VCE · Creative Response
Creative Response: At what cost?
VCE Creative Response essay scoring 65%: TITLE: AT WHAT COST? Ayubowan, Vannakum, Assalamu Alaikum. Today, we stand not just in front of the…
TITLE: AT WHAT COST?
Ayubowan, Vannakum, Assalamu Alaikum.
Today, we stand not just in front of the Presidential House, but at the heart of our nation’s democracy. We are gathered in this Aragalaya protest to continue the struggle that Sri Lankans have fought over generations. We are protesting government corruption, economic mismanagement, and policies that have pushed us into poverty. Because, if the decisions of the Rajapaksa government continue to harm every home, village, and community, at what cost are we willing to remain silent?
My brothers and sisters, my name is Ranil, and I am seventeen. I am not a politician, a propagandist or a puppet. I am the son of hardworking middle-class parents, preparing for my final year twelve exams. Yet how can I focus on my studies while my mother cries quietly, terrified of hunger, and my exhausted father stands for hours queuing for fuel? How can I concentrate when blackouts sweep our home into darkness robbing it of warmth and safety?
I cannot. And nor should you.
This darkness in my home is a shadow of a larger, man-made crisis engulfing our nation, beginning with the very soil we stand on. Last month, the Rajapaksa government made the reckless decision to ban chemical fertilisers overnight. While they feasted, entire villages could not grow crops, leaving many impoverished villagers starving.
This pain stretches far beyond our villages to every corner of our nation. The government’s improper funding has left hospitals across Sri Lanka without access to essential medicines: antibiotics, insulin and even painkillers. Poor children perish to fevers, their small bodies failing as pharmacies stand barren, devoid of life-saving medicine. The suffering is ours; the deaths are ours. Yet the power to solve these problems is not. This year, Sri Lanka’s debt has swollen to eighty-six billion dollars, and decades of corruption and reckless borrowing by the Rajapaksa government have left our economy in ruins. We have seen the rupee’s depreciation, soaring prices, and leaders feasting while hospitals, schools, and households starve. This is a struggle that every child born in this country will inherit, a cost imposed upon them without their consent.
Such struggles are not new to Sri Lanka, and generations before us have fought the government, paying the price of comfort to remind those in power that silence is not agreement. In the 1953 Hartal protests, the
VCE · Creative Response
Creative Response: Title - The truth Stimulus - “Having a…
VCE Creative Response essay scoring 72.5%: HELP ME! HELP ME! A cry for help can break out like a dam – raw, urgent and impossible to ignore. Yet at…
HELP ME! HELP ME! A cry for help can break out like a dam – raw, urgent and impossible to ignore. Yet at times it never comes. Many who suffer remain silent, paralysed not by weakness but by the weight of fear, shame and despair. The truth is that silence is not always chosen, sometimes it is forced upon us by a world that refuses to listen. Though I was not among those silenced, I have stood close enough to see how injustice renders speech almost impossible, and how protest becomes the only means of restoring voice and truth.
As I speak before you sociologists – experts in the forces that bind us as a society – I do so not to recount on my own oppression, but to reflect on a truth that I have witnessed in others, and on how protest transforms individuals and societies.
VCE · Creative Response
Creative Response: Title: 'Finding my way'
VCE Creative Response essay scoring 77.5%: 'Finding my way' Khooneh (Home) I grew up in the West-Azerbaijan Province in Iran, in a small but thriving…
'Finding my way'
Khooneh (Home)
I grew up in the West-Azerbaijan Province in Iran, in a small but thriving town known as ‘Urmia’. Commonly known for its fascinating salt lake—--now dried up into what I would call a puddle. The roads roared with heavy traffic, cars beeping and people raging on the packed roads. The cars ignored the lines on the road, as if they were merely decorative, while the skyline remained unknown due to the heavy pollution. However, in this chaos I would always find my peace. My grandmother always made this delicious sweet and sour stew made of walnuts and pomegranate molasses, served on a plate of white rice. ‘Fesen Joon’ was what it was called. My grandpa would always take me on his bicycle to the park across the street, where we would take packed containers of ‘Fesen Joon’ and eat them whilst enjoying the beautiful environment around us. The experience rooted me in that moment, collapsing time; from the loud screams of children on the cheap rustic ferris wheel rides, to the smell of cracked walnuts that would bless your nostrils.
*
Madrese (School)
Now it’s been years since these moments, I’ve travelled across the world to find my new home. It’s 2018, and I have just begun the fifth grade. My mother packed me ‘Fesen Joon’ for my lunch at school. The whole day my mind had been clouded from the thought of the sweet-and-savoury goodness of the pomegranate and walnuts paired with the slow cooked roasted chicken.
Eventually, lunch time had arrived. I opened my lunch box, the container inside was foggy from the condensation, as I opened the lid my world came to a halt. My focus was purely shifted into the dish that coated my tastebuds with pure nostalgia. The silence in my head broke when I heard:
“Eww, what is that?”
“Is Aryan eating Poo?”
VCE · Creative Response
Creative Response: In High Ground a desire of control is…
VCE Creative Response essay scoring 80%: Initially, Johnson depicts the colonisers to be brutal, blood-hungry animals, who resort to violence in order…
Initially, Johnson depicts the colonisers to be brutal, blood-hungry animals, who resort to violence in order to have control over the land. While this bloodthirst is underpinned by the coloniser's yearning for control over the land, Johnson suggests that their inure relationship with violence is also because a recently subsided war. In the opening scenes of the film, Johnson articulates a tragic massacre resulting in the deaths of many Aboriginal people. This massacre is the first glimpse, the audience sees of the British, where Johnson clearly articulates their brutal nature. He suggests that their actions weren’t merely accidental as one of the rivermen remarks ‘did I get her’, after killing the mother of Gutjuk. This Barbaric and infiltrating nature is accentuated through the use of fast camera movements, and harsh gunshots
VCE · Creative Response
Creative Response: Personal journey - my life, my story
VCE Creative Response essay scoring 75%: My life, my story This time the sound of the whistle to reassemble us to hear the coach's final words wasn't…
My life, my story
This time the sound of the whistle to reassemble us to hear the coach's final words wasn't welcoming. Normally after a training session for soccer I was ready to allow my body to relax again; to give it a reward for its strength and ability to improve my status in the team and feel healthy. Yet, this time the whistle acted like a lightning bolt through my body. Simultaneously the sound of the whistle and my body breaking down forced me to the ground. I had no control. The dampness of the grass and the freezing cold air were no match for the pain that engulfed my body. All I could manage was a primal scream. I knew it felt wrong. I knew I needed assistance immediately. I knew that the bright pitch lights would be shepherding me off the pitch to the path track rather than lighting the path track to the coach for one last pep talk.
The cliché that you don't know what you have until its gone is one that hits home the hardest. Who would have thought that my knee could in fact become the villain of my story. It seemed like any other day up until the point when my happiness was stripped from me. For once Melbourne's cold, grey and wet winter weather matched my mood. I struggled to draw breath and the fast pace of my heart made me feel as if I were about to explode. I knew it was bad, but until I managed to take off my tight soccer sock I still had some hope. Like blowing up a red balloon my knee expanded as the sock no longer held back the swelling. The MRI results reported the worst news - my ACL and minscus were torn, badly. Let my story begin...
VCE · Creative Response
Creative Response: Speak up, the time is now
VCE Creative Response essay scoring 85%: They say silence is neutrality. But in a world where bombs don't discriminate, silence is complicity. The olive…
They say silence is neutrality. But in a world where bombs don't discriminate, silence is complicity. The olive tree once whispered peace through the wind– now their branches lie broken, their ashes scattered on the battlefield. Amid the blazing sun, the crowd gathers in the heart of the city chanting in unison. Sweat dripped down my face as bodies slammed against each other. The sound of megaphones ricochetted of buildings, layering over the rising tide of chants that erupted like a rolling thunder, relentless, unyielding. "FREE FREE PALESTINE." I came here today not because of the headlines of views but because of the countless images of suffering children and families in Gaza portrayed in the media. I stand here today not just as an individual but as a voice – one among thousands, millions. A voice that refuses to be silent. Every second that passes is the death of another innocent Palestinian. I scan the long city road, taking in protestors holding signs and posters. Their eyes burned with determination, a shared cause uniting us all.
They call this conflict. They call this war. But I call it what it is: genocide. Grief. Torment. I am proud to be siding with the Palestinians as they continue to fight for their freedom. I have head too many pleas to be patient, to be calm. But how can one be patient when the olive tree that once stood tall, rooted in the soil of ancestry is being ripped to shreds from its roots by Israel colonists. How can one be calm, when my dear brothers and sisters are being labelled as terrorists for demanding the right to live, to breathe, to simply exist?
The crowd surges on like a roaring tide, each voice a wave crashing against the silence. The world watches, sometimes with sympathy, often with ignorance. The gaze upon this issue as if it would just fix itself. Treating people – human beings that bleed the same blood as them as if they were just a number. The government raises statements of concern. As if concern could stop missiles and bullets. As if concern could help rebuild a house reduced to rubble. As if concern could bring back the lives of innocent Palestinians. But we people are here. Our voices roar whilst their silence drowns the dying. To say nothing is the same as holding the oppressors hand, to let the suffering continue.
VCE · Creative Response
Creative Response: Perspective
VCE Creative Response essay scoring 75%: I was standing in the middle of the crowd, people from all over the city gathered here today. United by a…
I was standing in the middle of the crowd, people from all over the city gathered here today. United by a shared vision to end the long shadow of racism against Black Australians, we filled the streets of Melbourne. For too long, silence had been the weapon used against us but today, that silence would break. True empowerment is not found in stillness, but in the courage to speak up.
Around me, countless posters rose above the crowd, words written in bold black marker: “Enough is Enough.” The air was thick with chants “We will not be silent!” echoing off the walls of city buildings. You would think after so many protests, and many lives unfairly taken, change would come. But our government system still fails us, pretending to listen but never acting. Our voices had to grow louder.
VCE · Creative Response
Creative Response: At what cost?
VCE Creative Response essay scoring 65%: TITLE: AT WHAT COST? Ayubowan, Vannakum, Assalamu Alaikum. Today, we stand not just in front of the…
TITLE: AT WHAT COST?
Ayubowan, Vannakum, Assalamu Alaikum.
Today, we stand not just in front of the Presidential House, but at the heart of our nation’s democracy. We are gathered in this Aragalaya protest to continue the struggle that Sri Lankans have fought over generations. We are protesting government corruption, economic mismanagement, and policies that have pushed us into poverty. Because, if the decisions of the Rajapaksa government continue to harm every home, village, and community, at what cost are we willing to remain silent?
My brothers and sisters, my name is Ranil, and I am seventeen. I am not a politician, a propagandist or a puppet. I am the son of hardworking middle-class parents, preparing for my final year twelve exams. Yet how can I focus on my studies while my mother cries quietly, terrified of hunger, and my exhausted father stands for hours queuing for fuel? How can I concentrate when blackouts sweep our home into darkness robbing it of warmth and safety?
I cannot. And nor should you.
This darkness in my home is a shadow of a larger, man-made crisis engulfing our nation, beginning with the very soil we stand on. A couple of months ago, the government banned chemical fertilisers overnight. While they feasted, entire villages could not grow crops, leaving many of our already impoverished brothers and sisters without fresh food. But hunger is not our only worry. Hospitals across Sri Lanka have run out of essential medicines, antibiotics, insulin, even painkillers. Doctors are forced to reuse equipment or turn away patients they can no longer help. Children with fevers die because pharmacies have empty shelves. The suffering is ours; the deaths are ours. Yet the power to solve these problems is not.
This pain stretches far beyond our villages, reaching every corner of our nation. This year, Sri Lanka’s debt has swollen to eighty-six billion dollars, more than the value of everything our nation produces in a year. This is a debt that every child born today inherits, a cost imposed upon their future without their consent. Decades of corruption and reckless borrowing have left our economy in ruins. We have seen the rupee’s depreciation, soaring prices, and leaders feasting while hospitals, schools, and households starve. Every corrupt decision shatters our trust, breaks
VCE · Creative Response
Creative Response: At what cost?
VCE Creative Response essay scoring 80%: TITLE: AT WHAT COST? Ayubowan, Vannakum, Assalamu Alaikum. Today we stand not just in front of the Presidential…
TITLE: AT WHAT COST?
Ayubowan, Vannakum, Assalamu Alaikum.
Today we stand not just in front of the Presidential House, but at the heart of our nation’s democracy, gathered in this Aragalaya protest to continue the struggle that Sri Lankans have fought over generations. We are protesting government corruption, economic mismanagement, and policies that have pushed us into poverty. Because, if the decisions of the Rajapaksa government continue to harm every home, village, and community, at what cost are we willing to remain silent?
My brothers and sisters, my name is Ranil, and I am seventeen. I am not a politician, a propagandist or a puppet. I am the son of hardworking middle-class parents, preparing for my final year twelve exams. Yet how can I focus on my studies while my mother cries quietly, terrified of hunger, and my exhausted father stands for hours queuing for fuel? How can I concentrate when blackouts sweep our home into darkness robbing it of warmth and safety?
I cannot. And nor should you.
This darkness in my home is a shadow of a larger, man-made crisis engulfing our nation, beginning with the very soil we stand on. A couple of months ago, the government banned chemical fertilisers overnight. While they feasted, entire villages could not grow crops, leaving many of our already impoverished brothers and sisters without fresh food. But hunger is not our only worry. Hospitals across Sri Lanka have run out of essential medicines, antibiotics, insulin, even painkillers. Doctors are forced to reuse equipment or turn away patients they can no longer help. Children with fevers die because pharmacies have empty shelves. The suffering is ours; the deaths are ours. Yet the power to solve these problems is not.
This pain stretches far beyond our villages, reaching every corner of our nation. This year, Sri Lanka’s debt has swollen to eighty-six billion dollars, more than the value of everything our nation produces in a year. This is a debt that every child born today inherits, a cost imposed upon their future without their consent. Decades of corruption and reckless borrowing have left our economy in ruins. We have seen the rupee’s depreciation, soaring prices, and leaders feasting while hospitals, schools, and households starve. Every corrupt decision shatters our trust, breaks our faith and silences another voice.
Such struggles are not new to Sri Lanka. In 1953, the labouring class rose in the Hartal to protest rice subsidy cuts.
VCE · Creative Response
Creative Response: Title: The Creative Space Stimulus 1:…
VCE Creative Response essay scoring 77.5%: I always dreaded nine o’clock on Sunday mornings. Nine o’clock meant the end of ABC TV. Nine o’clock meant…
I always dreaded nine o’clock on Sunday mornings.
Nine o’clock meant the end of ABC TV.
Nine o’clock meant replacing creativity with mediocrity.
Nine o’clock meant Dad’s bellowing voice.
Nine o’clock meant Indian school.
As the short hand hits nine, the mighty roar -divine like Hanuman waking the mountains- from Dad to “Utho! Wake the hell up!” echoed through the house, bypassing the plaster-thin walls and to my ringing ears, stomping on my girly dream of meeting Glenn Maxwell. In a hurry, Dad rushed my sister and I to pack our bags and get into the car by nine-thirty. With my half-closed eyes, still covered with eye boogers, the ten-minute rideg felt like a splatter of art unfinished drained of its beauty and left colourless. The rhythm colours occurred once we arrive; my Dad gives us a small speech of motivation to always “look on the brightside and prepare for the unexpected ahead” as he never forgets to wave us goodbye. My elder sister Naomi and I, adjusting our thongs to the blazing asphalt, fixing our poorly worn dupattas, would troop unwillingly to the iron gates of the Indian school.
I was always seated at the back of the class, either with my head on the desk or my eyes wandering to the big window on my left, observing the gum trees expressing themselves freely, thinking about what surprise Mum packed me for lunch or what show would be on TV right now. I remember Miss Priya making us sound out sentences and practising which symbols to use when writing. We all had our own books with different colourful images of happy children playing games secretly in the artifice of mundane writing tasks in it, and mine remained empty for the entirety of the year, apart from a sentence or two (those were probably forced). I just wanted to stretch, break and abandon the confinement I was trapped in. So when the bell rang for recess, the only game I played was escape.
For me, the repeated, laborious lessons started when I was in Year Two. For my Indian father, these lessons probably started when Naomi was born. They were a way of ensuring his script of cultural heritage would remain for future generations. As much as he lost along his journey by boat to Australia, something of the Indian boy could stay in us. Perhaps this training of our culture could be inculcated within us so deeply that one day we would become a a greater Indian than him. In the man remained the boy who helped his parents cook dosas before opening shop, who had to collect buckets of water from dirty wells, who had to wake up three hours earlier to travel the long distance to school. Who tried and tried and failed to set himself free of his limitations so eventually transferring them to us in hope we’d break them.
VCE · Creative Response
Creative Response: The Weight of Change
VCE Creative Response essay scoring 90%: What have I become? Loose threads, tarnished sequins, and dirty, torn lace is all that is left of my once…
What have I become? Loose threads, tarnished sequins, and dirty, torn lace is all that is left of my once beautiful self. I now spend my remaining days amongst scraps, just like myself, dreading the days until we are incinerated in this miserable landfill.
I remember my early days on this earth. The small room filled with the sounds of scissors gliding through rough polyester and needles piercing through milky white, floral lace as young hands rushed to piece together thousands of tops like myself. Within hours I was wrapped up in shiny plastic, boxed, taped, and labelled by postcode, ready to be shipped across the world.
New York is where I found myself. A city bustling with life and flashing with bright lights; I couldn't be more ready for my sequins to sparkle under the enormous street lights. As the delivery man dropped me off onto to a cherry red welcome mat, my heart raced in excitement; eager to see my new home. the door opened and I observed the cozy apartment, noticing every corner of the place to be filled to the brim with towers of attire, just like me, preparing themselves for the day they'd be worn.
"I can't wait to wear this new top!" I heard the young woman squeal into the phone. Hurriedly, I was ripped out of my zip lock bag, sparing only a few moments for inspection before putting me up on a metallic silver hanger amongst a crowded wardrobe. I was fortunate enough to be worn that very same night alongside dark, denim jeans, a buttery smooth hazel leather jacket, and black patent kitten heels that glistened under the bright moonlight.
As I walked into the club, all eyes were on me. I embraced how my sequins reflected the flickering rainbow lights.
"How vintage!" Shouted one girl.
"On trend, I see," exclaimed another.
Every compliment warmed my heart.
"I can't wait to be worn again," I thought as the night had come to an end.
Oh how wrong I was.
That night I was taken off and thrown into a dark, unfortunate little corner of the wardrobe. Six months. I had waited patiently for six whole months, hoping to be at least hung up again, yet I was left unshaken by the silence of the abandoned room. I wasn't even moved an inch. I was left heartbroken. A wave of sadness had taken over my heart as I yearned to be worn at least once more. I just couldn't understand why I was being so blatantly ignored.
VCE · Creative Response
Creative Response: The truth “Having a voice means…
VCE Creative Response essay scoring 62.5%: HELP ME! HELP ME! A cry for help can break out like a dam – raw, urgent and impossible to ignore. Yet at…
HELP ME! HELP ME! A cry for help can break out like a dam – raw, urgent and impossible to ignore. Yet at times it never comes. Many who suffer remain silent, paralysed not by weakness but by the weight of fear, shame and despair. The truth is that silence is not always chosen, sometimes it is forced upon us by a world that refuses to listen. Though I was not among those silenced, I have stood close enough to see how injustice renders speech almost impossible, and how protest becomes the only means of restoring voice and truth.
As I speak before you sociologists – experts in the forces that bind us as a society – I do so not to recount on my own oppression, but to reflect on a truth that I have witnessed in others, and on how protest transforms individuals and societies.
I grew up alongside a discriminated friend who bore the marks of exclusion every single day. He was humiliated in classrooms, dismissed by teachers and treated by peers as though his very existence was a transgression. I could not fully inhabit his experience, but I could not ignore it either. When I asked why he did not resist, he admitted that to stand up felt futile, that when the world itself had decided his worth, silence seemed the only option. Yet slowly, through small acts of courage, he began to resist: lifting his head a little higher, meeting the gaze of those who scorned him, speaking up when he once might have remained quiet. These may appear to be minor gestures, but to him they were transformative, and to me they revealed a profound truth – Having a voice means speaking up for what you know is right. Your voice may be alone, but when others recognise the truth, they will form a chorus to take up the fight. Slowly my peer gathered support
VCE · Creative Response
Creative Response: Connections
VCE Creative Response essay scoring 75%: My home is like a castle; my land, like a country. From my bedroom window, I gaze out across the yard with a…
My home is like a castle; my land, like a country.
From my bedroom window, I gaze out across the yard with a calm assurance of familiarity, as though I were a monarch surveying my country. The dogs patrolled the perimeters like loyal guards, the chickens and cows like toiled farmers, providing us with fruitful sustenance. The weathered walls held us close, worn smooth by time and memory, and the ceilings - though sagging under the weight of decades - shielded us from storm and sun. Our iron roof sat atop it all, as a turret tops a castle. But what truly set our castle apart were the fortress walls: towering pine trees, planted long before I was born. They stood over thirty metres high, arm to arm, forming an unbroken circle around our land. For years, they made us feel safe. Untouchable. But that was before everything changed. Before the plague came.
VCE · Creative Response
Creative Response: Speak up. The time is now.
VCE Creative Response essay scoring 67.5%: They say silence is neutrality. But in a world where bombs don't discriminate, silence is complicity. Amid…
They say silence is neutrality. But in a world where bombs don't discriminate, silence is complicity. Amid the blazing sun, the crowd gathers in the heart of the city chanting in unison. Sweat dripped down my face as bodies slammed against each other. The sound of megaphones ricochetted of buildings, layering over the rising tide of chants that erupted like a rolling thunder, relentless, unyielding. "FREE FREE PALESTINE." I came here today not because of the headlines of views but because of the countless images of suffering children and families in Gaza portrayed in the media. I stand here today not just as an individual but as a voice – one among thousands, millions. A voice that refuses to be silent. Every second that passes is the death of another innocent Palestinian. I scan the long city road, taking in protestors holding signs and posters. Their eyes burned with determination, a shared cause uniting us all.
The call this conflict. They call this war. But I call it what it is: genocide. Grief. Torment. I am proud to be siding with the Palestinians as they continue to fight for their freedom. I have head too many pleas to be patient, to be calm. But how can one be patient when the olive tree that once stood tall, rooted in the soil of ancestry is being ripped to shreds from its roots by Israel colonists. How can one be calm, when my dear brothers and sisters are being labelled as terrorists for demanding the right to live, to breathe, to simply exist?
The crowd surges on like a roaring tide, each voice a wave crashing against the silence. The world watches, sometimes with sympathy, often with ignorance. The gaze upon this issue as if it would just fix itself. Treating people – human beings that bleed the same blood as them as if they were just a number. The government raise statements of concern. As if concern could stop missiles and bullets. As if concern could help rebuild a house reduced to rubble. As if concern could bring back the lives of innocent Palestinians. But we people are here. Our voices roar whilst their silence drowns the dying. To say nothing is the same as holding the oppressors hand, to let the suffering continue.
VCE · Creative Response
Creative Response: Framework 2: writing about protest…
VCE Creative Response essay scoring 80%: 1/3 opinion The Forgotten Furies May 29, 2025 9:40am By Jadeah Hegarty I am tired of smiling politely while…
1/3
opinion
The Forgotten Furies
May 29, 2025 9:40am
By Jadeah Hegarty
I am tired of smiling politely while being told to "Just be grateful for how far women have come", tired of sitting quietly in the shadows of history, while the world forgets that many of us are still fighting for basic respect, safety, and equity. We are the daughters of change makers, the granddaughters of warriors. But still in 2025 we are forgotten and we are furious. And we are not done.
Women have been protesting for over a century. we are never handed our rights, we dragged them from the fist of those that refused to let go of power. The Suffragettes weren't applauded at the time. They were spat on, arrested and beaten for demanding the right to vote. They didn't wait for the perfect moment. They knew the power of protest and how silence gives power to the already powerful. And so they chose to fight those who upheld the systems of inequality and they refused to sit down.
But if we think that battle is over, we are lying to ourselves. In Australia alone one woman is killed every week by a current or former partner. The gender pay gap still lingers like a stain that noone bothers to scrub out. We are told we can "have it all" but given no real tools to manage it. This is not progress. This is survival dressed up as equality. And yet we are Still Forgotten, and Furious.
Some say protest is extreme. That it's disruptive, that there are better, more civilised ways to ask for change. But let me ask, what's more disruptive, blocking traffic with march or burying a sister, mother or friend after another gender based violence? What's more extreme, shouting through a microphone or quietly bleeding through school uniform because period products weren't made available? If discomfort is the price of progress, then so be it.
Jadech
2/3
We will fight, not with hatred but with truth, resistance and relentless voices.
VCE · Creative Response
Creative Response: ‘We All Have a Role to Play’
VCE Creative Response essay scoring 80%: Interview – Trevor Noah and Roger Federer
Interview – Trevor Noah and Roger Federer
VCE · Creative Response
Creative Response: What is play? – “work and play are…
VCE Creative Response essay scoring 85%: Hole 1, Tea Olive: Par 4. The crowd is quiet, though I can hear the agitated shuffling of their shoes against…
Hole 1, Tea Olive: Par 4.
The crowd is quiet, though I can hear the agitated shuffling of their shoes against the freshly cut grass. Once this feeling of nervousness and anxiety would have devoured me, however after years of competing, I have grown accustomed to it. Every round begins like this, nothing but you and the wide-open fairway, stretching before you like an open road. Ever since I first picked up a golf club, I craved the idea of having adoring fans, having a gallery cheer your every shot. Yet now it is merely an appendage. As a child, I came to love the game of golf, nothing triumphed that ecstasy of being down on the course, yet as I got better, the game began to blur into a chore. Gone was the ability to laugh off my bad shots, gone was the feeling of seeing genuine improvement in my skills, gone was my love of the game.
Hole 5, Magnolia: Par 4.
The fairways stretches wide here, generous, forgiving. I grip the driver the way I did back when I was fourteen, as if it were a mere extension of my body. Back when golf was more than just a competition to me, I’d wake up early, I loved the whisper of the swing, the clean crack of the ball against the clubface and the picturesque sight of the sun rising.
It was around this time that I believed I could ascend the echelons of golf, my hunger for the game outweighed all, I worked harder than everyone, hours only I could attest for. I wanted to make a career of the game I loved, travel the world and excel in my passion. Childish. That’s how I would describe that dream. When you merge the game and the career, ‘play’ no longer exists.
The ball lifts now, a beautiful white arc cutting through the sky, continuing to rise. Just for a second, I am that boy again, thrilled by the beauty and the promise of where it might land. Yet It’s futile, I am no longer that boy.
VCE · Creative Response
Creative Response: Title - Belonging, Stimulus "landscape…
VCE Creative Response essay scoring 75%: Creative Piece Belonging. A swollen hole of emptiness sits on my chest. I carry the weight of a life half…
Creative Piece
Belonging.
A swollen hole of emptiness sits on my chest.
I carry the weight of a life half lived. Family, friends, children all gone.
My only place of partial belonging, with the homeless community I currently reside.
I now sleep under billboards that promise wealth, beneath the glow of people that forgot what hunger feels like.
Society keeps spinning and I stay still.
They tell me to contribute to work, to leave history on this urban landscape, yet what have they ever given me?
I used to whisper to myself: What's the world for you if you can't make it the way you want it? I still don't have an answer. I don't know if I'll ever truly belong.
*
They call me a leader. The world is in my hands, or at least in my portfolio.
I build, I rule, I control. I've contributed to the history of landscape in the city in steel, glass, and tax invoices.
Guilt? No, guilt is for those who can afford to feel small. I built my empire on precision and ambition. People
call it greed, I call it drive.
I remember him only vaguely, a figure at the edge of the Traffic Light sat directly under a Billboard, all a part of the infustructure I helped create. I drove past him most mornings on a stain on an otherwise polished landscape.
*
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, 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 myself rather than the countless times I’ve chosen to run – run from the inevitable truth that constantly chases me day after day. It’s time I move away from this carcass of lost memories and constant reminders I call home.
Somewhere new, somewhere I can start over.
The image of his desolate eyes staring 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, guild 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 out the door – his gear left 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. Rode 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 smoke lingers in my unchanged bedsheets from the constant chain-smoking as a desperate attempt to forget. It was always temporary – a constant effort only to never prevail.
Years spent in a haze, chapped lips as evidence of my escapism. A mark I'll carry for life.
The confines of my rom grasping me with a firm, but comforting grip – promising safety in his absence. Four walls became my roadside motel, a place to stop but never truly rest.
I thought staying still meant staying with him.
VCE · Creative Response
Creative Response: Title: Finding My Way Stimulus 1:…
VCE Creative Response essay scoring 77.5%: 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. Nights empty of the noise of him stumbling over the stairs after work. The silence a constant reminder of his absence.
It's time I change. Time I choose myself rather than the countless times I've chosen to run — run from the inevitable truth that constantly chases me day after day. It's time I move away from this carcass of lost memories and constant reminders I call home.
Somewhere new, somewhere I can start over anew.
The image of his desolate eyes staring at me from across the road – body empty, as blood pools over the bitumen. No helmet. No jacket. Just skin and bone against 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 replays endlessly – my words sharp enough to send him storming out the door, angry enough to forget his gear. 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. Rode in his direction ever since, tracing the same route over and over, believing that punishing myself meant somehow making it right. That if I suffered enough, carried enough weight, maybe I could rewrite that night.
The scent of smoke lingers in my unchanged bedsheets from the constant chain-smoking as a desperate attempt to forget. It was always temporary – a constant effort only to never prevail.
Years spent in a haze, chapped lips as evidence of my escapism. A mark I'll carry for life.
The confines of my room grasping me with a firm, but comforting grip – promising me safety in his absence. Four walls became my roadside motel, a place to stop but never truly rest. I thought staying still
VCE · Creative Response
Creative Response: Play Ttile: Lets do it! stimulus: play…
VCE Creative Response essay scoring 90%: “What a distressing contrast there is,” wrote Sigmund Freud, “between the radiant intelligence of a child and…
“What a distressing contrast there is,” wrote Sigmund Freud, “between the radiant intelligence of a child and the feeble mentality of the average adult.”
Each time I read that line, I feel a sting of recognition. As both a parent and a psychologist, I see that contrast every day — in classrooms, playgrounds, and my own living room. Children play not for praise or productivity, but for the sheer delight of discovery. Their laughter, their curiosity, their boundless invention — that is the reward. Yet somewhere between childhood and adulthood, that joy becomes conditional. We teach our children that play must serve a purpose, that it should look a certain way. And when we do, we rob them of the greatest lesson of all: that play, in its purest form, is its own reward.
When I was a child, play was quietly scripted. The dolls I cradled were meant to prepare me for motherhood; the tea sets, for politeness and grace. Meanwhile, my brothers’ Lego towers taught them to build, to take risks, to problem-solve. None of us noticed the lesson beneath the fun — that our imaginations were being sorted into boxes before we could even spell the word imagination.
Looking back, I realise how this shaped the architecture of my thinking. My play was careful, contained — never chaotic, never daring. It was performance, not exploration. And though I didn’t know it then, those early boundaries became mental ones. Play taught me to behave, not to create. It was no longer its own reward; it was a rehearsal for conformity.
Now, as a parent, I see those same quiet scripts unfolding again. My daughter unwraps a Barbie, her eyes bright but her imagination
VCE · Creative Response
Creative Response: Country/Belonging
VCE Creative Response essay scoring 90%: A place to belong Orlik Pospolity My mother used to tell me stories. Stories of times before the war. A grand…
A place to belong
Orlik Pospolity
My mother used to tell me stories. Stories of times before the war. A grand house with tall ceilings. Both her and my father owned land, green rolling plains that stretched out beyond the horizon, as far as the eye could see. At least that’s the way she put it.
I didn’t remember much of that.
I was born in a time of war, of hardship and hatred, and my father came out of hiding when I was several months old. Hiding from the Sowieci, who would have sent him to the cold winds of the east to rot for defending his country.
What I did remember, was not very significant. Not people, not special times – no what I remembered was the flowers. Towering purple Orlik Pospolity, also known as the Common Columbine , in which I used to run my palms through and pick for my mother. They were comforting memories, but very few tied me to my homeland, to where I came from. But as I grew, and with it did the war, my family had a decision to make. The Germans were weakening, and as known objectors of the communist regime, we had to flee.
Der Wald (Forests)
Germany was where we found safety in the storm that was the war. Leaving on a horse-wagon, the sound of the droplets of rain on the canopy was the only thing that gave my family comfort. We found ourselves north, and once again surrounded by plains. But these plains were not green and sprawling. They were desolate, destroyed relics, devoid of any life they once knew. Little more than a soft flickering flame kept us warm in the barn that was our home. It was much different to the life we had before, but we were together, and had each other.
Later, a friend offered us a place to stay in the east, outside the little town of Saulgau. It was here I grew up, being taught the language of my home, and the basic knowledge that my grandfather knew from his teaching days. Although I spent most my time around my family, I had no other real connection to where I came from. Some days I would go out into the forest, Der Wald as the locals called it. Here the dark wood shielded the view of the land beyond, and the scent of the Norwegian spruce and pine would overcome my senses. The ground was dotted with the vivid red of lingonberries, and the little umbrellas of the porcini mushrooms. I would explore this new place, but it never felt like home.
The whole family knew it wasn’t and that we had to start somewhere afresh rather than tending to the wounds of a war-torn country we barely knew. Options were many, but one stood out. The southern land. Australia. And it is there we decided to go, packing tightly on the ship Nelly as we set off with others like us in search for a new life to call our own.
VCE · Creative Response
Creative Response: we are what we are
VCE Creative Response essay scoring 70%: Along our personal journeys we are incessantly flooded with a variety of standards and opinions, however the…
Along our personal journeys we are incessantly flooded with a variety of standards and opinions, however the conundrum is that we feel stifled, sometimes frozen, in our abilities to act upon and develop them. While we permit for some sense of compromise here and there – all in the name of keeping “the peace” in our surroundings – we may soon recognise that it was not worthwhile, especially for ourselves. In fact, in many instances where we should have shown ownership and responsibility over ourselves, we are blinded and crumbled in the face of invisible frameworks that shape and undercut our identities. Thus, given the brevity of life, it is our moral duty to test such societal boundaries, and where necessary, to transcend, customise and redraw them so we can individually maintain who “I am”.
VCE · Creative Response
Creative Response: resist and persist
VCE Creative Response essay scoring 85%: The noise was growing and building up each step we took closer to the end of our trip, but it only felt like…
The noise was growing and building up each step we took closer to the end of our trip, but it only felt like only the beginning into our expedition into our new knowledge. We chanted, screamed, and yelled. The streets were alive with energy, but the onlookers—mainly men—watched us, silent, mouths agape. Some women shielded their children, as if our voices could hurt them. As we reached the open gardens, the chanting and yelling slowed down. The huge group of people came to a quiet halt as we watched the speakers intently as they walked onto the stage. “When are they going to start?” said my friend Nora, tapping her feet on the paves like a clock ticking down to it's release, impatiently waiting. The microphone feedback screeched, a raw sound that cut through the air, momentarily silencing the crowd as the first woman took the stage, “Thank you for being here everyone.” She took a long pause. The energy crackled, growing in intensity as the air thickened with anticipation. “For too long , we have been forced to stay silent about sexual harassment. Women, men and others have been told to just accept it, to just move on, but we know that that just isn’t right. We need to continue this movement. We need to continue to raise our voices and fists at people who aren’t listening, so that we will conquer this, together as one.” Murmuring came from the crowd, lots of agreements and one woman jumped up and screamed “YES!”. This sparked the clapping, yelling and chanting again until the speaker spoke into her microphone calmly and everyone sat back down, like obedient dogs. I wanted the silence to last—just long enough—for her words to cut through the noise that lingered in my head. “How many stories do we have to hear before something actually changes?” the speaker cried, and the crowd roared with her. “How many more people must suffer, must watch their abusers walk free, before someone says ‘enough’. We are here to break our silence, to stop being polite and to stand up for the people who have been harassed, assaulted and then told to keep quiet to protect reputations, careers and egos. For too long, this country has