VCE · Creative Response
Creative Response: Stepping up (protest framework)
VCE Creative Response essay scoring 70%: “Stepping up” 01/01/2007 We were so many, yet still felt like so few. As we took to the streets, a mass of…
“Stepping up”
01/01/2007
We were so many, yet still felt like so few. As we took to the streets, a mass of bodies, different sizes, different colours, different ages, we felt like one. No one had asked us to be there, no one forced us to do anything, but still we marched. We marched on and on, through the streets of the city, soft feet landing on hard pavement, in search of justice
03/10/2006
The Burma national parliament votes in Cai Loe as prime minister.
04/10/2006
Loe declares the deportation of all ‘non-Burmese’ citizens.
05/10/2006
Loe declares himself grand leader, renaming Burma the state of Myanmar, now a dictatorship
06/10/2006
The day started like any other. I woke at 7:27 am, 3 minutes before my alarm, and for those three minutes, the world was peaceful.
Then they came.
Our neighbours were one of the first. They were nice people; a family of four who had relocated to my town after their home in Kyiv was destroyed.
They did not deserve it.
As I heard the low roar of heavy-duty vehicles rolling down the street, I already knew what was coming.
They had no time to prepare, no chance to leave, no way to protect their children. I watched from my bedroom window, as armed men clad in black uniform stormed into the house, breaking down the door and seizing the family.
Watching them being taken, the brutality with which they were handled,
is something I will never forget.
21/10/2006
Every day, tens of thousands live in fear of this happening to them. If a family under the protection of the United Nations were not safe, refugees from a war-torn state, then who was next? There was nothing we could do. No surefire way to stop this tyranny and help these people. So nothing was done. We spent weeks in submission, cowering in fear of what is and what may be. And then one day, something changed. Their first mistake was not suppressing our access to social media. Day by day, flowers of hope began to bloom. Videos of people in America, Australia, England, Germany, France, and countries all over the world, our pain was being seen. People gathered in droves; thousands upon thousands across the globe saw us, and they had something to say about it. Whispers began. A low murmur went through the people, and it was not happy. A glimmer of hope, a spark of possibility, a sliver of light. An idea. An idea of freedom. The people wanted change. But they did not know how to gain it. We were plagued by the fear of punishment, of enslavement, of death. We wanted change, but feared the cost.
19/11/2006
VCE · Creative Response
Creative Response: Title: Echoes of home Stimulus: "the…
VCE Creative Response essay scoring 80%: The grandfather clock stood tall in the corner of our living room like a quiet guardian. Its dark wooden frame…
The grandfather clock stood tall in the corner of our living room like a quiet guardian. Its dark wooden frame towered over everything we owned, its pendulum swinging in a slow, deliberate arc. It didn’t shimmer or demand attention, it just endured. Long before I understood grief or sacrifice, I understood the clock mattered.
I began to grow up reading my childhood by its rhythm. Tick - dad rose up before dawn. Tick - dad left in the half light. Tick - dad came home with his fingers roughened from working overtime. The pendulum swung, steady and impatient as though it was stitching our days into something whole.
Money was a loud thing in our house. It slammed cupboards shut and creaked wooden floors. It showed up as red-lettered envelopes on the front doorstep and phone calls that made my dad’s shoulders cave. There were weeks when dinner was toast in different disguises and weeks when the heater remained silent even though winter gnawed at the windows. I learnt quickly that numbers could be cruel. Interest, arrears, overdue - numbers that scratched like sandpaper. But the clock didn’t rush or falter, it didn’t ask for anything. It just kept time, filled with silence and order as though it promised some things don’t inflate or collapse
Dad always spoke about mum in the present tense. He said that she loves the smell of rain hitting the pavement and that she sang off-key whilst she cleaned. It felt like she was just about to arrive, like she was just running late. He said that she rested her head softly on this very clock, listening to each chime as if it were a companion. I imagined the clock storing her laughter, the way batteries store light.
On my 13th birthday, my dad finally told me the full story. I didn't know my mother died giving birth to me until I was old enough to know what dying meant. Even then it felt like a secret you tuck into your pocket hoping it doesn't blow away. what was meant to be a moment of relief descended into urgency, what meant to be celebration turned into silence. Dad said the hospital was too bright, the machines were too loud and that he held her hand whilst doctors moved around her with controlled urgency. His eyes did that glassy thing that suddenly makes all adults look so small. By the time I cried for the first time, she no longer could.
VCE · Creative Response
Creative Response: Our Undicovered Country
VCE Creative Response essay scoring 85%: Our Undiscovered Country After a long day, my feet burned and blisters began to form. Here, I wasn’t walking…
Our Undiscovered Country
After a long day, my feet burned and blisters began to form. Here, I wasn’t walking through a foot of snow instead of lathering thick, sticky sunscreen whose scent reminded me of primary school that melted from my skin in the blazing heat. I had been taking photos of bustling city life, having travelled from the Christmas tree in Fed square whose decorations glistened as families and tourists admired its beauty, to something more serene in Carlton Gardens, as friends gathered for picnics, and ecstatic children ready to see the triceratops. Everywhere I looked was full of chatter, and laughs echoed between the skyscrapers. My photos relied on the diversity of people I saw, or they simply would be blank spaces. Walking back was a trek, a slight incline that left me short of breath.
Though I knew my way around, it was not hard to navigate a grid.. most of the time anyways. My feet carried me closer to the station and through the clouds those deep blue colours fluttered in the breeze. There was however, a shift in the thick summer air. It felt cooler, tighter. Shouts and chants, rhythmic and tense, they grew louder like the pounding of a drum. Thump. Thump. Australian flags stood tall and rather mockingly. Signs towered over crowds casting shadows, dark bold letters screamed in my face “Save Australia”. The large expanse of the city suddenly became tight and crushing. What could we need saving from?
Those words lingered, floating behind me with each step I took. They felt heavy and full of something I had never recognised before. How could something remain so unknown and unexplored. Hidden behind casual racism, disguised as a joke that meant something more. To something unbearably loud, that it was impossible to ignore. What do we need saving from?
I hear your words, yet I don't understand what it is exactly you demand? For our borders to be slammed shut, for immigrants to never return, because that may just include you. Who are we to yell and scream for them to leave when 48% of Australian citizens are second generation immigrants? Completely ignoring the long lasting culture of the First Australians that was destroyed by our strife. Perhaps it’s not all about heritage then?
VCE · Creative Response
Creative Response: Boundaries
VCE Creative Response essay scoring 85%: I have been called many names throughout history. But once, I was called the Birrarung. A river of shadow and…
I have been called many names throughout history. But once, I was called the Birrarung. A river of shadow and mist.
I flowed freely then, winding through Country like a silver thread, tracing the paths carved for me long before you arrived. My waters were clear to catch the sky, carrying fragments of sunlight beneath my surface. I knew no boundaries except those written into the earth itself.
I was a place of mystery. In the early mornings, a soft mist would settle across me, softening the edges of the trees and blurring the boundary between water and sky. At night, shadows stretched across my surface, wrapping me in quiet protection.
Great eucalyptus trees crowded my banks, their branches reaching over me like outstretched arms. Their leaves whispered whenever the wind passed through them, casting shifting patterns of shade across the water. Beneath them, the grass swayed and flowers opened to the sun, while shrubs clung to my banks, their roots gripping the earth through every season.
I sustained life for the creatures beneath my surface and those who gathered around my banks. Fish moved through my currents, while birds called from the branches above. Animals came to drink, their footsteps pressing softly into the earth beside me. My waters gave them nourishment, a path towards the sea, and a place to rest.
Back then, I did not need to prove my worth. I simply existed. I gave what I could, and those who needed a home came to me. I was constant and enduring, flowing through Country as I had always done.
Sacred ceremonies were held along my banks. Fires flickered against the darkness as people gathered beside my waters, their voices carrying through the trees. My banks became places of camping, connection and spirituality, where stories were shared beneath the open sky.
They were the protectors of the land, caring for every part of Country. They understood that the plants, animals, water and people were not separate but connected. They cared for the creatures that moved through the bush and the plants that grew beside me, ensuring that they could endure every flood, every drought and every fire season. They never took too much, nor too little. They understood that to care for me was to care for themselves.
There were no boundaries between the people, the animals, the plants, the water and the earth. We all worked together in harmony.
They listened to my voice. And so, while they took care of me, I looked after them.
* * *
In those days, I thought everything would always remain peaceful and calm. I thought my waters would always carry the reflection of eucalyptus leaves and that animals would always come and go freely. There were no fences dividing the land. No roads cutting through Country. No buildings separating people from the earth.
But then you came.
And everything changed and new boundaries were drawn.
VCE · Creative Response
Creative Response: writing about protest
VCE Creative Response essay scoring 85%: faint roar of a motorcycle and the occasional bark of a stray dog could be heard. I checked the time. 7 pm,…
faint roar of a motorcycle and the occasional bark of a stray dog could be heard. I checked the time. 7 pm, just like the ock said. And then I saw them. Slowly one by one women gathered on all the neighboring rooftops. Some alone, some with mothers, sisters, daughters. This scene alone, all us women being one step higher from all the men in the city beneath us, gave me a sence of defience.
Slowly one by one small lights started piercing through the dark night sky, candles held up in the air filled my vission as I raised my own. This. This was enough. No matter how repressed we had been, we have had enough. Although no noice was made, no big poster with a slogan, no chants, no seraming. This was a protest. A protest against not being recognised. A protest against denying us education, a protest from us feeling like nothing in the presence of another man.
I thought about what my mother said, to look for the brightness. Well here it is. Through all this darkness in our lives, we were all able to light a candle and reccgnise that we can be eachother's light.
saw ourselves doing in the near future, our goals. Little did we know it was an hourglass slowly losing its sand overtime, a ticking time bomb. As I glanced at the old school yard it once was, I saw the girls that once played there running around freely, like they should be, like ghosts of the past.
The streets were now so loud and so quiete at the same time. Men were heard arguing over fish prices, little boys kicked around a ball. But the women - the women moved differently like guests in their own country.
As I walked in the bakery, although I was stepping up to enter. I kept my head held down belitiling myself to go as unoticed as possible. I could hear the soft crackele of the bread being made behind the counter, when I suddenly noticed her. Another women, a girl who seemed my age, looking like me in an identical blue burqua. But then again, that was everyone. All stripped of their individuality.
VCE · Creative Response
Creative Response: Small acts, big wins.
VCE Creative Response essay scoring 100%: Small Acts, Big Wins They say if you want to change the world, you should start with the next person who needs…
Small Acts, Big Wins
They say if you want to change the world, you should start with the next person who needs your help. For as long as I can remember, that person has slept across the room from me.
I don’t think anyone will be surprised — you least of all.
You shared a room with me for fourteen years. You watched me shrink: not physically at first, but personally — the way I tilted my head from every camera, the way I begged you to delete the beach photo you took that summer, the way I deflected every compliment as if it were meant for someone else. I learned early that being seen and being enough were not the same thing, and somewhere in that gap I began quietly resisting the only way I knew how: by disappearing. It was a small act, repeated until it became a life — just aimed in the wrong direction.
It started with one post at midnight: a boy my age, before and after, the after sharpened by lighting and filters and a discipline I could never replicate. I saved it before I’d finished reading the caption. I told myself it was motivation. But every image left a residue, every comparison carved something small away, until I understood that what I was losing wasn’t weight or time. It was refusal itself: the capacity to say no to a measurement I never agreed to.
I thought the voice in my head was mine. Not lean enough. Not muscular enough. And underneath both, the one I never said aloud: not wanted enough. I added a second session before school, logged every rep, and tried to optimise myself the way the platform optimised everyone else. There was always another body, another ranking, another number glowing brighter than mine, and I began to understand something terrifying: satisfaction was never the goal.
This was not a personal failure. It was architecture. Once I saw the blueprint, every post became a floor plan.
You knew this too, I think. You heard it through the wall: the soft tap of my thumb at one in the morning, the blue light leaking under my door. And I have watched you do it too — the third retake, the thumb hovering over your own face, the small exhale before you deleted the photo and tried again. So I am speaking for both of us, and for everyone who has ever mistaken a business model for a mirror.
We were never broken. Broken people do not generate billions in revenue. The system does not monetise contentment; it monetises duration — the longer we doubt ourselves, the longer we stay. So when I close the app mid-scroll, I am not failing to engage. I am refusing to be processed. It is a small act. But small acts are the one thing the blueprint never accounted for.
VCE · Creative Response
Creative Response: The Question
VCE Creative Response essay scoring 70%: The Question — Speech Our people have been pushed around by oppressive systems. We ask ourselves: are we…
The Question — Speech
Our people have been pushed around by oppressive systems. We ask ourselves: are we finally ready to stand up for our rights?
In 1897, our ancestors were brought to Fiji to work tirelessly in the sugar cane fields. Even now, we are still victims of the perpetuation of systemic racism, which has infiltrated every facet of society.
We are ready to seek change through peaceful rallies, but the question is whether we are truly prepared to fight for our rights.
Recently, a teacher of Indian descent was driven to quit his job due to racist abuse and discrimination from both students and fellow teachers. The abuse overwhelmed him so much that he feared going to work.
What did the Fijian government respond to this situation?
Nothing. The government does not care about the struggles we are facing. They do not care about the welfare of our community. They will try to silence us and dismantle our movement.
VCE · Creative Response
Creative Response: Connections
VCE Creative Response essay scoring 95%: Connections To my grandchild, and to those who will inherit this country, I first arrived in Australia in the…
Connections
To my grandchild, and to those who will inherit this country,
I first arrived in Australia in the 1940s. From the deck of my ship, it seemed as though the coastline stretched beyond the limits of my imagination. This same rugged line ties me to you now, more than our shared surname ever could. As I am sure you know, I had left Italy behind with little more than what I could carry. I believed that a country so vast must have room for a man to start again. And so I did.
My movement to Australia severed my connection to not only my home country, but my family as well. Despite this, the opportunity to learn and grow and unite upon a land of 'boundless' fertility proved irresistible. Here, I could establish a new life for myself. Through DebCo, my home-grown fertiliser business, I found a way to contribute to the country that was now my home. There was dignity in what I had built, and I will never deny that. I worked the Australian soil for days on end. The acrid scent of a rich coastal landscape taught me the language of my new home. What I built upon this 'lucky country' used to be a true relationship. I fed the soil, and the soil fed me. However, my child, you must know that a connection to this land you inherit is not as simple as I have always made it out to be.
As dry seasons encroached upon my daily harvest of the land, I could no longer manipulate soil and sun to produce what I needed. In the particularly hot months, my fertiliser would dry up and crack long before my crop could absorb it. Eventually, I learnt that cultivation doesn't simply adhere to your desires. Instead, it became clear to me that success on this Australian soil stems from an agreement with the earth. A reciprocal connection between a man and his land always provided an opportunity, but never a guarantee.
VCE · Creative Response
Creative Response: Connections
VCE Creative Response essay scoring 90%: Connections To my grandchild, and to those who will inherit this country, I first arrived in Australia in the…
Connections
To my grandchild, and to those who will inherit this country,
I first arrived in Australia in the 1940s. From the deck of my ship, it seemed as though the coastline stretched beyond the limits of my imagination. This same rugged line ties me to you now, more than our shared surname ever could. As I am sure you know, I had left Italy behind with little more than what I could carry. I believed that a country so vast must have room for a man to start again. And so I did.
My movement to Australia severed my connection to not only my home country, but my family as well. Despite this, the opportunity to learn and grow and unite upon a land of 'boundless' fertility proved irresistible. Here, I could establish a new life for myself. Through DebCo, my home-grown fertiliser business, I found a way to contribute to the country that was now my home. There was dignity in what I had built, and I will never deny that. I worked the Australian soil for days on end. The acrid scent of a rich coastal landscape taught me the language of my new home. What I built upon this 'lucky country' used to be a true relationship. I fed the soil, and the soil fed me. However, my child, you must know that a connection to this land you inherit is not as simple as I have always made it out to be.
As dry seasons encroached upon my daily harvest of the land, I could no longer manipulate soil and sun to produce what I needed. In the particularly hot months, my fertiliser would dry up and crack long before my crop could absorb it. Eventually, I learnt that cultivation doesn't simply adhere to your desires. Instead, it became clear to me that success on this Australian soil stems from an agreement with the earth. A reciprocal connection between a man and his land always provided an opportunity, but never a guarantee.
VCE · Creative Response
Creative Response: Title: 'Right to Rebel'
VCE Creative Response essay scoring 80%: Right to Rebel The first thing they took from us was a right to learn Then it was the school bell Among all, my…
Right to Rebel
The first thing they took from us was a right to learn
Then it was the school bell
Among all, my blood boiled seeing how us girls were being treated.
Sakaria had been at war for just over a year now, not with Belarus, not with Russia but with itself, fighting aimlessly for power. In between them, were us, the innocent, merely trying to make a living, TRYING to live.
Every day, kids and teenagers, boys and girls, all waited eagerly for our beautiful school bell to bring us closer.
That was 6 months ago, or it could have been 8, I can’t remember.
Along with the bell, the militia took our right to learn, said that we were not of use in schools and in labs, our duty was to take care of the children at home and look after the family while our fathers were out fighting and our brothers remained in school, getting a ‘fair’ shot at life.
One morning day, my sister’s alarm echoed from the room next door whilst the sun glistened across my face, waking me up. Just as alarming as the noise, I looked out to see militia men guarding the school grounds, arriving in big Jeeps, with guns almost the size of me, holstered to them.
For some time, news reporters from across the world decided it would be smart to show the world what was happening here in poor old Sakaria, but the militia saw this as an opportunity to boast their power to the world, that they were not, could not be taken down. By now, it was known to the West that females were oppressed as this new ‘regime’ rose, but no one decided to anything.
We remained not only bombarded by the government, but the militia also had their shields of wrath and destruction all over us women, not one of us able to do anything.
VCE · Creative Response
Creative Response: “The earth is always…
VCE Creative Response essay scoring 80%: People often speak about country as though it is merely land, a fixed location that can be mapped and measured.…
People often speak about country as though it is merely land, a fixed location that can be mapped and measured. Yet over time, I have come to realise that country exists far beyond geography alone. It lives within memory, routine, community, and the quiet moments that shape a person’s identity long before they fully understand it. Only after experiencing loss did I begin to recognise how deeply connection to country influences the way we see ourselves and the world around us.
I still remember the warmth of the curvy sand paths on the soles of my feet. The air carried the smell of the ocean’s salt while great whales echoed in the distance singing their songs. At the time, these moments felt ordinary, almost forgettable, but looking back now, I realise they formed the foundation of my understanding of belonging. Whether it was a walk through the unforgettable beach provided by nature, there was always a sense of familiarity that grounded me. Country became intertwined with routine: the sound of kitchen conversations, the sight of coffee dripping from the pot, the feeling of familiarity with my loved ones. These details seemed insignificant then, yet now they linger in my memory with an almost painful clarity.
Perhaps that is the strange thing about connection. We rarely recognise its importance until something changes. For me, that change arrived through the construction of a new super city. Slowly, the familiar landscapes that once brought comfort began to feel distant, replaced by car engines roaring. This created a dreadful readjustment period where the contrast was impossible to ignore. Where there had once been magpies calling, there were now crowded streets. Even the silence felt different. I began to realise how much of my identity had been shaped by the places and people I had taken for granted.
VCE · Creative Response
Creative Response: Title: The choice
VCE Creative Response essay scoring 97.5%: A thick layer of grey dust stuck to my skin. Tarpaulin covers, makeshift tin stores, and endless crowds of…
A thick layer of grey dust stuck to my skin.
Tarpaulin covers, makeshift tin stores, and endless crowds of sweat and grime were clawing into every corner. My mother reminded me to cover my mouth, the thin scarf doing little to block the air. Below us were rows and rows of every type of vegetable I’d never seen. Keeping my balance along the gravel — it was not hard to hate a place like this. Nothing stood still here. Their shouts echoed, insisting. My mother’s familiar voice mingled with the sellers — bidding, scoffing, giving in, or winning.
“This is how I always used to do it.” To her, this was simply coming back. To me, this was treading around a world that I’d never lived in before.
The night before, she’d told me we’d all have to wake up early for the morning market. She said all the cheapest and freshest foods would be gone by 9 am. I complained as usual. I didn’t choose to move around clammy shoulders, squeezing my way through tight alleys and walkways. We avoided puddles with strange smells, gazes falling on the decay. My mother saw potholes, the concrete scarcely holding on to the edges as cars relentlessly passed. I saw a civilization that was failing to adapt, I only heard the endless layering of honks. I hadn't come all the way back for my mum’s 13 year old cravings. I didn’t understand that to her, to my parents, this was a city they’d lost as soon as they’d left. A choice they had made for me.
All I wanted, all I’d thought this would be was hugging the aunties, shaking the hands of my uncles and laughing with cousins. I thought this would be feasts, gifts and chatting by the fire till the crickets awoke. I had hoped it would be shopping for clothes at the market, trying the street food and visiting the beautiful mountainsides.
Expectation isn’t reasoning. It removes empathy.
It blinds you from truth; you don’t accept things as is. You feel like your parents are being selfish.
VCE · Creative Response
Creative Response: Title: The choice
VCE Creative Response essay scoring 97.5%: A thick layer of grey dust stuck to my skin. Tarpaulin covers, makeshift tin stores, and endless crowds of…
A thick layer of grey dust stuck to my skin.
Tarpaulin covers, makeshift tin stores, and endless crowds of sweat and grime was clawing into every corner. My mother reminded me to cover my mouth, the thin scarf doing little to block the air. Below us, rows and rows of vegetables I’d never seen before. Keeping my balance along the gravel, it was not hard to hate a place like this. Nothing stood still here. Their shouts echoed, insisting. My mother’s familiar voice mingled with the sellers — bidding, scoffing, giving in, or winning.
“This is how I always used to do it.” To her, this was simply coming back. To me, this was treading around a world that I’d never lived in before.
The night before, she’d told me we’d all have to wake up early for the morning market. She said all the cheapest and freshest foods would be gone by 9 am. I complained as usual. I didn’t choose to move around clammy shoulders, squeezing my way through tight alleys and walkways. We avoided puddles with strange smells, gazes falling on the decay. My mother saw potholes, the concrete scarcely holding on to the edges as cars relentlessly passed. I saw a civilization that was failing to adapt, I only heard the endless layering of honks. I hadn't come all the way back for my mum’s 13-year-old cravings. I didn’t understand that to her, to my parents, this was a city they’d lost as soon as they’d left. A choice they had made for me.
All I wanted, all I’d thought this would be, was hugging the aunties, shaking the hands of my uncles and laughing with cousins. I thought this would be feasts, gifts and chatting by the fire till the crickets awoke. I had hoped it would be shopping for clothes at the market, trying the street food and visiting the beautiful mountainsides.
Expectation isn’t reasoning, it removes empathy.
They blind you from truth; you don’t accept things as is. I felt like my parents were being selfish.
VCE · Creative Response
Creative Response: TITLE: AT WHAT COST STIMULUS: IF NOT…
VCE Creative Response essay scoring 85%: At What Cost I always thought freedom came from the absence of fear. I was wrong. It was a sweltering day in…
At What Cost
I always thought freedom came from the absence of fear.
I was wrong.
It was a sweltering day in Gaza, the sun beaming down, causing sweat to form upon my brow, dust clouds surrounding the horizon. In every direction you turned gaze. The dunes almost like mountains, making it difficult for me as I push. Pushing I was the heavy, rusty wheelchair holding my brother. The sand compressing below the wheels, making it difficult to roll across the desert.
* * *
Today began like no other cold shower to escape the heat, falafel and hummus for breakfast. My brother had the exact same system except reversed. I’d see him walk to the kitchen as I grabbed my towel. Although it was the same routine. Today was very much a different day because today, my brother and I were to March. My brother was complacent again this morning, procrastinating the persistence of walking for what is right.
I said to him this morning if not now, when? Each day we don’t act, another battle is lost. We must fight back, we must act, at what cost there is for conformity, is larger than the cost of doing something, and failing.
So we must try.
My brother and I began to walk, walk to the city called to meet with those who were disgusted with Israel as much as we are. It wasn’t very far, but there was much more walking to to be done. After about half an hour of trenching through the city we came up upon the rally. So many strong men and women who would not pay that cost of conforming as much as we wouldn’t, all surrounding the city hall door. Each face in their represented a story, a reason, anger and emotions so strong in what needs to change the collide together as one.
VCE · Creative Response
Creative Response: protest: Unbroken stimulus 1: ‘to…
VCE Creative Response essay scoring 65%: Title: Unbroken My day typically consists of being under the spotlight, wearing pieces that make me feel…
Title: Unbroken
My day typically consists of being under the spotlight, wearing pieces that make me feel confident, the abundance of colours and dreamy pieces I have the privilege to wear.
I’ve basically got the dream life. The life which I know all of you behind the screen dream to have, sorry not sorry!
But, this dream I’ve lived the past 5 years, from age 15 to 20, has brought with it the loss of my blissful ignorance. Working my ideal job has cursed me with being exposed to dark truth, the truth that lies behind the industry’s closed doors.
I don’t mean to sound like a performative activist, I know too well that I am a part of the problem. Every 'haul' video I post, every discount code I share, adds another stitch to the shroud covering this industry's sins.
The problem is woven into the very fabric of the industry, a poisoned thread running through every seam, impossible to unpick without unravelling the whole garment.
Fashion, modelling, all comes down to the production of clothing, of course. This is no surprise. However, what has really shocked me down to my core, is the disgusting roots.
Behind the flattering ring light and the curated aesthetic is a landscape of overflowing landfills, the phantom ache of exploited hands, and the calculated deception fed to every consumer. We have all been lied to, under the spell of their meticulous curation of your algorithm.
Yeah, I know guys! I am the one on your feed, shoving the latest micro-trend down your throats and forcing you to open your wallets. I am sorry.
Sorry to the thousands of workers who don’t have nearly as much privilege as me, who are tricked, manipulated, and confined by the untouched threads which strangle them, day after day.
Okay, so, welcome to a day in their life, working 16 hour shifts, and yes, 7 days a week, not like (nothing like) your average 9-5. With 98% earning below a freaking living wage, pouring blood sweat and tears into their craft, with no reward? And for what? So we can pride ourselves on fitting in with the trends, looking like our favourite influencer,
“Anna, don’t be so dramatic”. Oh okay, I’d like to see you try work 16 hours every day, every week, every day of the year, no break, no humanity, not a single ounce of humanity.
Well, “I’d protest” Okay, just like the thousands of fabric workers in Bangladesh did? Cool, and take the chance of being shot by rubber bullets, attacked with tear gas, forced to disperse and killed?
VCE · Creative Response
Creative Response: Title: Resist and Persist Stimulus…
VCE Creative Response essay scoring 97.5%: Resist and Persist Before I say anything else, I’m going to say my name. Nasrin. Two syllables. It isn’t a…
Resist and Persist
Before I say anything else, I’m going to say my name.
Nasrin.
Two syllables. It isn’t a difficult name. But I’ve heard it shortened and mispronounced so often that I stopped correcting people. That is how a name disappears. One polite silence at a time.
I should be in class right now. Instead I’m out here with a borrowed megaphone and a speech I wrote on the tram. Behind that glass, someone is deciding what happens to families like mine. In front of me stand the people who can make them listen. Some of you came with banners. Some of you only stopped because the road was closed. I’m speaking to all of you.
Picture a row of dominoes. One tips. The next goes. Then the next, until falling is all anyone remembers. That is how the words work. A “boat”. A “flow”. A “case”. Each one nudges the next, until nobody remembers there is a person underneath.
I used to think the best thing a refugee could do was stay quiet. Nobody said it to me. Nobody had to. It was in how Mum thanked every person who handed her a form. We’d been given a place to stand, and the unwritten rule was to stand very still, be very grateful and take up as little room as possible.
So I got good at it. “I’m fine.” “It’s okay.” “Honestly, I’m just happy to be here.” Sentences that sound like gratitude. Really, they’re a small, polite way of falling down.
But standing still has a shelf life. For me, it ended with a form.
Form 88-B. Nine pages, with a reference number printed above our names. Mum filled it out at our kitchen table with a dictionary beside her, and I translated the words the dictionary didn’t have. Halfway down page two: Reason for leaving. Three lines.
Three lines for the night we ran. Three lines for everyone we didn’t say goodbye to.
I watched my mother stare at that box for a very long time. Then she picked up the pen and made it fit.
VCE · Creative Response
Creative Response: Title: Resist and Persist Stimulus…
VCE Creative Response essay scoring 92.5%: Resist and Persist Before I say anything else, I’m going to say my name. Nasrin. Two syllables. It isn’t a…
Resist and Persist
Before I say anything else, I’m going to say my name.
Nasrin.
Two syllables. It isn’t a difficult name. But I’ve heard it shortened and mispronounced so often that I stopped correcting people. That is how a name disappears: one polite silence at a time.
I should be in class right now. Instead I’m out here with a borrowed megaphone and a speech I wrote on the tram, because behind that glass someone is deciding what happens to families like mine, and in front of me stand the people who can make them listen. Some of you came with banners. Some of you only stopped because the road was closed. I’m speaking to all of you.
Picture a row of dominoes. One tips, the next goes, then the next, until falling is all anyone remembers. That is how the words work. A “boat”. A “flow”. A “case”. Each one nudges the next, until nobody remembers there is a person underneath.
I used to think the best thing a refugee could do was stay quiet. Nobody said it to me. Nobody had to. It was in how Mum thanked every person who handed her a form. We’d been given a place to stand, and the unwritten rule was to stand very still, be very grateful and take up as little room as possible.
So I got good at it. “I’m fine.” “It’s okay.” “Honestly, I’m just happy to be here.” Sentences that sound like gratitude but are really a small, polite way of falling down.
But standing still has a shelf life. For me, it ended with a form.
Nine pages. Mum filled it out at our kitchen table with a dictionary beside her, and I translated the words the dictionary didn’t have. Halfway down page two: Reason for leaving. Three lines.
Three lines for the night we ran. Three lines for everyone we didn’t say goodbye to.
I watched my mother stare at that box for a very long time. Then she picked up the pen and made it fit.
VCE · Creative Response
Creative Response: Title: The Noise We Make Stimulus:…
VCE Creative Response essay scoring 85%: The clock on the wall of the Department of Institutional Archives did not tick; it hummed—a flat, electronic…
The clock on the wall of the Department of Institutional Archives did not tick; it hummed—a flat, electronic frequency designed to mask the sounds of the traffic three stories below.
Every desk was spaced exactly nine feet apart. At Desk 14, Arthur sat behind his black terminal, reviewing transcripts of public testimonies. His job was simple: when a citizen’s testimony contained "disruptive emotional syntax"—phrases that expressed grief, anger, or moral objection—Arthur was required to highlight the clause and press Alt+Delete. The system called it Syntactical Standardization.
In his left ear, Arthur wore a small, beige rubber earpiece. It was not a Vonnegut-style radio blasting white noise, but a modern compliance loop—a gentle, steady chime that played every forty seconds to reset the employee’s train of thought.
Chime.
Arthur blinked. He had been looking at line 42 of a document:
“We stood on the steps for four hours in the freezing rain because my sister had no voice left to speak for herself.”
Arthur’s cursor hovered over the sentence. Standard protocol required him to delete “in the freezing rain” and “because my sister had no voice left.” Such details invited empathy. Empathy invited friction.
Beside him, Miller at Desk 15 worked with mechanical efficiency. Miller’s fingers clattered across his mechanical keyboard like hail on a tin roof. He never paused. He never looked at the names on the left-hand margin of his screen. When the compliance chime sounded in Miller’s ear, Miller’s eyes simply glazed over for a microsecond before his hands resumed their rhythmic, obedient dance.
Chime.
Arthur felt a tight, suffocating weight behind his ribs—the physical handicap of quiet compliance. For seven years, he had participated in this slow erasure. He had deleted mothers, deleted workers, deleted the quiet rage of people whose only crime was wanting to be heard. He had convinced himself that because he did not write the laws, he bore no responsibility for their execution.
He looked down at his desk. On the stainless steel lip sat a brass paperclip. It was an illegal object—strictly non-regulation in a paperless office. Three weeks ago, Arthur had picked it up off the floor of the lobby. Since then, he had kept it hidden in his palm, bending and unbending its metal wire until his thumb was calloused. It was his anchor.
VCE · Creative Response
Creative Response: Title: Level Up Stimulus: We dont stop…
VCE Creative Response essay scoring 75%: We ate on the pitch. Not in a restaurant. On the actual ground in Darwin, in the heat that would not let up…
We ate on the pitch.
Not in a restaurant. On the actual ground in Darwin, in the heat that would not let up even after sunset. Fifteen of us sat in the middle of the pitch with food in our hands, but nobody said much.
The changerooms had already been loud, that specific kind of loud when a group of people realise that what they have been doing has finally become real. But out on the pitch it was quiet, and I remember thinking: so this is what play actually is.
Play has a version of itself that asks nothing of you. When I joined the First XI, I was the youngest in the youngest, trying to fit in and trying to keep pace, I trained and played, but the game passed through me and left nothing behind.
That kind of play is easy.
you occupy a position, follow the rules and wait for your turn to be over. You are present without even choosing to be in the game. It is play as an occupation - filling a position in someone else’s game.
But play at this level, holds you in the shallowest arena possible.
Play without care creates a group which turns up to the game without ever deciding to actually enter the arena. The team accepts the scoreboard, goes through the motions and takes nothing back home with them.
For 1388 days. This was us.
Play without intent is not play.
It is occupting a position in someone else’s game.
What changes play is the moment a group of people decides that they need to enter the arena. That shift does not arrive through one dramatic event. Instead an array of miniscule moments which shape a team, we had stayed at the lowest level for this entire period of time.
I remember our captain stopping mid drill and simple saying: “Do it again, properly.”
No anger. No speech. Just an expectation that we needed to build our arena.
That sentence ultimately drew a line between performing the game in someone else’s arena and actually being able to create our own.
From that point on. Play carried weight. You took it home. You woke up already thinking about it. Training stopped being something you simple attend, but something which was used as a workshop to build a team which built an arena through attitude and culture.
Hard work stopped being applauded.
it became assumed.
VCE · Creative Response
Creative Response: The title was : Actions not words The…
VCE Creative Response essay scoring 80%: Actions, Not Words When did freedom become something we had to beg for? When did justice become a privilege,…
Actions, Not Words
When did freedom become something we had to beg for? When did justice become a privilege, and being treated with dignity become a demand too unreasonable to make without a crowd behind us? When did peace become something we had to lose before we could hope to find it?
They tell us to stand together. They said a moment is akin to a thousand words. That we had to do something, demand a change, refuse to accept a world that has given us every reason to be angry. And I understand that. God,I understand. But I wonder sometimes, what they expect of us. How can they ask us to keep fighting when some of us have nothing left to give?
Even the air feels heavy. The clock in the hall ticks, each second streching into the next, and I find myself listening for sounds that aren't even there. That familiar click of the knob when you turn the key. The creak of the floorboard that's five steps away from my room. Her voice calling out that she’s home, I keep looking at the door.
And I don't know why. As if staring at it long enough might bring her back. As though the world might take pity on me, and just this once, return something it has already taken. And yet it won't, as today has passed, so will tomorrow. Tomorrow, when they ask us to return to the streets. To lift our signs, straighten our shoulders, to make our grief loud enough that someone might listen. They will tell us this is what change demands of us. This is the sacrifice we make when we protest. That even when our mouths dry up, our lungs run out of air as we run out of words, we must keep fighting. That we could walk silent, empty-handed, but atleast we would be walking because to stop is to surrender.
I want to believe our words matter. I want to believe that if I give all of myself to this fight, we will win. I want to believe that all this pain must lead somewhere, beyond the signs and the shouting, a world in which no mother has to wait for her daughter like this.
VCE · Creative Response
Creative Response: standing still
VCE Creative Response essay scoring 60%: standing still throughout the beginning of of my teenager years i acted as my own editor, ruthlessly cutting…
standing still
throughout the beginning of of my teenager years i acted as
my own editor, ruthlessly cutting the foreign" parts of my manuscript until the story was
Sufficient enough for my Australian audience. The first and most significant deletion was my hijab, taking of the fabric that once held my identity and faith in place and letting my long brown hair fall free a white flag of surrender that allowed me to move through the high school hallways without the constant terrorisation and "are you hiding a bomb underneath" mockery that followed, close behind. My second deletion came soon after, replacing the once endless and genuine conversation in farsi, with a curated greeting of “gday ‘mate” letting go off the soft authentic language of my mothers tongue and picking up w horrible aussie accent that i desperately failed to master.
I was ready to replace authenciy with acceptance, that i didnt realize what i was letting go off.
Yet, as the pages grew cleaner, they also grew thinner. i learned to anticipate the piercing looks that came my way as i opened my container of Kabuli palow or biryani, the way eyes would narrow, measuring the distance between my lunch and their bland, insipid reality of a Vegemite sandwich. I began to preempt the judgment. Before anyone could ask, I had already deleted the vibrant spices of my home kitchen, replacing them with something that wouldn’t draw attention.
whilst i was too busy deleting my cultural heritage from my manuscript, my grandmother was a living and breathing archive of the beauty I was ready to let go off she embraced the afghan culture i was Sheepishly afraid to slip thru my identity, she wore her " keremeenaz" and "du damena" (traditional afghan clothing) with pride and dignity, while i was hiding mines inside the back of my closet cabnit. she shared her magic not only inside the house with her special touches of safforn and garam masala but also with the neighbours, family friends, and anyone whos hands could hold a warm plate of mantu
VCE · Creative Response
Creative Response: framework: protest
VCE Creative Response essay scoring 100%: The first thing I noticed was the flag. We were two hours into the march: hoarse, sunburned, the pole digging…
The first thing I noticed was the flag.
We were two hours into the march: hoarse, sunburned, the pole digging into my shoulder. The wind kept catching the fabric, snapping the rainbow against the grey buildings, while glitter caught in the cracks of the cobblestones and a bass line shook the shutters of the old buildings on either side.
We all knew why we were there. There are still streets in this country where two women cannot hold hands at a bus stop without checking over their shoulders, and a march is the only argument we have that cannot be talked over: ten thousand bodies, in daylight, refusing to be anywhere else.
Nobody argued. Around us the car park was already something more than a crowd. A woman in a T-shirt that read MUM HUGS, FREE passed round sunscreen without asking whose skin it was for. Two teenagers lettered a banner on a car bonnet, bickering happily over how to spell solidarity. When Rosa asked who had no water, eleven hands went up and eleven bottles went the other way, and nobody asked anyone's name. Near the gate, two women walked past holding hands, openly, not checking over their shoulders, and no one looked twice.
Then the front of the crowd braked, the collective pulse of the march snapping, leaving only the hollow echo of our own boots on the stone. On the left, in a doorway, stood an old man in a pressed shirt buttoned to the collar, as though he had dressed for church. In both hands, held against his chest like a shield, he had a flag. Green and red. My breath hitched.
I knew what that flag could mean in certain hands. I had seen it waved from car windows at the edge of other marches, draped across the shoulders of men shouting things I won’t repeat from behind a line of police. A few people lowered their signs. Someone behind me muttered, “Here we go.” Beside me, Dani tightened her grip on her pole, and I felt myself do the sum that years of small hostilities had taught me: flag, man, doorway. Danger. I felt it in my shoulders before I thought it.
VCE · Creative Response
Creative Response: title: The choice
VCE Creative Response essay scoring 95%: A thick layer of grey dust stuck to my skin. The tarpaulin covers, makeshift tin stores, and endless crowds of…
A thick layer of grey dust stuck to my skin.
The tarpaulin covers, makeshift tin stores, and endless crowds of sweat and grime. My mother reminded me to cover my mouth, the thin scarf doing little to block the air. Below us were rows and rows of every type of vegetable I’d never seen. Buckets of small jumping frogs, crabs and an odd collection of bugs. My brows furrowed, not in judgement but in contemplation. Their shouts echoed, every seller insisting we buy their fresh tomatoes or bright green okras. My mother’s familiar voice mingled with theirs — bidding, scoffing, giving in, or winning.
“This is how I always used to do it,” she was proudly holding the bag of 30-rupee beans. To her, this was simply coming back. To me, this was treading around a world that I’d never lived in before.
The night before, she’d told me we’d all have to wake up early for the morning market. She said all the cheapest and freshest foods would be gone by 9 am. Dragging ourselves into my uncle’s car, we drove to the main ‘city’. I groaned as usual. I didn’t choose to move around clammy shoulders, squeezing my way through tight alleys and walkways. We avoided puddles with strange smells, asking a store owner where the vegetable section was. I complained on the car ride back. I hadn't come all the way back home just to spend my days buying all the different, exotic foods my mum had been craving for 13 years. I didn’t understand that to her, to my parents, it was like being starved of the beach for that many years — an impossible feat for most Aussies. A choice they had made for me.
All I wanted, all I’d thought this would be hugging the aunties, shaking the hands of my uncles, laughing with cousins, being given meals, gifts and chatting by the fire till the crickets awoke. I hoped it would be shopping for clothes in all the different stores, trying the street food and visiting the beautiful mountainsides.
My expectations hadn’t been met yet, and I felt like my parents were being selfish.
VCE · Creative Response
Creative Response: Writing about country
VCE Creative Response essay scoring 87.5%: Title: regeneration By the time I was pushed onto the bus, the city had already forgotten my name. The judge…
Title: regeneration
By the time I was pushed onto the bus, the city had already forgotten my name. The judge called it a ‘rehabilitation’. Mum called it ‘lucky’. I called it exile. The overbearing skyscrapers I knew so well began to disappear beneath the horizon, the skyline shrinking into a blur as I traveled further and further away. High-rises became cottages, parking lots became paddocks, and traffic became silent. Yet somehow, the silence felt more deafening than anything.
The elements of an early summer had settled over the valley before I arrived. The grass stretched over the land in waves, the scent of eucalyptus mixed with livestock infiltrating my senses. As I stood before my new home for the summer, I began to reminisce on things I thought I would never miss. Things that I took for granted. The sound of trains screeching to a halt below my apartment building, the deafening sirens of emergency services, the humming of streetlights late at night. I was told I was given a ‘second chance,’ a chance for regeneration.
I had been left at a place I didn’t know; a place that didn’t know me. I was introduced to the owner of the farm, an aged man named Arthur. He looked at me grimly, the harsh wrinkles on his forehead indicating there were many like me before, sent away to his farm for ‘rehabilitation.’ Still, he shook my hand firmly, and welcomed me into his home.