is, Our sympathies in this novel ultimately lie with the creature. Discuss. So in previous videos, we've looked at keywords, how to identify them and how to define them. Since it's pretty straightforward for this essay topic, I thought I would skip that part and then go into the more nitty gritty with the body paragraphs. But, if you are unfamiliar with these steps, then I'll link them in the card above and also in the description below so you can have a look at how I went ahead and did the keyword section in my planning, now back to the prompt. Unequivocally within Frankenstein, Shelley portrays sympathy as spread throughout the text through depicting the creature as innately human through his desire for relationship and the challenges he faces at the hands of the prejudice enlightenment society he's born into, Shelley elicits sympathy for his situation. However, through the notable absence of the female gender throughout the text, Shelley portrays those silent within society as most deserving of sympathy. So, with this in mind, here are the potential paragraphs in response to this prompt. Paragraph one, Shelley's depiction of the creature as innately human motivates support for his challenges at the hands of a prejudice society. The action of the creature to open his dull yellow eye, symbolic of his nature as a human being alongside a green wrinkled on his cheeks, with one hand stretched out, indicates his simple desire for paternal connection. Through constructing the creature's actions as innately human Shelley acts proleptically of the inequitable experiences the creature will experience throughout the structural architecture of the text. And through doing so, depicts his character as worthy of support. Similarly, through the metaphor of fire, Shelley explores the duality of progress and innovation of which the creature desires. The fire, one that gives light as well as heat, yet also causes a cry of pain, indicates the hardships of the creature in his isolation, whereby, his forced to withdraw from his desire for education. Upon viewing himself in a pool, the creature becomes "fully convinced that I was in reality [a] monster" with the consequent sensations of despondency and mortification granting the reader the opportunity to sympathize with the creature in order to indicate the intensely negative social prejudices that are inflicted upon the creature. So you can see that we've looked at symbols of the creature's nature and the metaphor of fire to support our topic sentence. Using literary techniques is what's going to make the difference between you and another student who might be saying the same thing. Why? Because when you look at literary devices, it means that you're reading just beyond the lines, just beyond what's in front of you. You're now introducing your own interpretation, so you're looking at fire and thinking about what that means in connection to the text, and why Mary Shelley would use the term of a fire and revolve her discussion around that. So let's see how we keep doing this in the next body paragraph. Paragraph two, Shelley indicates the significance of relationships as a key element of human nature that the creature is denied, motivating affinity from readers. In replacement of human relationships, the creature rather seeks comfort within the natural world. The metaphorical huge cloak that the creature takes refuge within indicates this, illustrative of an ecosystem, the forest allows the creator to surround himself with life. The subsequent attempts to "imitate the pleasant songs of the birds" reveals the desperate urge of the creature for companionship as he is abandoned by the paternal relationship represented by Victor Frankenstein, which forms a core of human relationships. Again, here we've discussed the metaphorical huge cloak and its connection with the forest, I strongly encourage you to have the goal of discussing at least one literary device per body paragraph. And no, there is no such thing as talking about too many literary devices because it's really just about whether or not your argument is concise and whether or not you're backing that up with evidence. Paragraph three. However, it is Shelley's depiction of the submissive female sex within Frankenstein that becomes most deserving of sympathy. Each female character is characterized as passive, disposable, and they're serving a utilitarian function, namely as a channel of action for the male characters within the text. Notably, the complete lack of absence of Margaret Saville, functioning only as an audience for Walton's letters exemplifies this. Margaret's role within the text is simply to enable Walton to relay the story of Frankenstein and as such were the most necessary character of the texts whilst the most distant. This ironic dichotomy enables Shelley to exemplify the difficult role of the female within society, arising sympathy from the readership. Here, even the purposeful emission of a character is discussed as a language technique. So, this type of literary device definitely tops the cake because you're literally looking at what's not even there. That's definitely reading between the lines. Frankenstein is a very complex novel, and sometimes that's what makes it a difficult text to study. But, it lends itself to many unique interpretations and it's heavily dressed with heaps of literary devices or metalanguage, however you want to call it. So, that's what makes it an absolutely fantastic text for high school students to study. If you wanted to find out more on how to nail a Frankenstein essay, then I'll link you to my blog just down below, because there are definitely more tips there to help you excel in this particular text. Thank you so much for watching, and especially even if you're not studying this text, I hope you've been able to take something away from this video. And I'm confident that you have because talking about literary devices is definitely a topic that isn't necessarily the fore front of discussion in classrooms, and it's something that a lot of people struggle with. So, I hope you are able to walk away with a new goal in sight in order to improve your English essays. So, I will see you guys next time, thank you so much for joining me, see you guys soon. Bye!

We’ve explored historical context, themes, essay planning and essay topics over on our Like a House on Fire by Cate Kennedy blog post. If you need a quick refresher or you’re new to studying this text, I highly recommend checking it out!

1. Dissecting the prompt

2. Essay Topic and Body Paragraphs Breakdown

3. Resources

Like A House On Fire  is currently studied in VCE English under Area of Study 1 - Text Response. For a detailed guide on Text Response, check out our  Ultimate Guide to VCE Text Response .

Dissecting the Prompt

Dissecting a collection of short stories can be very challenging due to the many characters involved, and the different themes. But what most students don’t realise is that almost all the stories in the anthology have common and overlapping themes. And that’s what you need to focus on when you’re building your essay. I’m going to go through one essay topic to demonstrate how you’re expected to dissect and plan the essay. This is how I planned my essays ate the beginning of the year when I was still struggling with writing an essay on short stories and wanted everything to be clear to me before I start writing so that I know exactly what I will be covering. 

Although many of the characters in like a house on fire are dealing with physical and emotional pain, it is their resilience that will be remembered by the reader. Do you agree?

So first of all, you need to highlight all the important aspects of this question.

Although many of the characters in like a house on fire are dealing with  physical and emotional pain , it is  their resilience  that will be remembered by the reader. Do you agree?

Now that we have highlighted the important parts that the question is inviting us to discuss, we know that we need to mention characters who are dealing with physical and emotional trauma yet rise above their tribulations, leaving the readers hopeful and optimistic. In doing so, you’ve pretty much discussed everything the prompt wants you to, but you can always go one step further and have a rebuttal paragraph. What I mean by that is: find a character who is faced with physical or emotional trauma yet gives up and becomes trapped in his/her imperfect reality. That way you show the assessor your knowledge of the text because you show them that even though Kennedy focuses on the resilience of her characters, she also sheds light on the reality that some people don’t have the strength to recover from such traumas.

Detailed Plan

What I personally do after dissecting my prompt is have a plan of what I’m going to be covering in each paragraph. The aim for a high scoring essay is to cover 5-6 short stories, if you chose to cover only 3-4 then from my experience the maximum you can score is an 8/10.

I’m going to split my essay into three sections each covering a certain aspect of my prompt.

First paragraph

Which characters struggled with physical trauma yet rose above it? 

1. In ‘Flexion’, Kennedy explores the pain and anguish Frank feels as he fights his injury, determined not to let it destroy him through her use of linguistic imagery whereby the slimily of Frank ‘[clawing] himself up onto the machinery’ as he is ‘growling like an animal’ depicts the sheer resolve that he exhibits as he tries to overcome the physical pain and handicap that threaten his independence. Thus, his resilience becomes admired by the readers who realise that despite almost dying, he chooses to alter his imperfect circumstances.

2. In the eponymous story ‘Like a House on Fire’, the unnamed protagonist suffers from a herniated disc that hinders his ability to carry out his role as a husband and a father yet he chooses to alter his imperfect reality by working his ‘teeth gritted way up the stairs’ not once but twice, in hope of finding a solution to the stagnation taking place in his own marriage.

Second paragraph

Which characters struggled with emotional trauma yet rose above it? 

1. In ‘Waiting’, the protagonist is waiting in a cold clinic whereby she will be told that she has suffered yet another miscarriage. Despite the harrowing pain she feels and the feeling of something ‘ebbing away’ leaving her once again without a ‘viable’ child, she chooses to move forward and declares that she is ‘not a martyr, just someone who sees what need to be done and does it’.

2. Michelle in ‘Five-Dollar Family’, has to adjust all her dreams of Des becoming the perfect father and boyfriend when she realises, he’ll be going to jail. Thus, Michelle’s epiphany that ‘she is got everything this baby needs now’ and no longer sees any value in Des allow for self-growth and ultimately the ability to cope with single parenting.

Third paragraph

Which characters are unable to show resilience and become prisoners of their imperfect circumstances? 

1. In ‘Sleepers’, Ray becomes a sleeper in his own life in the aftermath of his break up. Unlike many of the short stories in the collection, Sleepers is one that does not end with the optimism of a new start but rather ends with Ray being trapped again in his life waiting ‘to take what was coming to him’ thus signifying the damage his loneliness has cost him; whereby his life has become a series of lethargic and meaningless events.

After planning which stories, we want to discuss in the essay, we can now begin the writing process. So essentially the most important part of writing your essay is planning it and making sure you understand properly what you need to answer in your essay.

Later in the year when you are doing EAL/English practice papers, it is quite unrealistic for you to create such a detailed plan considering the time restrictions. So, I will run you through how I planned my essay in an actual exam situation.

So just like we did with the detailed plan, we highlight the important parts of the question that will need to be discussed in the essay.

Then you need to think of the stories that represent physical pain yet the characters rise above their tribulations:

2. Like a House on Fire

Then you need to think of the stories that represent emotional pain:

2. Five-Dollar Family

Then you need to think of the rebuttal story whereby the characters suffer but do not exhibit resilience:

1. Sleepers

So essentially in the short plan you just outline the stories that you would like to mention and split them up according to which aspect of the prompt they will be answering rather than actually writing dot points on each one. So your plan becomes less detailed but rather just an outline so you stay on track and do not ramble.

If you found this essay breakdown helpful, then you might want to check out our Like a House on Fire Study Guide which includes 5 A+ sample essays with EVERY essay annotated and broken down on HOW and WHY these essays achieved A+ so you reach your English goals!

By the way, to download a PDF version of this guide for printing or offline use, click here !

Download a PDF version of this blog for printing or offline use

VCE Text Response Study Guide

Like a House on Fire by Cate Kennedy

Like a House on Fire Essay Topic Breakdown

Close analysis of 'Cake' from Like a House on Fire

'Cake' from Like a House on Fire YouTube Video

The Ultimate guide to VCE Text Response

How to embed quotes in your essay like a boss

How to turn your Text Response essays from average to A+

5 Tips for a mic drop worthy essay conclusion ‍

Updated 19/01/2021

After Darkness is currently studied in VCE English under Area of Study 1 - Text Response. For a detailed guide on Text Response, check out our Ultimate Guide to VCE Text Response .

1. Introduction (Plot Summary) 2. Characters and Development 3. Themes 4. Narrative Conventions/Literary Devices 5. Sample Paragraphs 6. Additional Essay Prompts and Analysis Questions to Consider 7. Tips

1. Introduction (Plot Summary)

Christine Piper’s historical fiction, After Darkness deals with suppressed fragments of the past and silenced memories. The protagonist, Dr Ibaraki, attempts to move forward with life whilst also trying to hide past confrontations as well as any remnants of his past wrongdoings and memories. The text consists of three intertwined narrative strands – Ibaraki’s past in Tokyo in 1934, his arrival in Broome in 1938 to work in a hospital there, and his arrival in a detainment camp in Loveday (South Australia) in 1942 after the outbreak of war.

2. Characters and Development

4. Narrative Conventions/Literary Devices

• ‘a mallee tree’ - Aboriginal word for water which symbolises purity, source of life 'if it’s hit by bushfire it grows back from the root with lots of branches, like all the others here. It’s a tough tree. Drought, bushfire…it’ll survive almost anything…I was struck by the ingenuity of the tree in its ability to generate and create a new shape better suited to the environment.'
• The tag with 'the character ko…[with] its loop of yellowed string...The knot at the end had left an impression on the page behind it: a small indentation, like a scar.'

Simile/Imagery:

• 'Felt like hell on earth'
• 'The hollow trunks of dead trees haunted its edges like lost people' - Can also link to the landscape narrative convention
• 'The scene was like a photograph, preserving the strangeness of the moment.'

Description of the hospital atmosphere where the patient next to Hayashi laid

• 'Only the windows were missing, leaving dark holes like the eyes of an empty soul'
• 'The photos reached me first. I leafed through the black and white images: swollen fingers, blistered toes, blackened faces, and grotesque, rotting flesh that shrivelled and puckered to reveal bone. The final photo depicted a child’s chubby hands, the tips of the fingers all black.' - Also foreshadowing death of his and Kayoko’s child

Pathetic Fallacy:

• 'That afternoon, the sky darkened, and the wind picked up…making the world outside opaque.'
• Middlemarch (book) which symbolises Ibaraki and Sister Bernice’s friendship as Bernice was left behind
• Robinson Crusoe
• 'Being able to conduct research in this way has delivered unparalleled knowledge, which we’ve already passed on to the army to minimise further loss of life.'
• 'You haafu fools don’t deserve the Japanese blood in you!'
• 'You bloody racist!'
• 'You fucking Emperor-worshipping pig...!'
• 'Haafu' - Derogatory, racism term used to define those who are biracial (half Japanese):

An interpretation of the language use throughout the text could be Piper’s way of humanising the Japanese people to her readers and notifying them that they also have their own culture and form of communication

Another interpretation of the language use is to show that both the Australians and Japanese are just as cruel as each other because they show no respect to one another and use language in such a brutal way

Ibaraki represents that divide where he can speak both languages, yet still, cannot voice his own opinion or stand up for himself (link to theme of silence)

Personification:

• 'The void seemed to have a force of its own, drawing the meaning of the words into it.'
• 'The engine coughed into life.'

Foreshadowing:

• 'snow was falling as I walked home from the station – the first snow of the season.' - Foreshadowing the storm about to come in his life
• 'A black silhouette against the fallen snow.' - Foreshadowing Kayoko’s death

5. Sample Paragraphs

'But as soon as you show a part of yourself, almost at once you hide it away.' Ibaraki’s deepest flaw in After Darkness is his failure to reveal himself. Do you agree?

Introduction

Christine Piper’s historical fiction, After Darkness explores the consequences that an individual will be forced to endure when they choose to conceal the truth from their loved ones. Piper reveals that when a person fails to reveal themselves, it can eventually become a great obstacle which keeps them from creating meaningful and successful relationships. Additionally, Piper asserts that it can be difficult for an individual to confront their past and move completely forward with their present, especially if they believed their actions were morally wrong. Furthermore, Piper highlights the importance of allowing people into one’s life as a means to eliminate the build-up the feelings of shame and guilt. ‍

Body Paragraph

Piper acknowledges that some people will find it difficult to open up to others about their past due to them accumulating a large amount of regret and guilt over time. This is the case for Ibaraki as he was involved with the ‘experiments’ when he was working in the ‘Epidemic Prevention Laboratory', in which Major Kimura sternly told him to practise ‘discretion and not talk ‘about [his] work to anybody'. The inability to confide in his wife or mother after performing illegal and mentally disturbing actions causes him to possess a brusque conduct towards others, afraid that they will discover his truth and ‘not be able to look at [him] at all'. His failure to confess his past wrongdoings shapes the majority of his life, ruining his marriage and making him feel the need ‘to escape’ from his losses and ‘start afresh'. He eventually lies to his mother by making her believe that he ‘had gone to Kayoko’s parents’ house’ for the break, avoiding any questions from being raised about his job. As a consequence, he fails to tell his family about his horrid past suggesting that he has accepted that ‘[his] life had become one that others whispered about'. Juxtaposed to Ibaraki’s stress relieving methods, Kayoko confides in her mother after she receives news of her miscarriage, highlighting that when one willingly shares their pain with loved ones, it can release the burden as well as provide them with some assistance. In contrast to this, Ibaraki’s guilty conscience indicates that he will take ‘the secret to his grave', making it extremely difficult for people he encounters to understand him and form a meaningful connection with him. Nonetheless, Piper does not place blame on Ibaraki as he was ordered to keep the ‘specimen’ business hidden from society, thereby inviting her readers to keep in mind that some individuals are forced by others to not reveal their true colours for fear of ruining a specific reputation.

Throughout the journey in After Darkness , Piper engendered that remaining silent about one’s past events that shapes their future is one of the deepest flaws. She notes that for people to understand and form bonds with one another, it is extremely important to reveal their identity as masking it only arises suspicions. Piper postulates that for some, memories are nostalgic; whereas, for others it carries an unrelenting burden of guilt, forcing them to hide themselves which ultimately becomes the reason as to why they feel alone in their life.

6. Additional Essay Prompts and Analysis Questions to Consider

• Analyse the role of silence in After Darkness . Compare the ways in which the characters in the text utilise or handle silence. What is Piper suggesting about the notion of silence?
• Discuss the importance of friendship in the text. What is it about friends that make the characters appear more human? How can friendship bolster development in one’s character?
• Racism and nationalism are prominent themes in the text. How are the two interlinked? Explore the ways they are shown throughout the text and by different characters. Is Piper indicating that the two always lead to negative consequences?
• Analyse some of the narrative conventions (imagery, simile, metaphor, symbols, motifs, landscapes, language, etc.) in the novel and what they mean to certain characters and to the readers.
• Explore the ways in which the text emphasises that personal conscience can oftentimes hold people back from revealing their true thoughts and feelings.
• Character transformation (bildungsroman) is prevalent throughout the text. What is Piper suggesting through Ibaraki’s character in terms of the friendships and acquaintances he has formed and how have they impacted him? How have these relationships shaped him as a person in the past and present? Were such traits he developed over time beneficial for himself and those around him or have they caused the destruction of once healthy relationships?

If you'd like to see how to break down an essay topic, you might like to check out our After Darkness Essay Topic Breakdown blog post!

• Be sure to read as many academic articles as you can find in relation to the text in order to assist you with in-depth analysis when writing your essays. This will help you to stand out from the crowd and place you in a higher standing compared to your classmates as your ideas will appear much more sophisticated and thought-out.
• Being clear and concise with the language choices is such a crucial factor. Don’t over complicate the ideas you are trying to get across to your examiners by incorporating ‘big words’ you believe will make your writing appear of higher quality, because in most cases, it does the exact opposite (see Why Using Big Words in VCE Essays Can Make You Look Dumber ). Be careful! If it's a choice between using simpler language that your examiners will understand vs. using more complex vocabulary where it becomes difficult for the examiners to understand what you're trying to say, the first option is best! Ideally though, you want to find a balance between the two - a clearly written, easy to understand essay with more complex vocabulary and language woven into it.
• If there is a quote in the prompt, be sure to embed the quote into the analysis, rather than making the quote its own sentence. You only need to mention this quote once in the entire essay. How To Embed Quotes in Your Essay Like a Boss has everything you need to know for this!

If you'd like to see sample A+ essays complete with annotations on HOW and WHY the essays achieved A+, then you'll definitely want to check out our After Darkness Study Guide ! In it, we also cover advanced discussions on topics like structural features and context, completely broken down into easy-to-understand concepts so you can smash your next SAC or exam! Check it out here .

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Tressie McMillan Cottom

Whoever the Democratic Candidate Is, Americans Have Already Lost

By Tressie McMillan Cottom

Opinion Columnist

I watched the debate from a pub in Ireland. A man sitting next to me pegged me for a Yank. “Sorry about all that — screwed, no matter what you do,” he said before the final minutes of the debate. I nodded, accepting his sympathies for my condition as an American during a week when it was hard to be an American.

It is only when I am not in America that I feel my Americanness. From the moment that blue passport cover places me in a different line at customs, my citizenship speaks louder than my race, gender or religion. Maybe I had to watch that debate from outside the U.S. to fully appreciate what was happening to us Americans.

A survey of the political commentariat shows a consensus forming: President Biden is fighting the final rounds of a match that the refs won’t call but probably should. Usually, after reading all of the news and polls, I turn to the everyday political discourse, which often diverges from that of the professional political watchers. What should scare Biden loyalists is that this time, the two agree. Even the most die-hard Democratic voters can see Biden’s decline for what it is: an opening for Donald Trump to win his second presidential term.

A few days after that disastrous debate , the Supreme Court finally weighed in on presidential immunity. There is no other way to read its decision than as a signal that whoever owns the Republican Party also owns the power to break the law. Whether he wins or loses, Trump owns the G.O.P., lock, stock and barrel. I’m not sure the country has fully accepted what that means.

When the Supreme Court decision was announced, I had moved on to Greece. Again, it felt like a portentous place to be as the United States moved closer to an autocracy than it had been since perhaps Reconstruction. Greece prides itself as the birthplace of deliberative democracy. As you walk through the ancient ruins, the biggest ideas to transform human society don’t look very big. The buildings where they were debated are crumbling. Modern development dwarfs what were once massive structures to Western ideology. Despite standing for more than 2,000 years, these relics of early democracy feel fragile.

Americans don’t build monuments as well made as the ancient Greeks built. The idea has always been that our democratic ideas are the real monuments. The statues and artifice of political memory should never be stronger than those ideas. Sometimes we have made our monuments cheaply , as if to say that having perfected the means of democracy — if not its platonic ideal — we don’t need to bother with strong foundations and materials.

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