VCE · Creative Response
Creative Response: country is the way you live, not the…
VCE Creative Response essay scoring 90%: Dear future generations, I want to tell you a story — not of borders, or governments, or politics, but of…
Dear future generations,
I want to tell you a story — not of borders, or governments, or politics, but of something much older, deeper, and quieter. A story of connection.
I once saw an old man sitting under a gum tree one afternoon, his back hunched slightly, his fingers moving slowly and surely across the strings of a weathered guitar. The tune was gentle, almost as if it came from the ground itself. Beside him sat a young boy, no older than five, wearing a wide blue sunhat and a grin that could outshine the sky. The man didn’t speak much, but he didn’t have to — the music said everything. The boy watched closely, his small hand reaching out to strum the strings. Between them sat a small Aboriginal flag, its colours bright and alive in the sunlight.
That moment — so simple, so unplanned — said more to me about Country than any textbook, law, or slogan ever could. It reminded me that Country is not about what you own, what you wear, or how you look. It’s about how you live. How you listen, how you share, how you honour the world and people around you.
For so long, Australia has misunderstood what it means to belong to this land. We’ve thought of it as ownership — as something we can divide, measure, and name. But Country isn’t a possession; it’s a relationship. It’s a living, breathing entity that holds memory, identity, and story. It speaks through the wind, the trees, the rivers, and even the silences in between.
The old man under that tree knew this. The boy beside him was learning it. And as I watched, I realised that I was learning it too — not through words, but through witnessing the quiet bond between two people connected by something far greater than appearance.
That is what it means to live on Country. It’s not about skin colour or ancestry alone. It’s about living with respect, curiosity, and care — understanding that every step we take leaves an imprint on something sacred.
When I think of the phrase “Country is the way you live, not the way you look”, I think about how divided we’ve sometimes become as a nation. We label, we separate, we assume who belongs and who doesn’t based on what we see. But as Thomas Jefferson once said, “The greatest good we can do for our country is to heal its divisions and make it one people.” Those divisions don’t heal through policies or slogans — they heal through understanding, compassion, and shared action.
VCE · Creative Response
Creative Response: inclusion not exclusion
VCE Creative Response essay scoring 90%: Inclusion not exclusion Country is not just land. It is breath and heartbeat, song and silence. It stretches…
Inclusion not exclusion
Country is not just land.
It is breath and heartbeat, song and silence.
It stretches beyond what your eyes can see, across ridgelines, rivers, and red dust, into the very place where memory and identity live.
When I say Country, I don’t mean a patch of earth or a name on a map.
I mean the stories held in the soil, the echoes carried on the wind, the warmth of ancestors still walking beside us.
Every step we take leaves an imprint.
Not just on the ground, but on the spirit of this place.
The land remembers who we are, even when we forget.
It remembers the sound of laughter around campfires, the whispers of old songs carried through generations, the tears of mothers and fathers who never stopped caring for it.
Country is not just where we live.
It’s who we are.
It shapes our hearts, our thinking, our belonging.
When I look at the land, I see my own reflection, my story written in the folds of the hills and the bends of the river, the gumtrees that hold our memories where their roots reach deep into the stories of time.
But Country isn’t something that belongs to one person or people alone.
Country belongs to everyone who respects it.
That’s what our old people taught us: Inclusion, not exclusion.
Country opens her arms wide, not to divide, but to bring together.
You don’t need to be born to this soil to walk with it.
You just need to listen, really listen to what it tells you.
Learn the rhythm of its breath, the quiet lessons it offers when you stop trying to own it and start trying to understand it.
Because Country doesn’t speak through power or possession.
She speaks through connection.
Through care. Through humility.
Through the way you treat her and the way you treat each other.
To live with Country is to live
VCE · Creative Response
Creative Response: creative essay on prompt of protests,…
VCE Creative Response essay scoring 82.5%: “I’m not really into politics” — because you can afford to be. Being unbothered by protest is an act of…
“I’m not really into politics” — because you can afford to be.
Being unbothered by protest is an act of protest itself.
Ria Antony
SEP 7, 2025
Protest has always been humanity’s loudest answer to silence. From the suffragettes demanding the right to vote, to the marches for Palestinian freedom at the State Library in the city, it has always been spreading like wildfire. These crucial moments remind us of the power of protest and the necessity it brings.
It also reminds us of confronting those who choose to stay in a place of complacency. It reveals to us how silence is also a political act.
Growing up where being opinionated was seen as rebellion, I was exposed to different cultural attitudes towards politics as my family moved from country to country.
So, when discussing human rights issues or recent political events with others, and someone responds with “I’m not really into politics”, it makes me realise just how privileged they are, and how they engage with the world around them.
We have this view, through news on the TV or even through TikToks and Instagram reels, that protest is only loud. That it’s only violent. And it doesn’t help that what’s usually covered for us is that protest is limited only to marches or violent clashes in the streets, or altercations between police and protesters.
Yet protest isn’t confined to just the streets. It extends to the choice we make.
It’s in what we buy, who we decide to vote for, and what we choose to scroll past and ignore.
VCE · Creative Response
Creative Response: Play hard, Play smart, have fun
VCE Creative Response essay scoring 90%: Title: Play Hard, Play Smart, Have Fun. Good Evening, players, coaches, families and all those joining us live…
Title: Play Hard, Play Smart, Have Fun.
Good Evening, players, coaches, families and all those joining us live around the country. As commissioner of the Australian Football League I express our gratitude from the league as a whole to all of you. *pause*
Tonight, we come together not just to honour athletic excellence but to engage with the deeper spirit of our sport, the ideas, the values that give the game meaning beyond the final siren. Tonights celebration of the Brownlow Medal may glisten with prestige, yet what it truly represents is not success but embracing failure. In a world that often celebrates the loudest voices and swiftest victories, our game resists that simplification. The Brownlow begs us to consider something far more complex, what is the true meaning of being the best and fairest? *pause* It is here that our great game becomes more than spectacle, it becomes an example on how power should be exercised and how character comes to light under pressure.
Throughout the season, we witness acts of skill, courage and endurance. But beyond the statistics lies something far richer, the quiet moral decisions made in split second moments of contest, choosing to pull out of a dangerous tackle, a captain standing up for a rookie, a fan showing respect to the opposition. These moments might never appear in the history books, yet they shape the backbone of our sport. They remind us that playing, like life, is not only about achievement, but the kind of person one becomes in the pursuit of it. *applause* The Brownlow
VCE · Creative Response
Creative Response: 'Play the game as well as you can and…
VCE Creative Response essay scoring 75%: The sound of the ball hitting the court used to sound like freedom with an unimaginable joy rushing across my…
The sound of the ball hitting the court used to sound like freedom with an unimaginable joy rushing across my body exhilarating my senses. Now it feels like a countdown to the dooming pressure that I feel is inevitable to explode inside me. Every dribble I possess rings a message in my ears- ‘Play the game as well as you can.’ Coach has been drilling this in my brain for as long as I can remember, however I now realise that it doesn’t inherently apply to basketball; playing the game of life and balancing the impending doom that basketball brings with it is my present goal. As I contemplate my struggles, I wonder how basketball turned into a game of playing to enjoy, to playing to perform.
I don’t remember the exact moment in which basketball became such a toll on my existence, however I struggle to remember the vivid joy I would experience when playing. I used to feel as if I was on top of the world and what I was judged on was my extraordinary ability to capture the attention of all around me whether dribbling past defenders, shooting shots from all angles or chasing down those who dared to challenge my defense. Now as I play, I feel the weight of every stare hanging from my shoulders. It has dragged me down into a shell of my former self as the jersey felt heavier every season. As I enter the arena to pull on the jersey that has weighed me down for so long, I question why it is that I still play. My family has held me to such overwhelming standards, that I can feel myself letting them down every time I step out onto the court, afraid as I continue my downward spiral that has been caused by the pressure of the game I once loved. The dividing line between passion to play and fear of failure has taken over my life as the scales tipped vastly to the side of fear.
VCE · Creative Response
Creative Response: Title: 'Peace begins with us'…
VCE Creative Response essay scoring 72.5%: To: Residents of planet Earth, CC: All Postcodes BCC: All countries Subject: ‘Peace begins with us’ From:…
To: Residents of planet Earth,
CC: All Postcodes
BCC: All countries
Subject: ‘Peace begins with us’
From: wakeuptodisadvantage@gmail.com
Dear Residents,
Protest is not always loud. Sometimes it’s silent battles against stairs without ramps, against systems that say ‘you don’t belong here’. Today, I protest the world’s failure to see people with disabilities and its refusal to educate individuals on humane peaceful notions of treating those who may appear ‘different’ to us.
This world was never built for them.
But if peace means solving complex issues, could this world be build for them?
We live in a world that applauds convenience at the cost of leaving others behind. We live in a busy world that fails to take a breath and find peace. A father I follow on social media teaches his son who has cerebral palsy how to walk with his new walking frame. He teaches him how to lift the cold, hard, and clunky walking frame over the curves of the footpath. But the curves of the footpath to him are like the height of Mount Everest. A challenging feat only few can accomplish. Yet, the boy gives it his best shot: he tries over and over again until he falls to the hard, cold and bumpy concrete that slices into his palms. He cries out of sheer exhaustion “why can’t I do it?”.
Why must his effort be met with defeat when others like me get to run freely?
This world was never built for them. It was not built for him.
But, the peace to solving this crisis begins with us.
Peace that will address the challenges that weigh him down.
“Dis-ability”, the inability to, the lack of. Its in the name. Its in the word itself. It aims to define them. It openly criticizes those for their differences. Society holds a stigma towards those with a disability, resisting peace to accept.
I know this because I have lived it.
My brother has an intellectual disability and has fought battles each day on the standards society expect of him. But how can we create a society that accepts those with disabilities?
Through peaceful protest. Through empathy. Peace is the only option. It promotes humanity and knowledge. But how can we promote empathy in a world that often lacks it? Through dialogue, education, knowledge and through humane ways.
Ignorantly, I do not know the pain experienced by a starving child in Niger as I have been fed my whole life. So through the storytelling of my own experience and through the storytelling of others experiences we can step into a different world even for just a short amount of time. And that may just be the trigger to promoting empathy peacefully.
So here is my experience through my brothers’ eyes to give you insight into his hardships.
VCE · Creative Response
Creative Response: "In a society where everyone must…
VCE Creative Response essay scoring 62.5%: Writing About Protest if anyone finds this, know that we did not all bow. Not all surrendered. I write these…
Writing About Protest
if anyone finds this, know that we did not all bow. Not all surrendered. I write these words while they still allow me breathe, though I know it will not last. Around me, the city move's like a machine, every face the same, every step measured and controlled. They call it Order, I call it a cage.
VCE · Creative Response
Creative Response: Title: ‘The truth’ ( stimulus is a…
VCE Creative Response essay scoring 75%: I twitch my legs up and down as my anxiety started to increase. The judges call my name out and my knees start…
I twitch my legs up and down as my anxiety started to increase. The judges call my name out and my knees start to tremble. I walk onto the stage where the spotlight glares into my pupils and my mind starts to race. (deep breath) Many faces began to gawk at my presence, but I started to think about my statements I practiced all night. I thought to myself as an 18-year-old student what my purpose was and then I began. What would happen if Earth died? Where would we live? (starts pointing to the viewers) As a young individual in high school, I started to dig into the realism of our planet. Earth is dying and carbon emissions are increasing; so, I need your help individual (starts pointing to the audience again). To be honest as Australians we must reduce the usage of energy and acknowledge the presence of renewable energy resources. The flaws of carbon emissions from cars and combustion of gas, fuel the greenhouse effect. Leading to the increase of temperatures on Earth.
VCE · Creative Response
Creative Response: personal journey
VCE Creative Response essay scoring 85%: Kaelen had lived for centuries. He had seen empires rise and fall, the sky filled with war, the earth reborn…
Kaelen had lived for centuries. He had seen empires rise and fall, the sky filled with war, the earth reborn with life. On the battlefield where he was meant to die, he was granted a strange gift — eternity. He walked through fire unharmed, fell from heights unscathed, outlived kings and histories. Yet one thing remained constant: he could not die.
What began as a blessing soon curdled into a curse. His victories grew hollow; the world moved forward while he remained still, a relic trapped in an hourglass that no longer flowed.
Khyati stared at the ceiling as the clock ticked relentlessly. Each sound reminded her that time was slipping away. She had once dreamt of greatness — of publishing her own book — but now she felt herself sinking, paralysed as her friends built lives without her. In her South Asian household, the only choices were medicine, engineering, or failure. Her parents’ words echoed: “A writer? That’s not a real career.”
Every tick of the clock pressed against her chest. She told herself time didn’t affect her — but deep down, she knew she was stuck.
In Kaelen’s world, a man’s worth was measured by the wars he won, the blood he spilled, the lives he claimed. Yet no one spoke of what came after: the guilt, the sorrow, the endless regret when the drums fell silent. Kaelen began to wonder whether the gods had cursed him — not with life, but with meaninglessness. Perhaps he had never truly lived at all.
VCE · Creative Response
Creative Response: Crafting Texts - Protest
VCE Creative Response essay scoring 67.5%: I remember the day Australia poured gasoline onto the flames. Our country had irrevocably executed…
I remember the day Australia poured gasoline onto the flames. Our country had irrevocably executed destruction. They said it was for our economy. They said coal was our inheritance and oil, our birthright. They said the Paris Agreement was a chain around Australia’s neck, but I’ve seen the fire burn not just forests but futures.
The announcement broke on a humid Tuesday. Everyday hum of chatter and coffee cup clatter filled the campus café as I sat, knee deep in Year 12 slavery. Then, silence. Heads all turned to the TV mounted in the corner.
“Prime Minister Talbot has withdrawn from the Paris Agreement”.
Devastation hit me like a tidal wave. The promise, though meagre, was something, and had been unceremoniously discarded like a scrap of rubbish. Talbot didn’t just withdraw from the treaty. He withdrew from reason. Withdrew from responsibility. Withdrew from the very soil we stand upon.
Outside, the air was thick, not just with the heat, but with disbelief. The sun hung like a warning. Talbot smiled, smug and rotten, filled with the pride of believing the world belonged to him. A man who was truly relentless.
The next month he taxed windfarms. Then, he slashed renewable investments. Then, carbon dioxide and greenhouse gas emissions once again were treated as infinitely expendable product.
“No more needless red tape!” He said, live on the telly, raising his fists in triumph.
This was not leadership. This was mercenary.
I stepped foot into the throng of fervent protestors, converging onto the steps of the Melbourne Town Hall. The streets echoed chants of the horrified, demanding accountability. Signs of wrath rose above the masses.
“There is no Planet B”
“Denial is Not a Policy Mr Talbot”
“My Grandkids say Thanks a Lot (Sarcastically)”
It wasn’t just about climate models or carbon limits anymore. It was a betrayal of our country, our future, our truth. In assembly of unequivocal rage, we became one. The energy in the air was electric with voice of passion, a solidarity that transcended age, religion, sex or ethnicity. United by our shared belief that Earth was not a commodity to be exploited, we persisted, we forged legacy. Thousands stood questioning in disbelief how a country so powerful and promising, capable of profound innovation, progression and compassion, could be in the hands of someone so disregarding of the very ground we stand upon. We were unstoppable, ready to roar.
But amidst the noise, a quieter ache. Grief. Grief, of the world I was losing, of the one I grew up in.
I remember the gentle rustle of the gum trees and little kids giggling. The endless blue of the summer sky. The kind and comforting breeze. The birds in their rightful habitat orchestrating symphonies. Nature in all its encapsulating magnificence was my playground. This is our home. We cannot drink oil and eat coal. We cannot breathe money. The idea of denying this
VCE · Creative Response
Creative Response: Crafting Texts - Protest
VCE Creative Response essay scoring 67.5%: I remember the day Australia poured gasoline onto the flames. Our country had irrevocably executed…
I remember the day Australia poured gasoline onto the flames. Our country had irrevocably executed destruction. They said it was for our economy. They said coal was our inheritance and oil, our birthright. They said the Paris Agreement was a chain around Australia’s neck, but I’ve seen the fire burn not just forests but futures.
The announcement broke on a humid Tuesday. Everyday hum of chatter and coffee cup clatter filled the campus café as I sat, knee deep in Year 12 slavery. Then, silence. Heads all turned to the TV mounted in the corner.
“Prime Minister Talbot has withdrawn from the Paris Agreement”.
Devastation hit me like a tidal wave. The promise, though meagre, but something, had been unceremoniously discarded like a scrap of rubbish. Talbot didn’t just withdraw from the treaty. He withdrew from reason. Withdrew from responsibility. Withdrew from the very soil we stand upon.
Outside, the air was thick, not just with the heat, but with disbelief. The sun hung like a warning. Talbot smiled, smug and rotten, filled with the pride of believing the world belonged to him. A man who was truly relentless.
The next month he taxed windfarms. Then, he slashed renewable investments. Then, carbon dioxide and greenhouse gas emissions once again were treated as infinitely expendable product.
“No more needless red tape!” He said, live on the telly, raising his fists in triumph.
This was not leadership. This was mercenary.
I stepped foot into the throng of fervent protestors, converging onto the steps of the Melbourne Town Hall. The streets echoed chants of the horrified, demanding accountability. Signs of wrath rose above the masses.
“There is no Planet B”
“Denial is Not a Policy Mr Talbot”
“My Grandkids say Thanks a Lot (Sarcastically)”
It wasn’t just about climate models or carbon limits anymore. It was a betrayal of our country, our future, our truth. In assembly of unequivocal rage, we became one. The energy in the air was electric, a solidarity that transcended age, religion, sex or ethnicity. United by our shared belief that Earth was not a commodity to be exploited, we forged legacy. We stood questioning in disbelief how a country so powerful and promising, capable of profound innovation, progression and compassion, could be in the hands of someone so disregarding of the very ground we stand upon. We were unstoppable, ready to roar.
But amidst the noise, a quieter ache. Grief. Grief, of the world I was losing, of the one I grew up in.
VCE · Creative Response
Creative Response: Title: Finding My Way Stimulus 1:…
VCE Creative Response essay scoring 82.5%: Away. Maybe I need to move away; away from his scent, away from his untouched bedsheets, and away from his…
Away. Maybe I need to move away; away from his scent, away from his untouched bedsheets, and away from his unworn clothes.
It’s been years since he left, yet in my mind I still await his return from work, while I keep riding in his direction. The nights now empty of him stumbling over the stairs, leaving a silence that serves as a constant reminder of his absence.
It’s time I change. Time I choose to stand my ground rather than the countless times I’ve chosen to run – run from the inevitable truth that chases me day after day. It’s time I move away from this carcass of lost memories and constant whispers telling me I'm going the wrong way.
The image of his desolate eyes stares at me from across the road – body empty, as blood pools over the bitumen.
No helmet. No jacket. Just skin and bone against the asphalt.
My fault.
My world collapsed beneath the touch of his lifeless skin. That night, guilt climbed onto the back of his bike and whispered: “This is your doing.”
The argument plays over in my mind. My words sharp enough to send him striding out the door – his gear forgotten on the table.
If I had just shut my mouth. If I hadn’t pushed him. If I had reminded him to grab his helmet.
He’d still be here.
So, I followed him. I have ridden in his direction ever since, tracing the same route over and over, hoping it might finally make this right. If I suffered enough, If I carried enough weight, maybe I could rewrite that night.
The scent of tobacco lingers in my unchanged bedsheets from the constant chain-smoking in a desperate attempt to forget. The smoking never worked. It was always temporary – a constant effort only to never prevail.
Years spent in a haze of nicotine, chapped lips as evidence of my escapism. A mark I'll carry for life.
The confines of my room envelop me in a firm, but comforting grip – promising safety in his absence. These four walls have become my roadside motel, a place to stop but never truly rest.
I thought following his route meant staying with him. Waiting for him to walk through the door.
VCE · Creative Response
Creative Response: It was stimulus response that had the…
VCE Creative Response essay scoring 65%: June 1998 Dear future Ellie, did we make the right choice? As I am sitting here in my living room, I can't help…
June 1998
Dear future Ellie, did we make the right choice?
As I am sitting here in my living room, I can't help but wonder whether everything will be worth it. The pain and the struggle of this world are eating my heart and soul, the invisible monster of normality attacking my own thoughts and judgments.
I am surrounded in a world where I am constantly compared to the closest girl, where only the ‘strong boys’ can help with the chairs at pack-up. To others, the constant misogyny that plagues our society and environments does not seem like a big deal. Violence and hate are pushed aside on the guidance that ‘boys will be boys’ and that ‘men can’t control their actions’.
We have a choice to conform, to be the perfect daughter, wife or mother, to be submissive and complacent while the men around us treat us as nothing more than the very dirt on their shoes. The love we receive is transactional, purely based on whether our performance, be it in the home or outside, was worthy enough to hear the very small words of ‘I love you’.
Even my friends, bright young girls destined for a future in which they desire are being led into this very trap known as submission. Relying on the men around them to basically run their own world, while they dumb themselves down and doll themselves up. Where the very idea of going to school in the morning requires hours of racing thoughts on what to wear and which boy will like what hairstyle the best.
But this choice is not only a trap, it’s a cancer that multiplies indefinitely until your whole body and mind are consumed by what men want. You are no longer dressing for self expression, you are dressing for male gaze, bearing the weight their impossible wants over your needs. To act submissive and innocent, but not too easy. To be smart but not smarter than a man because that will just embarrass and undermine them.
And then there is the second choice; rebellion. To take a stand like the many women before you to fight for equality even when your voice doesn’t feel heard. Even when you feel like you’re not doing enough. You stay disciplined, hoping for the light at the end of the tunnel where you can finally call this world home. All war comes with sacrifice and I am asking myself whether this is worth fighting for.
VCE · Creative Response
Creative Response: writing about play
VCE Creative Response essay scoring 72.5%: The Guardian I Opinion There is a tragedy against humanity unfolding, before our very eyes. Educators,…
The Guardian I Opinion
There is a tragedy against humanity unfolding, before our very eyes. Educators, parents, and policy makers should be deeply alarmed by the rapid decline of play occurring for both children and adolescence. Their freedom is being seized, their imaginations stifled and their innocence ransacked. All because of the screens YOU are providing them with. The most disturbing part? Nothing is being done about it.
As a child psychologist, I’ve spent years watching social media reshape our cognitive and emotional landscapes. But one of the most silent, least discussed casualties of this transformation is something fundamental to human development and mental health: the capacity to play. Freedom.
Play is what makes us human. Play is what makes us whole. It’s how we explore the world as children, it’s how we experiment with identity in adolescence, and it’s how we relax, bond, and imagine as adults. It is core to creativity, empathy, and resilience. Yet today, it’s quietly dying—drowned out by the scroll of curated feeds, the dopamine hit of likes, and the omnipresent pressure to perform.
In my clinic, I see it every day, firsthand. Children describe the crippling anxiety that consumes their thoughts and behaviours, keeping them up all night. When I ask them their screen time, many confess they are spending 7 hours or more on their phone DAILY! That adds up to about 2,500 hours in a year. That’s 104 days of screen time in just one year. It pains me to contemplate on the core developmental experiences a young person would miss out on in those crucial 104 extra days. But it agonises me even more to know the urgency behind this issue and not speak up about it. According to statistics, spending more than 3 hours on social media in a day puts adolescence at a higher risk of mental health problems.
A 2024 study published in BMC Public Health highlights a positive association between ADHD symptoms and problematic social media use among adolescents, noting that increased social media use can lead to heightened attention deficits over time. How is it that this detrimental emerging research seeming so unconceding to
VCE · Creative Response
Creative Response: Two people playing dress up
VCE Creative Response essay scoring 62.5%: Dear Victorian Government, As a concerned parent of my own child's well-being and learning, I would like to…
Dear Victorian Government,
As a concerned parent of my own child's well-being and learning, I would like to inform you of the deeply disappointing removal of Lucknow Studios. Lucknow Studios prevailed in its rich history of traditional theatre, portraying artistic talents of classical dance, singing, and painting. This studio was the only one in Werribee that celebrated a diverse range of cultures through educating others of the traditional arts. The sole purpose of Lucknow Studios was to cultivate a safe community where all communities can be accepted.
VCE · Creative Response
Creative Response: “Life has a way of teaching lessons we…
VCE Creative Response essay scoring 92.5%: The first time I wondered about Death was when I was seven and the funeral smelled of damp wool and orange…
The first time I wondered about Death was when I was seven and the funeral smelled of damp wool and orange slices. The funeral was beautiful. The casket was a polished ebony, the candle flames on the altar bent as if bowing, and the flowers that adorned the venue were silky white chrysanthemums that glowed softly in the warm light. The murmurs around me were in low, practice channels; the guests' gestures were soft, as if they feared the noise might unspool whatever remained. Someone gave me a program to hold and the letters fluttered like small birds in my palms.
I never really knew my grandfather, he lived in the countryside and I rarely visited. It was only my father who knew him differently. Every week, religiously, he’d drive hours to see him. They were close in a way that I could only imagine - a type of connection too foreign for a kid to understand. Looking back, there’s a part of me that regrets never asking to go; I was too young to understand there was importance in witnessing love while it was still alive.
I remember how my dad just stared at the casket, and how that was the only time I ever saw him cry.
“Your grandfather’s favourite colour was yellow, yellow like hues of a flame" I remember him saying to me, “And it’s mine too”.
Afterward, outside, beneath the sweet floral aromas of the Bay Laurels, I asked my mother where my grandpa had gone. She folded her program along its spine and muttered the way adults do when they mean a thousand different things - that he had gone to where old songs lived. I accepted that then, because I thought I knew what she meant. I’ve always just trusted the contours that she gave me for untrustable things. I walked home with the program against my chest like a talisman I didn’t understand. I couldn’t find myself shedding a single tear that day.
It was only years later that my father would finally teach me how to remember differently. He would light lavender candles in the night, sitting on the edge of the kitchen island with a mug cupped between his hands. He’d often start telling me the middle of stories as if he had already been playing out the beginnings in his mind. “Your grandad used to make me decide,” he’d say, eyes skirting the wooden floorboard. “He’d put me on his shoulders and ask, ‘Did you want to go to the big or small garden today?'" He said it like a joke and like an exam. “I was young enough that I couldn’t understand what he was saying. I just laughed and pointed.”
I can still see my dad’s fingers tracing along the art on his favourite mug, the one with an adorable puppy smiling on it, while he told me the story - his fingers precise, tapping each word as if the story itself needed punctuation. He told of how sometimes they’d choose the big garden and spend the day under the wide shade, and how other times, they went small and found a small park bench to people-watch. He said his dad loved yellow the way some people breathe. “Yellow was his sky,” my father would reminisce, “and that little candle, the one that let the yellow flood over its wax”
When my father told me these things, he sounded like the keeper of a private antique museum. He collected ordinary images and polished them until they glowed. I learned the way he curated his memories, choosing which to keep as souls and which to wrap in tissue and tuck away in a pocket to drift away, as if slowly draining into the Lethe. I practiced this on him: I hoarded memories of his fragments, a sentence of his, a laugh curling like steam, how he loved wearing trousers that sat perfectly on his shoes, storing them like evidence against a future I hoped would never arrive.
Until it did.
VCE · Creative Response
Creative Response: “Listen” “Mighty oaks from small…
VCE Creative Response essay scoring 85%: “Listen” “Mighty oaks from small acorns grow” Cybercrime is silent. It spreads swiftly through sleepless…
“Listen”
“Mighty oaks from small acorns grow”
Cybercrime is silent. It spreads swiftly through sleepless servers and social media- an epidemic sweeping through civilisation almost entirely undetected. Each keystroke could be contagious, data bleeding from the interweb until every last drop of sensitive information has been extracted. There are no police sirens, no massive rallies- only a world sitting back and scrolling right on by as the technologically vulnerable are preyed upon by scummy scammers.
For the longest time, I thought that change could only come from the loudest of protestors. The ones with megaphones, the ones willing to block traffic, the swarms of people whose chants flood the streets. That is why I really had no hope that cybercrime could ever be truly tackled- it wasn’t a flashy trend with a cult following, that's why until recently I always thought that it would remain in the shadows. My talks with passionate protestors helped me realize that real work happens on streets, on screens, and in statutes. People tell me that silence is strength, but silence has never built justice. We must listen to those who resist standing up when they are told to sit down.
VCE · Creative Response
Creative Response: A photo of someone locked behind bars
VCE Creative Response essay scoring 87.5%: Gazing into the eyes of a child in a prison cell is an image no one should ever have to face. Imagine a boy,…
Gazing into the eyes of a child in a prison cell is an image no one should ever have to face. Imagine a boy, just ten years old. His wrists are so small the handcuffs almost slip off, his shoes don’t even touch the ground as he sits on a cold metal bench, trembling. Instead of playing football with his friends at recess or learning his times tables in a classroom, he is locked behind bars — branded a criminal before he even has a chance to understand what that word means. This is not a nightmare from another country. This is happening here, in Victoria. And in this moment, I cannot help but ask: how have we allowed our laws to treat children as criminals, when what they desperately need is care, protection, and hope?
I have seen the damage this system creates, and I would not wish it on any child. Because the truth is this: children aged just 10 to 13 do not have the brain development to fully grasp the consequences of their actions. The Australian Medical Association has made this clear — their young minds simply lack the cognitive capacity for criminal intent. And yet, under our laws, we continue to punish them as though they do. To criminalise a ten-year-old is not justice. It is cruelty, disguised as law.
Putting children in detention does not prevent crime it fuels it. According to Human Rights Watch, children locked in youth prisons across Australia are subjected to solitary confinement, physical abuse, and conditions so traumatic that many never recover. Some never make it out alive: at least four children have died in Australian youth detention since 1980. Is that the legacy we want for Victoria? To destroy young lives under the illusion of justice? And let us be honest this injustice is not shared equally. Indigenous children bear
VCE · Creative Response
Creative Response: just be different
VCE Creative Response essay scoring 72.5%: Hands up if you’re absolutely terrified about next year when this cruel experiment is over? Now keep your…
Hands up if you’re absolutely terrified about next year when this cruel experiment is over? Now keep your hands raised if you don’t know what you are going to do? Half of you. Good. That’s normal.
I am going to talk about gap years but I am not going to say it’s all sunshine’s and Instagram posts because two years ago I woke up in Brazil with my passport gone…just gone.
Picture this your in your hotel room in Rio with maybe 50 dollars left and suddenly you are no longer a tourist. You’re stranded. The once handbook of easy to follow steps in being normal suddenly disappeared. That marble floor freezing beneath your feet as you tear through every drawer, every pocket, yet still nothing. Jason- who’s my mate that dragged me on this trip, he’s sitting in the corner going “mate we’re so screwed”.
But lets rewind a bit. 6 months before this disaster occurred, I was sitting in the exact same position as you, except I had no plan. Zero. I was so used to being another sheep in the herd that I hadn’t thought about what everyone else wanted to do. So whilst everyone else was filling out university applications for what they aspire to be, I was rotting in my bedroom searching, searching for answers that were never my own. Every sudden aspiration had come from overhearing someone elses, I had no idea what I wanted to do, second guessing every decision I made. My parents began to question “so what’s the plan?” and I just had nothing, I didn’t know how to break this mentality and just be different.
That’s until Jason rocked up at my door one day and goes “come on a gap year with me”. in my household a gap year was for rich kids or drop outs which I was neither. But honestly, even the unknown felt better than that bedroom becoming my bridge keeping me grounded to reality as I diverged from my already stepped out path.
So anyways back to Brazil. We’re stranded in the streets that had been pumping with music the night before, with breathtaking views until it suddenly felt like a jail. Looking back now I still remember the views from my hotel room window with large silver arches that stretched across bold bridges, gleaming against the soft green hills, something you could only see in a postcard. But in the moment my life had come crashing down. Back home I would’ve run to mum and dad and hidden beneath my covers, waiting for someone else to fix it for me. but we couldn’t, we had no bridge back. I had to change from what I thought was normal and figure things out for myself.
The Australian consulate had gone radio silent, once again proving our need to do it for ourselves and take to the streets for answers. A taxi driver parked at the curb told us- I swear I am not making this up, he says “mountain…gang…may have…things” which translated to a gang in the mountains may have our things. I know, I know menta right? But when you’re desperate you’ll do anything. So up we went to climb the mountain, both of us so exhausted and so lost.
Halfway up the mountain we saw a house perched on a plateau of land, surrounded by corn,
VCE · Creative Response
Creative Response: first steps
VCE Creative Response essay scoring 65%: And when her name surfaced again, it didn't hollow me out as it once would. But it wasn't always like this. The…
And when her name surfaced again, it didn't hollow me out as it once would.
But it wasn't always like this.
The breakup was smooth. No slammed doors. No loud shouting. Just a few words and the longing silence, which still hasn't seemed to go. The exchange of clothes was probably the hardest. The last physical element I could hold onto, gone. Her perfume engulfed me. It was never too strong, but somehow it was always the first thing I smelt when the front door creaked open, and the initial smell had settled down.
Cleaning up the day after, I found a photograph. Small enough to hold in one hand, and framed in a pink, delicate border. It was of us. It was more than just a photograph, though. It was a moment of time, captured forever. A moment where you didn't care about the ice cream around your lips, or the way the corners of your mouth pointed in when you smiled. It was a moment where we didn't care about our hair in the wind, and a moment where we didn't care about the future. A moment. A moment caught in time forever. Lying in bed at night, I rubbed my thumb over the florally pink frame until the photo blurred and I drifted off.
The days following did not get any easier. Greeted by the smell of her perfume even after countless bottles of air freshener, and her favourite channel on the T.V. I hadn't changed it. Life was moving fast now she wasn't around. Each meal blurred into the next. Each day blurred into the other. Everything changing, apart from the photo. I look back at it, for what I know won't be the final time and wonder where it all went wrong. The photo was never just a photo. It represented not only how we felt in the moment, but all of the memories which were made and the future which was never to be made.
VCE · Creative Response
Creative Response: Power of stories
VCE Creative Response essay scoring 87.5%: Primer, Smooth the primer across your face, ensuring your makeup survives the day. Concealer, Hide every…
Primer, Smooth the primer across your face, ensuring your makeup survives the day.
Concealer, Hide every blemish, every imperfection, until the mirror shows someone flawless.
Foundation, Layer it on thick- hide the fact you're tired, hide the tears and all the nights you wish you could forge.
Bronzer, Sculpt your cheekbones, sharpen your jawline - carve away what you really hate.
Blush, a soft pink to seem alive and approachable, despite how you feel hollow
Highlighter, Brighten the illusion
Mascara, waterproof, always. You never know when you’ll need to cry silently
Setting spray, Lock it all in. Don’t let it move. Don’t let YOU show through.
Every morning, I sit at my brightly lit vanity, concealing my true identity and self. The mirror before me is cracked- one side sharp, reflective, perfect; the other is fractured and distorted. I glare at both, unsure of which is real
“ Ugh, another pimple”
“Why can’t I be naturally pretty like her?”
The whispers, morphe to talking slowly evolving into a shouting chorus, the one i created and now conduct. They’re not my words, not really- just the stories I’ve been told since childhood. Stories that say beauty equals worth. Stories that turn every imperfection and pimple into failure.
VCE · Creative Response
Creative Response: Topic : Personal Journey
VCE Creative Response essay scoring 60%: There are stories we tell not just to be heard, but to heal. This one is for anyone who’s walked away from…
There are stories we tell not just to be heard, but to heal. This one is for anyone who’s walked away from someone they love, a parent, a place, a version of themselves. It’s for those who’ve carried the weight of silence and regret, who need to know that reconciliation isn’t always about the past, it’s about coming back to ourselves. I want to show that through this story, the journey of returning doesn’t just happen in a place, but in the soul.
Not after five years. Not after storming out, the door slamming behind me, her words echoing like broken glass: "If you walk out now, don’t come back." I didn’t. Until now.
The train rattled through grey towns, each one a blur of memories I had long buried. I looked out the window and saw my relection. Older. Harder. But there was something else I couldn't quite name, a weight, a change. I pulled my phone from my pocket. The short message from the hospital: Claire Morris. Deceased. Next of kin: you. They didn’t know I hadn’t called her “Mum” in years.
The house was smaller than I remembered. The peeling blue door, the unkempt garden now, where she used to make me plant things. "You have to press roots into the soil like you mean it," she’d say. I never understood what that meant, but something inside me stirred now. Maybe that moment was now.
I pushed open the door, half-expecting it to creak, but it swung open quietly like it had been waiting for me. The smell of old paper and cinnamon greeted me, a scent I hadn’t realized I missed. Dust clung to forgotten furniture, and the air felt heavy with time, holding onto years of stories, things left unsaid.
VCE · Creative Response
Creative Response: Personal Journeys
VCE Creative Response essay scoring 85%: Context: SBS Writing Competition, with the theme “Embracing Change and the Ongoing Journey of…
Context: SBS Writing Competition, with the theme “Embracing Change and the Ongoing Journey of Self-Transformation”
The stage is empty - one actor, one story. Maybe they’re sipping tea on the moon, or training chickens for a circus act. Then, without warning, a shout slices through the air: “Space jump!” Suddenly, everything fractures. A new actor storms in. The story pivots sharply, and the old world vanishes. No rehearsal. No script. Only raw, fearless improvisation - and a new story begins.
That was Space Jump: ridiculous, unpredictable, and merciless. I first met it in Year 9 Drama - and I hated it. It was loud and chaotic, where I preferred quiet certainty, neatness, and being good at things. And I was far from good at this game. My palms were sweating, my mind blank, and before I knew it, I was blurting out Spiderman: No Way Home spoilers like I’d memorised the entire script. Purged with embarrassment, my silence echoed through the hall - every eye on me, every heartbeat thundering in my ears - until laughter replaced it, not from me, but from my class. Then through exposure therapy (also known as Drama class three times a week), I started to overthink less and live more in the moment. I didn’t just fall in love with the game - I fell in love with what it revealed about myself. Space Jump wasn’t just about acting; it was about embracing the unknown. It taught me to think on my feet, to let go of perfection, and to trust the leap even when I couldn’t see where I’d land - to find courage in chaos.
That instinct — to leap before you’re ready — became something I carried with me. Later that year, mid-bite of a ham and cheese sandwich, my English teacher approached me: could I fill in for a senior house debate? I said yes immediately. Not because I was confident or qualified — but because now I had learned not to say no. Moments later, I stood before a room of older students, delivering an impromptu speech on why women deserve equal pay in sport. I stumbled. I fumbled. I spoke for too long and said far too little. And we lost — badly.
But something unexpected happened. I didn’t walk away defeated. I walked away curious. That awkward, undeniably human moment sparked a longing to find strength in my own voice. Watching the Year 10s speak with conviction made me realise that growth begins with the willingness to leap — and so I leapt again, joining the debating team.
VCE · Creative Response
Creative Response: We can choose our departure poitns but…
VCE Creative Response essay scoring 80%: Dear umma*mother Stepping through the gates of Incheon Airport, toddler pressed to your chest and a one-way…
Dear umma*mother
Stepping through the gates of Incheon Airport, toddler pressed to your chest and a one-way ticket to a land you had never seen, I wondered if you knew that you were not just beginning your journey, but mine. That first step — uncertain, brave, irrevocable — was yours, but it cast a long shadow in which I have spent my life walking.
Lao Tzu tells us that a journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step. But he forgets to mention that sometimes, the journey is unknown, that we will never truly know where we will step next
I arrived in Australia too young to remember, too young to resist. Yet, from the moment I entered the classrooms of this new world, I was already outcast. My name, foreign and mispronounced, became a burden I carried like a stone in my mouth. The scent of kimchi from my lunchbox surrounded by the wall of cold rice and left over meat, once a comfort of home, became a source of ridicule and shame. With kids bombarding me with strange questions & sneering squinty stares, I soon learned early on that visibility came at a cost — and so I shrank, piece by piece, into something constrained.