VCE · Creative Response
Creative Response: 'The Ground Beneath'
VCE Creative Response essay scoring 95%: ‘The Ground Beaneath’ The following is an extract from Eliza Connel's upcoming memoir "My Brilliant…
‘The Ground Beaneath’
The following is an extract from Eliza Connel's upcoming memoir "My Brilliant Radicalisation". Eliza is the Director of 'Animals Australia', a not-for-profit designed to promote animal welfare and is the 2028 Australian of the year.
Pre-order is available from December 3rd at www.worldofeliza.com.au
It was just like any ordinary day. The autumn leaves drifted lazily through the wind, rustling together upon the ground below. The grade three classroom at Sunvale Primary was starkly lit in juxtaposition to the gentle conditions of the outdoors. Inside raged a battle of will amongst students. The concept of 'show and tell' held strong appeal to all.
Perhaps it was Noah's hand that extended the highest. Or maybe Mrs Higgin's hadn't yet sensed what was to come.
"Noah, you may go next," Mrs Higgins announced in her usual tone of stern ferocity.
I was slightly afraid of Noah at the time. Though looking back I see nothing but a thin, gangly boy of about nine who was desperately afraid of being alone, being forgotten, ignored.
Noah rose with a start - it was rare for him to be called upon for joyous reasons in class.
After a sputtering cough, Noah launched into his story.
"On the weekend Dad and me went shooting cockies in the trees at the back of the paddock with Grandad's old rifle and we got all of them there were white feathers everywhere!”
Noah's words came out in a single breath, as though in anticipation of being cut off.
The class was dead silent.
Mrs Higgin's offered Noah a thin smile. "Thank you for sharing" she stuttered.
The shocked faces of my classmates were obvious. Some had their mouths agape, others looked faintly amused, but many of us looked truly horrified.
That weekend just gone I had experienced cockatoos in a vastly different manner. Staying at my grandparent’s cottage near the beach, the sounds of the cockatoos opening seedpods was one I was used to.
My grandfather and I had gone birdwatching. Seated in the treehouse in Pa's backyard we had munched on salad sandwiches and fresh green apples as we observed the birds through the window. Graceful red-tailed black cockatoos swarmed a nearby tree, pecking daintily at seed pods before gliding to the ground beneath. White cockatoos soared overhead with flashes of yellow darting in and out of my eyesight. Wrens flittered about on low branches.
VCE · Creative Response
Creative Response: Write a persuasive piece
VCE Creative Response essay scoring 90%: Every Dungeons and Dragons game begins the same way; a blank character sheet. Before the adventure starts, you…
Every Dungeons and Dragons game begins the same way; a blank character sheet. Before the adventure starts, you roll the dice and decide what kind of person you want to become, dictated by both your skills and your flaws. Intelligence? Wisdom? Strength? Every decision shapes how you'll face the world.
If modern society had a character sheet, we'd have invested heavily into building ambition, productivity, and independence. We'd boast impressive Intelligence scores, Strength of massive proportions, maybe even of Wisdom beyond our years. But somewhere along the way, Charisma became our dump stat. We forgot that no adventure, real or imagined, is meant to be completed alone. We rolled a natural 1, a critical fail, on our ability to be human, and to seek connection in others like we have in years gone by.
When I tell people I spend my Thursday afternoons playing D&D, I usually get one of two reactions: confusion or amusement. To many people, it's still a weird game about rolling dice and pretending to be elves. Worst case, they believe its some devil-worshiping, cult-y freakshow with too many innuendos and too little deodorant. Yet despite this, every week, Santa's D&D club fills with students who stay long after the (silent) final bell, choosing 'make-believe' instead of going home. The same thing is happening far beyond M2.35 as well. Stranger Things transformed the Hellfire Club from a negative stereotype into a symbol of community, Baldur's Gate 3 introduced over 20 million players (so far) to collaborative storytelling (reimagined in game format), and audiences continue to spend hours watching strangers play D&D through Critical Role, and many other channels similar.
VCE · Creative Response
Creative Response: Personal Journeys
VCE Creative Response essay scoring 75%: "I hate you! I wish I were never born!" was the last thing I ever said to my mother. I ran upstairs to my room,…
"I hate you! I wish I were never born!" was the last thing I ever said to my mother. I ran upstairs to my room, waiting until she and my brother fell asleep. In my hands were two bags of clothes, on my back was a bag with my laptop, a charger, and my mother’s diamond earring in the pocket.
VCE · Creative Response
Creative Response: Personal Journeys
VCE Creative Response essay scoring 75%: "I hate you! I wish I were never born!" was the last thing I ever said to my mother. I ran upstairs to my room,…
"I hate you! I wish I were never born!" was the last thing I ever said to my mother. I ran upstairs to my room, waiting until she and my brother fell asleep. In my hands were two bags of clothes, on my back was a bag with my laptop, a charger, and my mothers diamond earring in the pocket.
That night, I slept under the stars and thought about the life I had ahead of me without my mothers constant nagging. Julliard was waiting for me, and my life was around the corner.
I spent three days in this park before I saw myself on a 'missing' poster, that night I couldn't sleep knowing my mother was already looking for me. The echo of my little brother asking why I’m not at the dinner table consumed me. On the fourth day I bought a bus ticket to the furthest state it drove to, showering in the public bathroom before it left. The decision to take that opportunity was my best one yet because, coincidentally, my first girlfriend had the seat next to me. I hadn't seen her in years.
"Why are you going out of state?" She asked after tense silence.
"Just to see my uncle." I lied quickly.
"Cool. I didn't know you had an uncle."
I don't have one. Although I have 10 aunts I could've said I was visiting. "Maybe if he's out sometime, we could catch up."
"Yeah. Maybe," but I was already looking away, at the wild dogs we passed out the window.
It took a week, and getting kicked out of three McDonald’s, to call her. She was happy to hear from me, until I told her I called for a place to stay. Eventually she agreed to help me out, letting me have a shower and sleep on her couch. To make up for taking up her dorm space I let her take repayments from me in whatever form she wanted from me, before she kicked me out when her boyfriend was about to move in.
"I just don't want him to know I'm interested in someone like you." She told me without an ounce of empathy.
With nowhere to stay after weeks of buying every meal, I found a pawn shop that would take my laptop and stolen jewellery. However, when I got to the counter he said he'd take my laptop but not my earrings.
"They'll help you attract customers from that corner." He pointed to the street lined with workers. I had no other choice.
He handed me a hundred dollar note and my earrings.
"You'd better get out there now, they're stealing your business," he laughed as a woman stumbled to get into the backseat of a car.
The note was tucked into my pocket
VCE · Creative Response
Creative Response: Essay on Protest Title: Refuse now…
VCE Creative Response essay scoring 85%: Published to Harvard University’s Online Forum Protesting is a right given to all individual no matter what…
Published to Harvard University’s Online Forum
Protesting is a right given to all individual no matter what race, sex or gender you are but why are you not utilizing that? You know one of your a fellow student got racially discriminated but why are you not doing anything about it. Protesting should be direct and confronting but you people refused to stand up. Refusing now would not bring change no matter what, it's not what you do but the purpose behind it. Speak up for change, so this would not happen to you or people around you. "Change is a slow moving river" yes it is true, protest doesn't get what you want right away, but think about the student who experienced racism on campus, think from their perspective, no one stepped up for them but it is not too late to fight for change, it takes effort, it takes time but more importantly, it takes passion and a mind that says to keep going and refuse to back down. Protesting has its own risk associated with it, yes its dangerous, yes it may result in chaos and yes you may get injured but is it all worth it? Yes you are fighting for change and for your fellow students and refusing now will only make think [things] worse. If you back down and refuse to change how others trust you this will happen again, plenty more times, so don't refuse now and fight for what is right, which is change. "A river that does not move is a swamp"; if you do not speak up for change then what's the purpose, you want more people to get racially discriminated? You yourself are causing more harm than good by refusing to fight for change but think about it, you are not the only one who wants change, there are others and more if you just say the words "We need change" you will be encouraging more students to be along side you and once you are in there is no looking and refusing to get back up. This is protest, fighting for change and speaking up to do what is right for others, for students, for teachers and everyone else.
VCE · Creative Response
Creative Response: Small Acts, Big Wins,
VCE Creative Response essay scoring 90%: Every morning, my hand reaches past a stainless-steel travel mug and closes around the same ceramic cup. The…
Every morning, my hand reaches past a stainless-steel travel mug and closes around the same ceramic cup. The steel is cold and smooth; the ceramic’s glaze is slightly rough beneath my thumb. Its rim is chipped; a brown stain circles the inside. The newer mug keeps heat in for longer and could probably survive a fall, yet habit has already made the decision before thought could begin. Stopping would take less than a second. It has taken me much longer to notice that I never do.
We give authority to habit. We return to old objects, old rules and old explanations—not because they are necessarily better, but because they ask nothing new of us. What is familiar feels natural; what feels natural soon appears inevitable. Give habit a cupboard and it becomes routine; give it a courthouse and several generations, and it begins to call itself tradition.
Before the placard, the march or the chant, there is a question. Why this cup? Why this rule? Why must things remain as they are? One question can sound too small to change anything. Asked by another person, then another, it becomes harder to dismiss. Protest does not always provide the correct answer. Its first achievement is making an answer necessary.
This interruption is precisely why protesters are so often portrayed as the source of disorder. Why are they blocking the road? Why are they making so much noise? Why can’t they express themselves calmly?
These questions assume that before the protest, there was peace.
But peaceful for whom?
Silence only resembles harmony when you are not the person being silenced. A system can appear orderly when you are not the person trapped beneath it. Protest does not necessarily create the fracture. Sometimes it merely exposes the fracture, making it impossible to ignore.
VCE · Creative Response
Creative Response: framwork about country
VCE Creative Response essay scoring 67.5%: Title of section B Subheading - The Places That Pull Us By Jessia Smith Travel Blog Nation Posted 5 hours ago…
Title of section B
Subheading - The Places That Pull Us
By Jessia Smith
Travel Blog Nation
Posted 5 hours ago
I place a small red magnet on the table.
It is shaped like a horseshoe, its two silver ends pointing towards each other. Smooth plastic covers the outside, and a tiny scratch runs across the front.
There are places in the world that pull us towards them before we understand why. Sometimes it is the landscape. Sometimes it is the people. Sometimes it is simply the feeling that something is waiting for us beyond what we already know.
We often think of country as a place on a map — somewhere we are born, live and belong. But after travelling, I have realised that country is much harder to define.
Perhaps country is not simply where we are from.
Perhaps it is everywhere that changes us.
I turn the red magnet over in my hand.
The people
The red magnet reminds me of America.
I travelled there with people who were once strangers and are now some of my closest friends. I remember unfamiliar faces, accents and streets that seemed larger and brighter than the ones I knew.
Everyone was moving somewhere.
But amongst all that movement, it was the people I remember most.
The magnet reminds me that a place is not simply its buildings or landscapes. It is the people who fill it.
Sometimes leaving home is what teaches us what home really means.
I place the red magnet down and reach for a purple elephant.
The ordinary
The purple elephant reminds me of Sri Lanka.
I remember blue plates and bowls being passed around as people gathered together to eat. I remember eating with my hands.
To me, it felt strange.
But looking around, I realised that I was the unusual one. What felt unfamiliar to me was completely ordinary to everyone else.
It was a small moment, but it taught me something important: we are easily convinced that our own habits are universal.
Culture lives in the ordinary things — the way people eat, gather and pass traditions from one generation to the next.
Travel forces us to question what we call “normal”.
I place the elephant beside the American magnet.
Click.
Then I reach for the largest magnet.
Looking back at home
The green magnet is triangular.
It reminds me of the mountains of the Dolomites.
VCE · Creative Response
Creative Response: Title : Time rearranges Stimulus: ‘Do…
VCE Creative Response essay scoring 85%: Claude section B exam Title : Time rearranges Stimulus: ‘Do not dwell in the past, do not dream of the future,…
Claude section B exam
Title : Time rearranges
Stimulus: ‘Do not dwell in the past, do not dream of the future, focus the mind on the present moment.
Time Rearranges
Every clock in Pop's workshop told a different time.
I used to think it was neglect. There were forty-one of them, crowded across the walls in a tangle of mismatched ticking, like a room of people all talking at once. 3:10. Ten to nine. A quarter past some other afternoon. When I was small, I asked why he never fixed them.
"They're not broken," he said. "Each one's right somewhere."
I was seventeen the week my course preferences were due, and I felt right nowhere.
That year, Mum had started dropping me at the shop on Thursdays. She never said why, and I never asked. On the first Thursday in August, Pop looked up from the bench and asked if the man from the bank had collected his watch yet.
"Pop," I said, "that was years ago."
He didn't argue. He just looked at me, politely, the way you'd look at a stranger who had given you the wrong directions, and went back to polishing a case that was already clean.
I carried that look home. I carried it for days, replaying the sentence, trying out better ones. Sorry, Pop, I think he did. I'll check. It was easy to be kind in the version where I got a second go.
When I wasn't in that Thursday, I was in December: the one where I'd already decided. Engineering, safe and sensible, the answer everyone expected. Or the other thing, which I'd never said aloud, which had a bench and a loupe and an expiry date. I rehearsed both conversations on the tram. I lost sleep arguing with people who weren't there. I lived in the room behind me or the room ahead of me, and only visited the one I was actually standing in when somebody spoke to me.
Above the bench, taped there years ago in Pop's block capitals and gone yellow at the edges, was a card:
DO NOT DWELL IN THE PAST. DO NOT DREAM OF THE FUTURE. FOCUS THE MIND ON THE PRESENT MOMENT.
VCE · Creative Response
Creative Response: stimulus 1 - no one is free until we…
VCE Creative Response essay scoring 62.5%: To my silenced brothers and sisters joining me today as a part of the Southern Christian Leadership…
To my silenced brothers and sisters joining me today as a part of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC). For 200 years we have been censored. For 200 years we have been treated as subhuman. For 200 years we have been stripped of our voice. But for no longer, as the unity we've found in each other is what strengthens us to overcome the governing body structured to lawfully outcast the black minority under their reign. Relinquishing the previous ideas about radical protest in stunning scenes only weakens our united movement. Therefore, we must refine our position within the sociopolitical scene in a peaceful protest to sustain our rightful position within society.
Join me in taking the tape off each other's mouths, as it is instrumental as black people, that we do not succumb to neutrality, in giving up our own power we unknowingly rob our neighbour of theirs. As a part of the SCLC we all will make our voices heard and our faces seen in the eyes of the government and make real change… finally seen as equals… equals in the innate human dignity every single one of us is born with the right to.
The public censoring of our people disempowers those who bear witness to the disgusting abuse of power inflicted upon poor individuals who were brave enough to break their silence.
The ingrained social construct of a hierarchy built on race solely to create a false sense of power for our oppressors, drastically undermines the innate rights black people are born with.
In an era riddled with this racial tyranny, the imposition of these unjust hardships are met with a series of violent militias, prominently the black panther party who despite having numerous accredited community programs and social strategies, carried automatic firearms for self defence in the monitoring of police behaviour. And as one would expect this leads to inconceivable amounts of lives lost for both groups inadvertently denoting our combating of black disenfranchisement, silently perpetuating the racist Jim Crow laws.
VCE · Creative Response
Creative Response: THE RULES OF THE GAME STIMULUS: We…
VCE Creative Response essay scoring 85%: THE RULES OF THE GAME STIMULUS: We don’t stop playing because we grow old; we grow old when we stop playing.…
THE RULES OF THE GAME
STIMULUS: We don’t stop playing because we grow old; we grow old when we stop playing.
THE AGE: Teen Takeover - A glimpse into the toxic sports culture plaguing sport, and forcing kids outside the lines on the game they love.
When I was eight, I realised that the people around me cared more about the results that I was producing than they did for me as an actual person. That’s when I realised, sport was no longer about fun, it was about who could kick the furthest, run the fastest, win the most. A missed shot or a kick out of bounds was met with anger, and followed by silence on the way home. While a win was met with a slight smile, it was not before a list of endless critiques. I had learnt, before I had even hit double digits, that my worth on the field had become entangled with my worth off it. The rules of sport had become simple, pressure and winning were everything.
WE DON’T STOP PLAYING BECAUSE WE GROW OLD, WE STOP WHEN PLAYING NO LONGER BELONGS TO US
Allianz Australia’s recent research into junior sports in Australia found that one in three teens have pleaded with their parents to quit sport before the age of 15. When you ask them why, you won’t hear that they stopped loving the game or injury forced them into this position. You will hear one word. Pressure. These children are constantly demanded to give more than they have, car drives homes are turned into lectures and incessant disappointment. Children leaving sports unhappy isn’t unlucky, it is simply symptomatic of a culture that values the scoreboard more than the kids standing in front of it. Kids do not leave the sport because they stopped loving it, but they felt as if it was no longer theirs, the logic of sport was now to perform for other people.
Realistically, it is very easy to write this off as a parenting issue. However, as much as people would like to think, this isn’t something that parents have written up and executed off of their own back. They didn’t invent these rules. They inherited them.
VCE · Creative Response
Creative Response: THE RULES OF THE GAME STIMULUS: We…
VCE Creative Response essay scoring 85%: THE RULES OF THE GAME STIMULUS: We don’t stop playing because we grow old; we grow old when we stop playing.…
THE RULES OF THE GAME
STIMULUS: We don’t stop playing because we grow old; we grow old when we stop playing.
THE AGE: Teen Takeover - A glimpse into the toxic sports culture plaguing sport, and forcing kids outside the lines on the game they love.
When I was eight, I realised that the people around me cared more about the results that I was producing than they did for me as an actual person. That’s when I realised, sport was no longer about fun, it was about who could kick the furthest, run the fastest, win the most. A missed shot or a kick out of bounds was met with anger, and followed by silence on the way home. While a win was met with a slight smile, it was not before a list of endless critiques. I had learnt, before I had even hit double digits, that my worth on the field had become entangled with my worth off it. The rules of sport had become simple, pressure and winning were everything.
WE DON’T STOP PLAYING BECAUSE WE GROW OLD, WE STOP WHEN PLAYING NO LONGER BELONGS TO US
Allianz Australia’s recent research into junior sports in Australia found that one in three teens have pleaded with their parents to quit sport before the age of 15. When you ask them why, you won’t hear that they stopped loving the game or injury forced them into this position. You will hear one word. Pressure. These children are constantly demanded to give more than they have, car drives homes are turned into lectures and incessant disappointment. Children leaving sports unhappy isn’t unlucky, it is simply symptomatic of a culture that values the scoreboard more than the kids standing in front of it. Kids do not leave the sport because they stopped loving it, but they felt as if it was no longer theirs, the logic of sport was now to perform for other people.
Realistically, it is very easy to write this off as a parenting issue. However, as much as people would like to think, this isn’t something that parents have written up and executed off of their own back. They didn’t invent these rules. They inherited them.
VCE · Creative Response
Creative Response: THE RULES OF THE GAME STIMULUS: We…
VCE Creative Response essay scoring 80%: THE RULES OF THE GAME STIMULUS: We don’t stop playing because we grow old; we grow old when we stop playing.…
THE RULES OF THE GAME
STIMULUS: We don’t stop playing because we grow old; we grow old when we stop playing.
THE AGE: Teen Takeover - A glimpse into the toxic sports culture plaguing sport, and forcing kids outside the lines on the game they love.
When I was eight, I realised that the people around me cared more about the results that I was producing than they did for me as an actual person. That’s when I realised, sport was no longer about fun, it was about who could kick the furthest, run the fastest, win the most. A missed shot or a kick out of bounds was met with anger, and followed by silence on the way home. While a win was met with a slight smile, but not before the endless critiques. I had learnt, before I had even hit double digits, that my worth on the field had become entangled with my worth off it. The rules of sport had become simple, pressure and winning were everything.
WE DON’T STOP PLAYING BECAUSE WE GROW OLD, WE STOP WHEN PLAYING NO LONGER BELONGS TO US
Allianz Australia’s recent research into junior sports in Australia found that one in three teens have pleaded with their parents to quit sport before the age of 15. When you ask them why, you won’t hear that they stopped loving the game or injury forced them into this position. You will hear one word. Pressure. These children are constantly demanded to give more than they have, car road homes are turned into lectures and incessant disappointment. Children leaving sports unhappy isn’t unlucky, it is simply symptomatic of a culture that values the scoreboard more than the kids standing in front of it. Kids do not leave the sport because they stopped loving it, but they felt as if it was no longer theirs, the logic of sport was now to perform for other people.
Realistically, it is very easy to write this off as a parenting issue. However, as much as people would like to think, this isn’t something that parents have written up and executed off of their own back. They didn’t invent these rules. They inherited them.
VCE · Creative Response
Creative Response: THE RULES OF THE GAME STIMULUS: We…
VCE Creative Response essay scoring 80%: THE RULES OF THE GAME STIMULUS: We don’t stop playing because we grow old; we grow old when we stop playing.…
THE RULES OF THE GAME
STIMULUS: We don’t stop playing because we grow old; we grow old when we stop playing.
THE AGE: Teen Takeover - A glimpse into the toxic sports culture plaguing sport, and forcing kids outside the lines on the game they love.
When I was eight, I realised that the people around me cared more about the results that I was producing than they did for me as an actual person. That’s when I realised, sport was no longer about fun, it was about who could kick the furthest, run the fastest, win the most. A missed shot or a kick out of bounds was met with anger, and followed by silence on the way home. While a win was met with a slight smile, but not before the endless critiques. I had learnt, before I had even hit double digits, that my worth on the field had become entangled with my worth off it. The rules of sport had become simple, pressure and winning were everything.
WE DON’T STOP PLAYING BECAUSE WE GROW OLD, WE STOP WHEN PLAYING NO LONGER BELONGS TO US
Allianz Australia’s recent research into junior sports in Australia found that one in three teens have pleaded with their parents to quit sport before the age of 15. When you ask them why, you won’t hear that they stopped loving the game or injury forced them into this position. You will hear one word. Pressure. These children are constantly demanded to give more than they have, car road homes are turned into lectures and incessant disappointment. Children leaving sports unhappy isn’t unlucky, it is simply symptomatic of a culture that values the scoreboard more than the kids standing in front of it. Kids do not leave the sport because they stopped loving it, but they felt as if it was no longer theirs, the logic of sport was now to perform for other people.
Realistically, it is very easy to write this off as a parenting issue. However, as much as people would like to think, this isn’t something that parents have written up and executed off of their own back. They didn’t invent these rules. They inherited them.
VCE · Creative Response
Creative Response: THE RULES OF THE GAME STIMULUS: We…
VCE Creative Response essay scoring 85%: THE RULES OF THE GAME THE AGE: Teen Takeover - A glimpse into the toxic sports culture plaguing sport, and…
THE RULES OF THE GAME
THE AGE: Teen Takeover - A glimpse into the toxic sports culture plaguing sport, and forcing kids outside the lines on the game they love.
When I was eight, I realised that the people around me cared more about the results that I was producing than they did for me as an actual person. That’s was I realised, sport was no longer about fun, it was about who could kick the furthest, run the fastest, win the most. A missed shot or a kick out of bounds was met with anger, and followed by silence on the way home. While a win was met with a slight smile, but not before the endless critiques. I had learnt, before I had even hit double digits, that my worth on the field had become entangled with my worth off it. The rules of sport had become simple, pressure and winning were everything.
WE DONT STOP PLAYING BECAUSE WE GROW OLD, WE STOP WHEN PLAYING NO LONGER BELONGS TO US
Allianz Australia’s recent research into junior sports in Australia found that one in three teens have pleaded with their parents to quit sport before the age of 15. When you ask them why, you won’t hear that they stopped loving the game or injury forced them into this position. You will hear one word. Pressure. These children are constantly demanded to give more than they have, car road homes are turned into lectures and incessant disappointment. Children leaving sports unhappy isn’t unlucky, it is simply symptomatic of a culture that values the scoreboard more than the kids standing in front of it. Kids do not leave the sport because they stopped loving it, but they felt as if it was no longer theirs, the logic of sport was now to perform for other people.
Realistically, it was very easy to write this off as a parenting issue. However, as much as people would like to think, this isn’t something that parents have written up and executed off of their own back. They didn’t invent these rules. They inherited them.
VCE · Creative Response
Creative Response: The most common way people give up…
VCE Creative Response essay scoring 60%: Voices Unheard To my silenced brothers and sisters joining me today as a part of the Southern Christian…
Voices Unheard
To my silenced brothers and sisters joining me today as a part of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC). For 200 years we have been censored. For 200 years we have been treated as subhuman. For 200 years we have been stripped of our voice. But for no longer, as the unity we've found in each other is what strengthens us to overcome the governing body structured to lawfully outcast the black minority under their reign. Relinquishing the previous ideas about radical protest in stunning scenes only weakens our united movement. Therefore, we must refine our position within the sociopolitical scene in a peaceful protest to sustain our congruent position in society.
Join me in taking the tape off each other's mouths, as it is instrumental as black people, that we do not succumb to neutrality, in giving up our own power we unknowingly rob our neighbour of theirs. As a part of the SCLC we all will make our voices heard and our faces seen in the eyes of the government and make real change… finally seen as equals… equals in the innate human dignity every single one of us is born with the right to.
The public censoring of our people disempowers those who bear witness to the disgusting abuse of power inflicted upon poor individuals who were brave enough to break their silence.
The ingrained social construct of a hierarchy built on race solely to create a false sense of power for our oppressors, drastically undermines the innate rights black people are born with.
VCE · Creative Response
Creative Response: Title: ‘The choice’ Stimulus 1 ‘No two…
VCE Creative Response essay scoring 87.5%: The choice The house on Miller Street was a container for a ghost life I once believed was permanent. For…
The choice
The house on Miller Street was a container for a ghost life I once believed was permanent. For years, Julian had been the constant; he had trailed behind like a loyal shadow, his footsteps matching mine with a rhythmic predictability that felt as essential as breathing. We were children of the same sun-drenched afternoons, unaware that our orbits were slowly drifting apart, pulled by forces we were too young to understand. Back then, the future seemed like a singular path, a paved road stretching forward with clear signposts. We had drawn our lives in crayon on the pavement: the same school, the same street, the same small promises that seemed too ordinary to ever break.
There was comfort in that certainty. We mistook proximity for permanence, believing that because we had always walked beside one another, we would continue to do so. But the landscape has a way of shifting beneath your feet, rearranging the horizon when you are least prepared. As the years bled into one another, the silence between us began to thicken. Time was a quiet tide, gradually pulling us towards different shores. It did not happen in a single, cinematic moment of betrayal or shouting, but in the gradual erosion of shared language. We were speaking the same words, but the definitions had drifted, anchored in different realities. Julian still spoke about the future we had once sketched together as though it were waiting patiently at the end of the road. I listened. Sometimes, I even smiled. That was the cruelest part: I could still remember why I had loved the life we had imagined.
I stand now at the threshold of my own departure — the physical manifestation of a choice I have been making in increments for a decade. The suitcase sits by the door, a solid, heavy symbol of finality. Outside, the sky is bruised with violet, the last light bleeding slowly across the horizon as though the day itself is reluctant to disappear. Rain gathers against the windows, each droplet sliding downward in uncertain paths. I watch them merge and separate, and wonder whether our lives have done the same. Is there truly a moment where we choose our direction, or do we simply wake one day to discover that the road beneath our feet is no longer the one we intended to take?
I look in the mirror, searching for the person who walked with Julian on those summer days, but the reflection seems fractured by the dim light. The lines around my eyes hold the geography of lessons learned in isolation. I remember the wreckage of last winter — the way the world seemed to splinter beneath the weight of expectations I could no longer carry. I had spent so long trying to fit myself into a future designed by other people that I had begun to disappear inside it, like ink dissolving in water. There had been a voice then, faint but persistent, urging me to find some direction amidst all the change and the storm I had weathered.
I ignored it.
VCE · Creative Response
Creative Response: creative piece- personal journeys
VCE Creative Response essay scoring 90%: Nobody noticed when the white swan disappeared. The black swan did not look like an enemy when I first met her.…
Nobody noticed when the white swan disappeared.
The black swan did not look like an enemy when I first met her. She did not arrive violently or announce herself as something to fear. She simply appeared, quietly, in the spaces between my thoughts. At first, she sounded almost indistinguishable from me. She spoke in the language of ambition, discipline and self-improvement, offering small suggestions that felt more like opportunities than warnings. You could be better. I believed her. Why wouldn’t I? The white swan had always wanted to be better.
She was there when I looked in the mirror and found something to correct. She was there when food became something to think about long after the plate had been cleared. She was there in the strange satisfaction of denying myself something I wanted, and in the guilt that followed when I did not. She made my body feel like a problem with a solution I had not yet found. Yet none of this seemed frightening. The black swan had a way of making fear sound like discipline.
What I did not understand was that she did not need to force the white one away. She only needed to make her doubt herself. Little by little, certainty became hesitation. Satisfaction became inadequacy. Thoughts that once passed through my mind began circling it, returning again and again until they felt less like thoughts and more like facts. The white swan was still visible to everyone else. She still laughed, studied, talked and sat at the dinner table. But inside, something had shifted. I was becoming quieter in places no one could see.
The black swan was patient. She understood that control is most convincing when it disguises itself as choice. She turned ordinary moments into tests I felt I had to pass, until decisions that once required no thought became negotiations I could not escape. I became increasingly conscious of what I ate, how I looked, what I believed I should have done differently. There was always another standard waiting for me, another way I could have been more disciplined, more deserving, more in control. Every time I reached it, she quietly moved the finish line.
And the cruelest part was that I thought I was choosing her.
The black swan had made secrecy feel like safety. The less other people knew, the less they could interfere; the less they could interfere, the more control I believed I had. I became skilled at making something enormous look insignificant. A thought could consume an entire day and still be dismissed with a shrug. A fear could sit beside me at dinner and remain invisible to everyone else. I could laugh, answer questions and carry on as though nothing had changed.
Nobody saw a black swan.
They saw me.
That was exactly how she wanted it.
The black swan knew she would never be trusted if she arrived looking like an enemy. So she borrowed the white swan’s face. She spoke in the same voice, carried the same ambitions and wore the same confidence. She did not ask me to become someone unrecognisable. Instead, she took the things I valued most and quietly changed what they meant.
VCE · Creative Response
Creative Response: friendly games
VCE Creative Response essay scoring 95%: We were both the competitive kind. The slight creak of the floorboard from his steps had woken me, but it was…
We were both the competitive kind.
The slight creak of the floorboard from his steps had woken me, but it was the curious energy radiating from his glimmering eyes that made me instinctively alert. Like how the streams of sunlight would beam through dissipating clouds in the aftermath of a storm, his warm brown eyes were peeking through wild tufts of jet-black hair, the same ones that formed patches around my ears and body. He was barely a boy then, yet he was standing so assertively on his short chubby legs that I couldn’t help but feel challenged to stare back and wag my tail furiously.
He looked at me some more before pointing a stubby finger.
“Mummy,” his jumbled words clumsily rolled out of his mouth. “I wan dat one.”
Upon hearing him, a man turned and saw me lying on the cushion.
“Oh him? That’s Peter Pan, he’s quiet now because he was just napping.”
A smile stretched across his lips.
“But don’t you worry, Kiddo, he’s one energetic puppy.”
Soon, I would learn that everything was a game between me and Victor, and out of all those games we would play, tug of war was my favourite.
Every time I sank my canines into the tight crevices of the rope, I felt the adrenaline rushing through my veins, the thumps of my pulsating heart. I could still vividly remember the bursts of energy that would flood through my muscles during those games, how I would stretch back, claws deep in the dirt, mouth clamped ferociously around the knot, as I tugged at the rope with every drop of strength and intensity I could muster.
Our tense competition was evident through the tally of victories kept on the chalkboard, but the short columns of grainy white lines didn’t mean much to me. It was the thrill of the game, and Victor’s bright laughter sprinkled in after each round that kept me wanting to play again and again.
In one of our earliest matches, I pulled so hard that the impact left Victor stumbling and falling backwards onto the grass. As I bounded towards him with the rope still in my mouth, excited for another round, I saw his small face, twisted with angry streaks of mud and eyebrows creased in annoyance.
“No more, Peter, I don’t wanna play anymore.” Tears were welling in his eyes and slowly rolling around the curve of his cheek. “You always win; it’s no fun.”
And then he left with heavy stomps in his trail.
VCE · Creative Response
Creative Response: “The distance between” “Sometimes the…
VCE Creative Response essay scoring 82.5%: A tumultuous sheet of grey washes over the sky, undulating, rolling and impenetrable. The sky begins to…
A tumultuous sheet of grey washes over the sky, undulating, rolling and impenetrable.
The sky begins to darken and a small village is engulfed in shadow and not too far away, up upon a small unremarkable hill, a boy no older than the age of 15 carries his washing back inside before the rain gets to it. People don’t know how he got there or why, all they know about him are the rumors being spread around town. “He lives all by himself,” some say, others talk about how he grows his own food but the general sentiment centres around the idea “He must be so lonely without anyone to talk to.”
The boy knows about their conversations, their whispering drifts up to his small mundane wooden shack, down through the chimney and into his delicate alabaster ears. As the sun begins to fade under the horizon and the fire starts to burn low, their murmurings become clearer. “My brother said he watches us from up there,” “What does he do all day,” “What a weirdo.” The boy had become used to these words, their arrival each night filling him with an unusual sense of familiarity. At first he wondered what they meant and he would open his windows, glancing down at their small houses. He searched for the people talking about him but he never found them. From the top of the hill, the village seemed so distant and the boy felt so alienated but that was all he ever knew so how could he complain? He convinced himself that they were afraid of him, that he wasn't welcomed. At least, that's what he told himself.
Was the boy on the hill, really a boy on a hill though?
Maybe he was a boy who sat alone at the back of the classroom.
The hill wasn’t really a hill either, it was the distance between him and everyone else. His wooden shack was the seat he ate lunch at, lodged in the corner of the normally deserted library. A place where his existence could become virtually erased. No-one existed in his reality and he didn't in anyone else's. It was easier for him like this, he didn’t have to worry about the obtrusive stares of others, their opinions, their judgement. He didn't have to worry about any of it.
No-one else existed in his private slice of the universe except him and the whispers.
VCE · Creative Response
Creative Response: “The distance between” “Sometimes the…
VCE Creative Response essay scoring 77.5%: A tumultuous sheet of grey washes over the sky, undulating, rolling and impenetrable. The sky begins to…
A tumultuous sheet of grey washes over the sky, undulating, rolling and impenetrable.
The sky begins to darken and a small village is engulfed in shadow and not too far away, up upon a small unremarkable hill, a boy no older than the age of 15 carries his washing back inside before the rain gets to it. People don’t know how he got there or why, all they know about him are the rumors being spread around town. “He lives all by himself,” some say, others talk about how he grows his own food but the general sentiment centres around the idea “He must be so lonely without anyone to talk to.”
The boy knows about their conversations, their whispering drifts up to his small mundane wooden shack, down through the chimney and into his delicate alabaster ears. As the sun begins to fade under the horizon and the fire starts to burn low, their murmurings become clearer. “My brother said he watches us from up there,” “What does he do all day,” “What a weirdo.” The boy had become used to these words, their arrival each night filling him with an unusual sense of familiarity. At first he wondered what they meant and he would open his windows and glance down at their small houses, searching for the people talking about him but he never found them. From the top of the hill, the village seemed so distant and the boy felt so alienated but that was all he ever knew so how could he complain? He convinced himself that they were afraid of him, that he wasn't welcomed. At least, that's what he told himself.
Was the boy on the hill, really a boy on a hill though?
Maybe he was a boy who sat alone at the back of the classroom.
The hill wasn’t really a hill either, it was the distance between him and everyone else. His wooden shack was the seat he ate lunch at, lodged in the corner of the normally deserted library. A place where his existence could become virtually erased, no-one existed in his reality and he didn't in anyone else's. It was easier for him like this, he didn’t have to worry about the obtrusive stares of others, their opinions, their judgement. He didn't have to worry about any of it.
No-one else existed in his private slice of the universe except him and the whispers.
VCE · Creative Response
Creative Response: “The distance between” “Sometimes the…
VCE Creative Response essay scoring 70%: A tumultuous sheet of grey washes over the sky, undulating, rolling and impenetrable. The sky begins to darken…
A tumultuous sheet of grey washes over the sky, undulating, rolling and impenetrable.
The sky begins to darken and a small village is engulfed in shadow and not too far away, up upon a small unremarkable hill, a boy no older than the age of 15 carries his washing back inside before the rain gets to it. People don’t know how he got there or why, all they know about him are the rumors being spread around town. “He lives all by himself,” some say, others talk about how he grows his own food but the general sentiment centres around the idea “He must be so lonely without anyone to talk to.”
The boy knows about their conversations, their whispering drifts up to his small mundane wooden shack, down through the chimney and into his delicate alabaster ears. As the sun begins to fade under the horizon and the fire starts to burn low, their murmurings become clearer. “My brother said he watches us from up there,” “What does he do all day,” “What a weirdo.” The boy had become used to these words, their arrival each night filling him with an unusual sense of familiarity. At first he wondered what they meant and he would open his windows and glance down at their small houses, searching for the people talking about him but he never found them. From the top of the hill, the village seemed so distant and the boy felt so alienated but that was all he ever knew so how could he complain? He convinced himself that they were afraid of him, that he wasn't welcomed. At least, that's what he told himself.
The boy on the hill wasn’t really a boy on a hill though.
He was a boy who sat alone at the back of the classroom.
The hill wasn’t really a hill either, it was the distance between him and everyone else. His wooden shack was the seat he ate lunch at, lodged in the corner of the normally deserted library. A place where his existence could become virtually erased, no-one existed in his reality and he didn't in anyone else's. It was easier for him like this, he didn’t have to worry about the obtrusive stares of others, their opinions, their judgement. He didn't have to worry about any of it.
No-one else existed in his private slice of the universe except him and the whispers.
VCE · Creative Response
Creative Response: it was in relation to the category of…
VCE Creative Response essay scoring 77.5%: The tiling was cold against his cheek, smelling like a damp rag and stained with the failed ambitions of the…
The tiling was cold against his cheek, smelling like a damp rag and stained with the failed ambitions of the few before him. A heavy boot held his head to the floor but the man didn't struggle. His wrists were cinched behind his back with plastic ties digging into his bony skin, yet he felt a strange, buoyant lightness. A weightlessness he hadn't known for a decade. The feeling of freedom. Inside his closed fist, he felt along the comforting edges of the gold band on his ring finger. He squeezed it like a child on their parents finger, clutching onto those memories for strength.
"Look at me!", a voice barked. He looked up only to be greeted by the never ending hollow black void of a rifle barrel. But he didn't even blink.
BANG.
Three hours earlier the man sat by Desk 203 in the Ministry of Clarity. The room was a vast, windowless grid of beige cubicles. The rhythmic scritch-scratch of markers against documents echoed through the chamber like a ceaseless tune. His job was simple. He was an architect of silence. Ever since that night, the uprising scrubbed from every piece of media in the country, the state had existed in a state of enforced blindness. And he was one of those blinders. His friends at the canteen told him his silence was a shield. A way to keep his head down and his daughter safe. But as he dragged his black marker across the morning's papers, the shield felt more like a shroud covering what spark he once had. He glanced over at the wedding ring on his finger, its golden lustre dimmed by years of ink dust, and felt nothing but the drab, dull weight of the city's secrets dangling over him.
VCE · Creative Response
Creative Response: Framework 3: Writing about personal…
VCE Creative Response essay scoring 85%: Growing up, I always admired the little robots my mother would create. Sometimes she’d use scraps from an old…
Growing up, I always admired the little robots my mother would create. Sometimes she’d use scraps from an old laptop, or an old toy to create something entirely new. To me, that was the purest form of art.
I wanted to open the gate into her world. That was the direction I wanted to steer my life in.
During my earlier school years, I found myself obsessed with math, the way the world around us worked, and of course, mechas, robots, and anything to do with machines. I still remember showing my mother my creations, and one time that I did…I had seen an expression of pure love and wonder on her face. My creation wasn’t even that good, it was quite rudimentary. My mother however, chose to encourage me.
I must confess, I was honestly never good at the stuff I found myself obsessed with. My mother may have been proud of my creation, but it was a cheap copy of something she had made ages ago. Among the strained scoldings from my mum, the bad grades, and the several, several disfigured robots that I caused, I had to wonder – maybe chasing the direction my mother decided to travel in wasn’t the best idea for me.
I had no idea what to do with myself.
VCE · Creative Response
Creative Response: Break The Silence Image of a group of…
VCE Creative Response essay scoring 85%: Everyone looks back fondly on their time in Primary School. At recess you would just run around and have fun,…
Everyone looks back fondly on their time in Primary School. At recess you would just run around and have fun, with no care in the world. Then you get to high school, where a change is obvious. You aren't innocent to the world anymore. You begin to learn your morals, what is right and what is wrong. Soon enough, you begin to witness mistreatment, bullying, around the school. The bigger and stronger kids assume power and control over everyone else. Once you witness this, you are given a choice, stand up, and fight for justice, putting yourself at risk in the process. Or do you stay silent, let the corruption and oppression go unopposed. This hypothetical is alive all throughout the world, not just in the school yard, but everywhere. Everyday, people face the difficult choice of letting injustice continue to survive, or breaking the silence, and creating change. So, I pose to the audience, if it is your friend being bullied, which option do you choose?
Let's say you choose to let it happen, keep yourself away from the danger. You choose silence. Because that is exactly what it is. Silence, is a choice. And it is a good choice, clearly. Billions of people around the world are choosing it every day so it must be good. Right? Silence can be a good choice for the individual, but it is never a good choice for the collective. If you are neutral in situations of injustice, you have chosen the side of the oppression. Because that is exactly what they want. The school bully doesn't want intrusion, corrupt governments don't want minorities to speak up, let their stories be heard. They know they are in the wrong, and they know that visibility is their weakness. So what do we do? Speak up. Break the silence. Expose the injustices so we can cut them out of our lives. Humans are born with a special talent. Their voice, their words. So why do we not use it?