VCE · Creative Response
Creative Response: Framework 2: Writing about protest•…
VCE Creative Response essay scoring 67.5%: choosing sides Good Morning Dear students, Parents, teachers, staff and of course, why would I not forget the…
choosing sides
Good Morning
Dear students, Parents, teachers, staff and of course, why would I not forget the offical party of this fine, prestigous School.
You may already be thinking, I am hear to talk about the class of 2025 Graduation. Yes and No.
Well, Yes and No.
I am here to acknowledge and celebrate this magnificent cohorts achievement in finally finishing the final wonderful 18 years of schooling. But I am also here to choose sides. To choose two sides that are nowhere near simillar.
You see, you may have or not realised I am an immigrant. You may be thinking at this very minute, I would you need to choose side as we all have been on one side of a team. A cohort. A class.
Well that's not the case.
You may or may not have realised I am on immigrant. My mum is a immigrant. My two older brothers are immigrants. who have all not been through like this - Finally getting to to recieve the recognition of a graduated yr 12 collegian. They never got that day, that side to success, to freedom.
But I was lucky. I was lucky to be put into a school of diverse backgrounds, who almost of had from the older generations migrated to this beautiful, multicultural nation we call our home. However! There is no such thing as being neutral - no such thing as being equal. As there will eventually be injustice tagging along our school dress or blazers.
I was never seen as part of a neutral side in school. I was always told to pick a side. In P.E for a dodgeball game of dodgeball or for
a group project for our Humanities class in Year 10. Therefore, I was always put in the middle the one who would never know where to go to which side of the classroom or field. As I was never able to decide the road to find. to the path of success of the finish line. I was always last placed, second worst, but never first place, never the one standing in the middle of the podium holding within the palm of my hands my very own gold medal.
VCE · Creative Response
Creative Response: Title: 'Make a Difference' Stimulus 1…
VCE Creative Response essay scoring 95%: Make a difference – Rohan Ravi, NHT 2025 framework 2 The street outside City Hall buzzed with heat and tension,…
Make a difference – Rohan Ravi, NHT 2025 framework 2
The street outside City Hall buzzed with heat and tension, the asphalt sticky underfoot, the air laced with the smell of sweat, incense, and the faint tang of spray paint. Madeline adjusted the straps of her backpack, shoulders aching from hours of walking, her palm slick against the frayed canvas. Inside her bag was a crumpled list of names, teenagers she had known, tutored, laughed with. Now on the other side, locked up, missing, or worse.
Tonight’s rally was for Tyrone. Fifteen years old, picked up for violating curfew. Dead two nights later in a police chase that should never have happened. The headline had called him “a troubled youth.” But Madeline remembered how he used to build massive towers from old Jenga blocks at the library, every block fitting perfectly, his tongue poking out in concentration. That image cut sharper than any headline.
A crowd pressed together, hundreds from her neighbourhood. Young, old, angry, exhausted. Some stood tall, their heels urging towards there backs. Others held candles, their flames shivering bright in the dusk.
She had not planned to speak. She had scribbled notes on the tram, tucked them between the pages of an old novel. But now, stepping onto the milk crate dragged from behind the 7-Eleven, she felt the weight of all those names in her hand. The megaphone was cold, the rim smelling faintly of metal and disinfectant. Her grip shook.
This is for the community, she reminded herself. This is For Tyrone. For all of the others who were too scared to speak out.
“They say youth crime is out of control,” she began, her voice snagging on the first words. “But who gets to decide what counts as crime? Tagging a wall? Breaking a window? What about cutting after-school programs and pretending that does not hurt anyone?”
The news cameras blinked at the edge of the crowd. “To those in power, the ones writing the
VCE · Creative Response
Creative Response: Title: 'Imagine if..." Stimulus: 'You…
VCE Creative Response essay scoring 87.5%: “We cannot sit and stare at our wounds forever,” said Haruki Murakami. It wouldn't hurt any less, heal any…
“We cannot sit and stare at our wounds forever,” said Haruki Murakami. It wouldn't hurt any less, heal any quicker. Imagine if we use up all our imaginations to try and picture ourselves without it, just to find out it will never end.
Creativity, imagination, what does it take to be silent and to lock yourself up as a child?
To be the one who didn’t cry because someone else was already crying louder.
The one who didn’t speak because someone else’s voice was already more beautiful.
The one who didn’t ask, because someone else’s need was already clearer.
Imagine if you skip the sandbox and step straight into shoes too big for your feet.
Play, they say, is for the creative mind — a mind that learn who it is, a mind that explores the world. But what happens when that play never existed? And will we ever grow out of that creative mind?
I never learned to play like other children did. It wasn’t toys or games that I lacked — it was space. The space to stumble, to be messy, to exist without purpose.
“Oh, you’re always such a big help, such an easy child,” my parents said.
The seven-year-old me loved hearing that — because it was the only time I felt visible.
Daisy, my older sister, was the one with the big heart full of love, as Mum would proudly say. She was emotional, expressive, loud — the kind of child parents write about in photo albums.
So, I tried to be like her, creating my own feelings to be like her.
“Maybe another time, honey,” Dad said when I asked him about his childhood. He looked tired.
Daisy played badminton like him — fast, fierce, always laughing. I liked stories and drawings, things that lived quietly on paper. But I told myself, I can change.
I was nine when I first held a badminton racket. I walked slowly from school to practice, pretending to be tired so Dad wouldn’t ask me what I’d learned. I just listened as Daisy talked and talked, her words filling the car like music I couldn’t sing along to.
VCE · Creative Response
Creative Response: Imagine if...
VCE Creative Response essay scoring 70%: Imagine it... I'm supposed to be in that red brick building soon but instead I'm sitting here in this metal…
Imagine it...
I'm supposed to be in that red brick building soon but instead I'm sitting here in this metal box. The heat from outside sweats the glass windows, caving it in a thick heavy fog. My once crisp white blouse now clings to me. My shallow breath beating to the same tune of the city's orchestra.
I brake at the red light and gaze out side my window. Young children play on swing sets with earnest smiles laughing in joy. To my left, I see men in ironed collared shirts, with perfectly matching cufflinks walking down the path. Adjacently, women in pinstripe pantsuits with their perfectly twisted up and polished heels. I sit back and wonder, how did we get here. How did we go from being so free to becoming complacent. Can we imagine it?
Imagine if we could all stop moving. Just for one second. I think back to when dirt meant mudpies, sticks meant swords, and sand meant castles with turrets, drawbridges and moats to protect the queen.
The air felt lighter then which now tastes like exhaust fumes and the subtle tang of bitumen melting in the heat.
The world feels rehearsed, everyone following the routine. The choreography is effortless and obedience is guised as agency. Now we move when I'm told. Everyone does. I often wonder how we all fell into a lull. On how somewhere along the way we all understood that we follow the lights that command us in colour: red to halt. Green to go. we know by heart. Each of us pretending we are going somewhere new.
VCE · Creative Response
Creative Response: Title: resist and
VCE Creative Response essay scoring 85%: Section B 2024 Title - Resist and Persist OPINION - The New York Times By Michael Nabati. The walls shake. Dust…
Section B 2024
Title - Resist and Persist
OPINION - The New York Times
By Michael Nabati.
The walls shake. Dust falls. My ears ring.
My mother clutches the edge of the table, knuckles white, bracing for the next blow.
My little brother barely flinches anymore, he just stares, as if the world around him is happening to another family, in another life.
Outside, Mosul BURNS.
The sky is thick with smoke, turning the midday sun into a dull dying ember.
The air stings my throat but I don't cough, I don't make a sound.
Sound gets you killed.
Silence is how we survive.
But silence is also how we disappear.
My uncle lies on a thin mattress, his leg wrapped in cloth already dark with blood.
The bullet went straight through his foot.
Next time, they said, it would be his head - "a warning".
A warning for what?
For trying to buy bread?
For stepping outside at the wrong time?
For existing?
They tell us to stay inside, but the walls
aren't safe.
The streets at Mosul aren't safe.
Nowhere is safe.
They say they rule this city, but the bombs
don't belong to them.
The planes above don't care who's on
the ground.
To them, we're all the same: target, threat.
Gunfire rattles through the city.
Short bursts. Silence.
A single shot.
Someone is dead.
Someone is always dead.
I don't look out the window anymore.
I already know what I'll see: a body in the
dirt, a pool of blood drying under the
sun.
Life snuffed out as easily as blowing out
a candle.
They want us afraid.
They want us silent,
But I refuse to give them that victory. I refuse to let them knock down our walls. So I write.
It is my protest - my only act of defiance. I write to make sense of this madness, to scream without making a noise. They want to erase us, to make us ghosts before we are even dead. But if I capture our suffering in ink then we are still real. We are still here.
VCE · Creative Response
Creative Response: title: whats the point stimulus: the…
VCE Creative Response essay scoring 100%: John Smoth- School Captain 'Suck it up princess’, ‘Don’t be a pussy’, ‘Be a man’. We’ve all heard these taunts…
John Smoth- School Captain
'Suck it up princess’, ‘Don’t be a pussy’, ‘Be a man’. We’ve all heard these taunts and insults in the school grounds and in the wider community, yet many of us would not even blink twice about what is implied. The pressure on boys to conform to a toxic machismo is felt from our formative years.
But what is the point of play when it evokes shame rather than lift? What’s the point of play if it stops being a source of freedom and becomes a mechanism of control?
It’s time that we change the discourses around play and interrogate the attitudes that ostensibly benign words inculcate. Play is the means by which values and attitudes are established and built, therefore play must be the way that values and attitudes can be shifted. To shift attitudes, we must all recognise that the point of play should be fairness.
***
Last week, I saw this in action. The Head of Senior School, Mr Hart, on yard duty, picked up on covert bullying where a Year 8 boy was teased and told to “man up” and to “not be a girl” after ducking to a ball thrown at him. The teacher called out the toxic and misogynistic attitudes of these boys, demanding that they reflect on the implied values that were embedded in their superficially innocuous teasing. For Mr Hart, there was nothing benign about their words and their implications. He recognised that speaking out against such toxic attitudes was a moral imperative; and that silence renders everyone complicit in the perpetuation of unfair play that underpins gender-based violence and the dangerous machismo that is considered normative for males in the games they play in and out of the playground. Indeed, we must all recognise the duty as individuals and as a whole school community to make all play fair – because if play is no longer fair, what’s the point of playing at all
***
As children, our understanding of the world is shaped through play, where imagination renders social norms irrelevant because we can play any part. But they are only irrelevant in the transient innocent years of youth when play is about playing rather than about conforming to roles. As we get older, we confront attitudinal and gender boundaries and play becomes dictated by harsh gender norms in which the lens through which young boys perceive themselves and others becomes confined. The simplistic idea of play, where no limits exist, becomes tainted and increasingly harder to navigate. The freedom and self-expression which ideally underpins play becomes corrupted by expectations and stereotypes that are socially constructed and hard to shift when it is covertly
VCE · Creative Response
Creative Response: "There comes a moment where the…
VCE Creative Response essay scoring 80%: Present: As I examine this world through a more nuanced lens, I’ve developed a perspective on the child I once…
Present:
As I examine this world through a more nuanced lens, I’ve developed a perspective on the child I once was. The world in which he’s lived in seems almost unrecognisable. This world is dark, cold, build on the false promises of vanquish and prosperity. A world build on the foundation of conflict, it almost convinced me I was nothing. However, through this lens, I’ve found solace in the things that used to bring me so much comfort in life. Old movies I used to watch, validate my inner child, casting a hedge of protection that once again separates me from the dangers of the real world. However, come with this refute of reality, I’ve realised now that I cannot
VCE · Creative Response
Creative Response: writing about country title: going…
VCE Creative Response essay scoring 72.5%: My country, my blood As you step towards the crowded grey walls of terminal 5 at the Melbourne airport you…
My country, my blood
As you step towards the crowded grey walls of terminal 5 at the Melbourne airport you feel something shift inside you. The stale air transported you back to the bustling streets of your local market. For a second you can smell the chai wala next to the Haldirams down the street. The chai wala is running his stall right outside, enticing people to have a quick cup with their fresh jalebi and samosa. The steam from his cart blows away into the polluted air, taking the aroma of fresh cardamom and just the right amount of ginger with it. The scent of it enraptures you, and you nearly fly away with it, till a bump snaps you back to reality. For a second you think it was some idiot on a scooted driving four times the speed limit, but then you zone back in to the dull grey carpet surrounding you and realise it was just some lady rushing to make her connecting flight.
It's easy to forget where you are, you’d rather be standing barefoot on the luscious green landscapes of Punjab, with the fresh soil underneath your feet, laughing without a care in the world, running after the tractor your Nanu is driving around the field.
Time passes, it’s been a few months, and yet it’s all you can think about. You thought it would be fun at first, to move across the world and see all these new things. But you never realised the things you will never see again.
The people you will never see again.
The chowkidar who patrolled your street every night and would play ‘Chidia Ud’ with you whenever you got into a fight with the girl down the street.
The stationery shop clerk who would always keep an extra set of whatever loom bands had released in the back, so you could buy it when you got your pocket money for the next month.
Even the local grocer across the street who gave you a kinder joy
VCE · Creative Response
Creative Response: New Beginnings Never regret, If its…
VCE Creative Response essay scoring 80%: Stimulus - Never regret. If it's good, it's wonderful. If it's bad, it's experience. New beginnings. As I stood…
Stimulus - Never regret. If it's good, it's wonderful. If it's bad, it's experience.
New beginnings.
As I stood on the banks of the ganges with my family, I could feel the cold air burst across my face and hear the chants and the chime of bells far away. We had come to Mahakumbh, a rare Hindu gathering that occurs every 144 years in Prayagraj when rare planetary alignments occur. It wasn't until this moment that I realized that this journey would become more than just a family holiday. I could not have guessed that I would take such an auspicious and challenging journey of faith.
We stood to one side waiting for the right moment to step in. My father suddenly shoved us into a wave of millions of people moving together like a living river we were standing besides. The air around me was filled with the smell of the auspiciousness of the rituals, and strong smells of the nearby street food.
Every step I took through the sacred city of Prayagraj felt devotional. As we approached the triveni sangam where the three rivers Ganga, Yamuna, and Saraswati meet, I saw millions of devotees bathing in the waters with eyes closed and faces tilted towards the sun. The moment I put my feet into the icy river, I was faced with a choice: regret the cold, or embrace the experience. I chose acceptance over regret, and through that decision, the "wonderful" arrived. Goosebumps prickled my skin, not from the cold, but from a deep sense of spirituality that I had never felt before.
VCE · Creative Response
Creative Response: AT WHAT COST?
VCE Creative Response essay scoring 77.5%: At what cost? By Gloria.R.Smith, an advocate for women’s rights and mother of two daughters 15th July 2024…
At what cost?
By Gloria.R.Smith, an advocate for women’s rights and mother of two daughters
15th July 2024
New York Times
I rise today not just with sorrow, but with determined rage— because I’m angry, frustrated, and can no longer support this injustice with silence. The Supreme Court’s decision to overturn the right to abortion care is fundamentally wrong, and I refuse to stand by while people debate what should never have been debatable.
Women’s bodies are not political battlegrounds for people hiding in marble offices. Anatomy isn’t a topic for boardrooms or chambers—it’s a lived reality for many women in America.
The Supreme Court greenlit forced pregnancy, taking away the right to bodily autonomy from women. However, abortion is still health care, and women will still need to access it. This overturn of abortion rights is an act of violence against countless women like me and you.
That is why I write - to raise my voice. To protest. To demand accountability. To demand that this injustice end now.
This isn't just about laws. This is about lives.
This issue is not distant for me. As a mother of two daughters and a women's rights advocate, I carry the weight of this injustice daily. America prides itself on being the “land of the free,” yet my girls are growing up in a country where their freedoms are being stripped away before they are even old enough to understand them. My advocacy is not just about policy; it is about protecting their futures.
It is often in the heart of personal suffering that protest finds its voice. And this fight became even more personal when my friend Jennifer became a victim of her state’s abortion ban. She was forced to carry a non-viable pregnancy to term, knowing her life could be at risk.Her mind darkened with each passing day, hope swallowed by shadows. Every clinic shut its doors. Every law turned its back. She was forced to carry. Forced to suffer. Forced to grieve.
Her ordeal pierced the silence and awakened collective determination: we will not let this suffering stand unanswered. Behind every law is a human life, and behind every injustice, the possibility of resistance.
VCE · Creative Response
Creative Response: Title: The Art Of Becoming Me Stimuli…
VCE Creative Response essay scoring 77.5%: Growing up, talking in Somali was the norm in our household. Since my parents immigrated to this country deep…
Growing up, talking in Somali was the norm in our household. Since my parents immigrated to this country deep into their adult years, they only ever learnt English through regular life experiences. My Aabo (dad), due to his job as a taxi driver and meeting new people everyday, was able to pick up on the language much quicker in comparison to my Hooyo, whose only exposure to practice her English was through going to Aldi, going to the doctors and picking my brothers and I from kindergarten. So naturally, my parents always spoke to my brothers and I in Somali, as it was easier for them and also helped us learn our mother tongue, even if we speak it in an obvious Australian accent that gets us made fun of anytime we call our family from back home. It was until I started school where I found out that identifying yourself as Somali is not linear, like at all.
Journey of Discovery
Within my family, my parents were never exactly patriotic about being Somali. As we lived in a very Somali populated area, it was as if there was no need to vocalize being Somali since everyone was. It was until I entered school that I was exposed to Somalis that came from different cities and different dialects. I quickly learnt that I was a Lander, slang for someone who is from Somaliland. From then on, I began my research on these so called ‘separate countries’ and found out where in Somalia or whatever I'm from.
My research first began with my Hooyo, asking her where she was born, determined to better understand why this invisible, unspoken divide existed within our people.
“Waxaan ku dhashay miyiga, waxaan la noolaa waalidkay iyo walaalahay ilaa ilaa aan lix sano jira”
My Somali still being ridiculously weak, meant that I was only able to pick up on some words and had to piece the sentence together which overall said that my Hooyo was born in the countryside, living with her parents and siblings.
“Kadib in aan la galo habaryartay oo deganayd Hargeisa”
This one was a bit easier to understand as a child since it was words I was familiar with up until the last unknown location. My Hooyo had to move in with her auntie that lived in Hargeisa.
VCE · Creative Response
Creative Response: Protests Framework, "A Better Tomorrow"
VCE Creative Response essay scoring 65%: A Better Tomorrow: Action over Hope The sound of the shattering glass reverberated off the walls and hit my…
A Better Tomorrow: Action over Hope
The sound of the shattering glass reverberated off the walls and hit my ears. It was then replaced by the thundering of my heart. “You ungrateful brat! The simplest thing you cannot do! You better hope you do what I ask tomorrow right.”He barked at me accusingly.
Heavy footsteps recede from my position on the floor and I hear a distant door slam. With trembling hands, I sit up straighter to view the horrors inflicted on the living room.
The coffee table was upended with strewn papers everywhere, pillows and blankets disheveled upon a displaced lounge and laying on the floor, the root of such an outburst from my father, the discarded grocery bag I offered that did not contain what he most craved, his precious liquor.
My father used to smell of pine and soap. In his most recent years, a potent sour scent has replaced all familiarity. One glass on the weekend morphed into multiple glasses during the weekdays, arriving home from work in fits of rage and demanding his stimulant immediately.
Rehabilitation became unattainable. Somehow, he is able to hide his addictive behaviours from the outside world so well that only I am privy to his actions.
His fury silences my desperations to speak out, instilling fear that prevents me from raising my voice about the honesty and truth surrounding my violent environment. Truthfully, I do not believe that even rehabilitation may save my father.
It insinuates that there is hope for them once they return from their recovery, a hope that yearns for them to choose a better tomorrow without reliance on their addictions.
VCE · Creative Response
Creative Response: finding your way
VCE Creative Response essay scoring 85%: The sterile tang of alcohol pressed into my lungs. My eyes yearned to close, yet the fluorescent lights carved…
The sterile tang of alcohol pressed into my lungs. My eyes yearned to close, yet the fluorescent lights carved through the hospital’s silence. Beyond the white glare, I longed only for stillness—sleep, or something close to it.
I had worked three shifts in a row; the weight of other people’s pain had seeped into my bones. Still, I stayed. It was easier to watch lives restart than to face my own that had stopped long ago.
I began to sink into the pool of thoughts which flooded my mind.
Then—footsteps. Faint. Uncertain.
A tug on my sleeve. Beneath me stood a child, a little girl. Her emerald eyes met mine, wide and unblinking. My reflection swam within them.
“What’s wrong, sweetheart?” I prodded, my voice hollow with fatigue.
My words were met with silence. I clasped her hands, their fragility startled me. Her palms, muddled by dust were littered with blisters and bruises.
I then felt a slight tingle race through my body, goosebumps appeared on my skin, as the cold touch of her luminous bracelet brushed against my skin. I stared at it more closely, it was a Kara. It's touch was one I was not obscure to, but one that had rather disappeared from my life in the past few years, along with the remainder of Sikhi, I once carried. When my father abandoned me, so had Sikhi.
I guided her towards the children’s ward. The corridors pulsed with cries and distant sirens. “The nurse will look after you,” I assured, turning away.
But her grip tightened. Her silence pleaded. I resigned to her non-lexical pleas. “What’s your name?”
“Manat,” she whispered, her silvery voice laced with pride.
Her parents? She didn’t know. Only that “Papa told me hospitals help people,” and that she was to find a Sikh, as they would help her. Something inside me cracked. I directed my gaze towards her Kara, before guiltily shifting my attention at my own naked wrist. It had been stripped of what I once considered an honour, the role of being a Sikh.
Her knee infested with cuts and grazes, caught my eye. I crouched parallel to her, dressing her wounds, though the pain I could not bind.
VCE · Creative Response
Creative Response: the making of me
VCE Creative Response essay scoring 92.5%: Echo- Sada Some journeys leave footprints in the sand. Mine left echoes in silence, written not on roads but…
Echo- Sada
Some journeys leave footprints in the sand. Mine left echoes in silence, written not on roads but in the pauses
between verses, in the quiet tug of war within my chest.
From the beginning, each moment, stumble, pause, triumph, was quietly contributing to the shaping of myself.
Every forgotten verse, every silent struggle, became part of the slow architecture of my growth.
The first time I forgot an ayah (a verse from the Qur’an), I was standing in prayer, my voice faltering under the
weight of a hundred expectant eyes. I opened my mouth, but nothing came. My heart sank.
The mosque’s walls seemed to close in, heavy with silence. I wanted to disappear. [Expand a bit on the struggle in
the moment]
A single word from behind guided me forward; a lifeline in stormy waters. Later that night, my dad gently said,
“We build. Allah completes.
”
Even failure, he reminded me, was a brick. Each brick, each echo, was another layer in the unfolding of who I am.
Struggle – Mujāhadah
When I began memorising the Qur’an, I imagined a marathon: long, tough, but straightforward. Instead, it was
mujāhadah, a battle against my own distractions, doubt, and exhaustion. Some nights, verses flowed like rivers.
Other nights, they vanished like footprints washed from the shore.
This struggle became the chisel shaping my inner self. Each repeated line, each late-night review, each faltering step
contributed to the slow building of my identity. The effort itself was as vital as the memorisation; it was shaping not
just memory, but the weaving of myself.
Balance – Tawāzun
Tawāzun, balance, became my tightrope. Schoolwork, family, friendships, they pulled at me from all directions.
Some days I moved like a juggler in rhythm; others, a plate-spinner always one step behind.
I was the student revising past midnight, the brother who missed dinner, the friend who said no. Yet this constant
juggling was part of the ongoing formation of myself. My mum would softly remind me,
“You can’t carry every burden at once,
VCE · Creative Response
Creative Response: Protest Framework
VCE Creative Response essay scoring 87.5%: Now is the time we raise our voices. Now is the time we speak not just for ourselves, but for those who can…
Now is the time we raise our voices. Now is the time we speak not just for ourselves, but for those who can no longer do so. Now is the time to call for justice for the lives already lost.
My name is Justin Pham. At just seventeen years old, I should be thinking about school, friends, or my future. Instead, I am here, standing before you at this council meeting, forced to ask: Is another protest truly the way forward? Is this method actually going to create benefit, or are we simply perpetuating a cycle of violence and harm?
Protest is powerful. Protest is necessary. Protest is a human right. Without protest, there would be no civil rights movement in America, no women’s suffrage in Australia, no progress for the LGBTQ+ community. It gives voice to the voiceless, strength to the oppressed, and ensures that no injustice goes unchallenged.
Yet, despite living in a society where freedom of speech is praised and celebrated, the unfortunate reality is that when our voices become too loud, too invasive, too prominent, they get destroyed. And when that happens, it is humanity that suffers.
VCE · Creative Response
Creative Response: Women’s rights (protest framework)
VCE Creative Response essay scoring 90%: The Rising of Her Voice (protest framework) In the quiet dawn of every age, before the laws were written and…
The Rising of Her Voice (protest framework)
In the quiet dawn of every age, before the laws were written and the ink of justice dried, there was a woman who whispered no.
No to silence.
No to invisibility.
No to the belief that her worth began and ended with obedience.
Her voice, though small at first, trembled through time. It echoed in the footsteps of those who marched with banners held high and in the trembling hands that signed petitions beneath flickering lamplight. It echoed in classrooms, courtrooms, and kitchens—anywhere a woman dared to demand more than what the world told her she could have.
VCE · Creative Response
Creative Response: play to win?
VCE Creative Response essay scoring 67.5%: PLAY TO WIN? I was 4 years old when my father came back from the office with a special gift a soccer ball. I…
PLAY TO WIN?
I was 4 years old when my father came back from the office with a special gift a soccer ball. I can still remember the industrial plastic-like odor, the wrinkled texture of the stars pattern, the subtle weight and the irresistible urge to play with it.
That small sphere of fun quickly became my obsession, my one and only priority, my world. Me and my dad would often take the train to the park and play till night time, and go back home to a tasty home cooked meal. This was my life for a couple years, but it all changed the exact moment I turned 7.
I had already shown incredible tenacity during the last couple months in my request to be signed up to a team, but that 25th of march I finally succeeded and got signed up to Cobras FC, a local spanish club. The first, in all honesty, was a reality check.
You see, I had acquired my inflated ego as I usually practiced with my dad, and it is safe to say he is a below average player, even if his love for the game is extreme. But when I got there, suddenly everything was frightening. I saw the level of the players, the constant screams, and the impressive infrastructure, and my legs suddenly became weak.
"Don't worry Pablo, you're the best here" said my father, with a warm tone that seemed to be enough to warm my mood as well as my extremities, which had gone cold from my previous state of shock. We quickly warmed up, and moved on to a rondo, but my feet felt discoordinated, and my legs felt like they belonged to someone else. I had to do something about this, and quickly! There and then, I pictured the old park, with its rusty goals, its broken nets, and my dad with a huge smile, and I knew the suffering was over. I felt like my legs were back, and my game IQ and agility seemed to resuscitate. the rest of the session was a sucess, and I was offered to stay for the season, an offer
that I accepted instantly.
VCE · Creative Response
Creative Response: Stimulus 1: "Our Duty" Stimulus 2: an…
VCE Creative Response essay scoring 90%: For as long as I remembered, I would wake up and feel angry. Maybe not initially. There was usually a brief…
For as long as I remembered, I would wake up and feel angry.
Maybe not initially. There was usually a brief moment; an ingenuous calm as my eyes opened to find a sheet of dawning light sprayed across the floorboards. The early heat of the Western Australian sun feels akin to the safe embrace of a lover whilst the claws of lethargy corral me back to the wisps of my dreamstate.
However, this tranquility is short-lived, as the sun always seems to rise behind a chorus of weeping and moaning that slips its way through my bedroom window.
Well, now I'm awake.
Living adjacent to the Yongah Hill detention centre is not a feature regularly searched for on real estate listings. However, the rent is cheap and it's a fair plot of land, a large backyard accompanying a patio that adequately hosts a recently divorced woman and her pack of cigarettes.
And so there I sat, trying to ease the tremble in my hand as I raised another smoke to my lips. I would sit out there every morning, chain smoking and brooding over the ugly, shapeless blocks of infrastructure and the towering chainlink fence, serving as a constant reminder of the illegal whore who seemingly jumped off the boat and into my husband’s bed. I felt as if I was obligated to sit out there and wait to see her brown, gaunt face staring back at me through the rusted links in that fence. I felt as if my sole purpose in life had been reduced to ensuring her incarceration.
The view would be half-nice too if it weren't for the massive pig-pen overshadowing everything. The barren, sandy land would stretch outward into the lining of banksia and eucalyptus, and then eventually spray out into the shoreline. But alas, I am confined to this rickety chair, sentenced to a front-row seat of watching guards herd cattle around their confinement.
But that morning, something was different. Instead of being ushered into a single-file line towards the building I had attributed to their dining hall, the inhabitants advanced out into the courtyard in an almost sporadic manner. Initially, I wasn't concerned about their unusual behaviour. I instead wondered which of the dogs had caused a disruption this time. Was it more gang activity being quelled after a particularly nasty dog fight? Was it another mother being separated from her offspring, howling and whining at the crack of dawn? I wondered why they weren't being punished for this act of defiance. Regardless, they kept coming, progressing toward something I couldn't quite make out from the constraints of my patio, creating a ring of bodies and sweat, circling it like a flock of vultures.
The apparent lack of security guards was beginning to make me feel uneasy. They had a responsibility to ensure security — to keep a leash on these foreigners — not the neighbors.
Hesitantly, I stood up. With a cigarette dancing along my bottom lip, I craned my neck and squinted my eyes, trying to get a good look from above the mob.
As if on cue, guards adorned in SWAT gear emerged from the central building as if rehearsed. They filed out by the dozen, making the escapees appear as sorry as a pack of stray dogs. I watched on, anticipating a lock down, maybe a herding back inside of sorts. Anything but what began to ensue in front of me.
VCE · Creative Response
Creative Response: framework: play title/ stimulus: time…
VCE Creative Response essay scoring 72.5%: Time to play: If time travel were possible most adults would likely use it to correct their mistakes, to fix…
Time to play:
If time travel were possible most adults would likely use it to correct their mistakes, to fix restore or redo. But children, if handed the same machine would simply amuse themselves with time: leap from past to future, experiment with paradoxes or visit a day twice to see what changes. That difference says something profound. As adults we treat time as a resource to be managed; as children we treat it as a a landscape to explore. Perhaps this is why when responsibilities of adulthood harden around us, we begin to forget how to play. The question then is not whether adults can play, but whether we can afford not to.
On one hand, play is far more than a childhood past time, it is a vital human instinct that continues to shape creativity empathy and well being. Psychologists argue that play fosters cognitive flexibility allowing us to explore possibilities without consequence. In adulthood, it emerges through imaginative risk taking: a scientist testing wild ideas, a designer sketching without a plan, a parent inventing a bedtime story. Play become a kind of mental time travel, a space where we can step outside the strict present and imagine alternative futures. Many workplaces now embrace “creative play” because unstructured thought often produces structured breakthroughs.
However, critics argue that adulthood demands focus and discipline rather than playfulness. Life’s obligations, careers, bills, families, compress time into schedules and deadlines. Within these constraints play can appear frivolous, even irresponsible. To them, maturity means control: replacing whimsy with reliability. Adults, they argue cannot afford to “lose track of time” when there are responsibilities to meet. Play may refresh the spirit, but it doesn’t pay the rent.
VCE · Creative Response
Creative Response: personal journeys
VCE Creative Response essay scoring 92.5%: The wooden bridge behind my house has always been more than a bridge. When I was a child, it seemed enormous…
The wooden bridge behind my house has always been more than a bridge. When I was a child, it seemed enormous — an old, fragile skeleton stretched across the river, its boards cracked and splintered, whispering warnings whenever the wind passed through. I used to stand at the edge, staring at the dark water below, convinced that one wrong step would send me falling. My brother would sprint across, laughing as the planks rattled beneath him, but I always stayed where the dirt was solid. I told myself the bridge couldn’t be trusted. What I really meant was that I couldn’t trust myself.
VCE · Creative Response
Creative Response: Transformation
VCE Creative Response essay scoring 72.5%: In the 21st century, we are often told that every life is a story that each of us is the hero of our own…
In the 21st century, we are often told that every life is a story that each of us is the hero of our own journey, authoring a unique narrative worth telling. It’s a comforting thought, but not always a truthful one.
Most lives don’t resemble stories. They resemble habits. They are commutes, grocery lists, and laundry cycles repeated endlessly. Few people are explorers charting new worlds. Most are office workers waiting for the lift, replying to emails, and eating the same sandwich they’ve had for lunch since high school. Life is like a wheel, forever turning.
The trouble with calling every life a “personal journey” is that it compresses our messy realities into recycled storylines. We know the ones, the triumphant underdog, the tragic downfall, the miraculous comeback, the hero who “finds themselves.” But if everyone’s life is squeezed into these predictable things, how unique are these stories really? It starts to feel less like originality and more like Hollywood sequels, the same plot, only with new actors.
Think about it. The biggest moments in your life. Have they transformed you? Have they overturned your own character into a new being? No. These moments only cause growth. A more normal part of human nature.
For example, me personally, landing my first job was supposed to feel like an important event. People say it teaches responsibility and independence. For me, it just taught me how to talk to customers, clock in on time, and collect a pay check. Outside of work, I was still the same person. Not transformed, not enlightened, just a little more tired on weekends.
Everyone says traveling changes you, that seeing the world gives you new
VCE · Creative Response
Creative Response: “You only know where you’ve been once…
VCE Creative Response essay scoring 67.5%: Im sitting at Starbucks while writing this, airpods in listening to a hindi song called “dil diya gallan”…
Im sitting at Starbucks while writing this, airpods in listening to a hindi song called “dil diya gallan” meaning “my hearts conversation.” It feels almost like I’m living the same life in 2024 September. My eyes light up as soon as I hear a door creaking thinking I’m going to relive a memory. Instead of studying business due to my low 50s I’m out here craving the same essence of his presence. A tear drops by from my cheek as I quickly pack up my books and decide to rush out with my double chocolate chip Frappuccino with extra espresso, from the all nighters I pull from comforting my friends with their break ups trying to forget mine. I decided to drive home passing the park me and him used to play hide n seek at. I don’t think I have ever loved anyone or anything this much in my life. Uncovering parts of me I never knew I had, some negatives some positives, but my friend said they’re all just negatives. Avoidant attachment, meaning an avoidance on expression of intimacy, major jealousy issues, constant overthinking, doubting myself, lack of self-worth and self-respect. All these qualities just because of a single individual? And then boom they suddenly all ev
VCE · Creative Response
Creative Response: writing about protest
VCE Creative Response essay scoring 80%: I stand here with a voice that shakes, not because I am weak, but because every woman who has been silenced…
I stand here with a voice that shakes, not because I am weak, but because every woman who has been silenced walks with me.
Today we gather in protest, in the heart of Melbourne’s CBD, to march for an end towards violence against women — not simply against one act of violence, but against a culture that allows violence to thrive. A culture that teaches women to carry keys between their fingers at night, that teaches daughters to whisper “message me when you’re home safe,” but never teaches men not to harm.
We are told to take the “safe” route home, to avoid walking alone, to lower our eyes, to not wear this, not drink that, not speak up. But here is the truth: women have been following these rules for generations, and still, one woman is killed every nine days in Australia by a current or former partner. Every nine days, another candlelit vigil. Every nine days, another headline. Every nine days, another voice gone.
This cycle is not just repetition — it is a domino chain of violence, one act toppling into the next, unless we resist it together. Every silence, every dismissal, adds another piece to the chain, and if we do not stop it now, it will continue to fall, unstoppable.
VCE · Creative Response
Creative Response: Title: “Echoes of Tomorrow” Stimulus:…
VCE Creative Response essay scoring 77.5%: Dear Diary, It took so long for me to realise. The long nights and early mornings all compiled into one. I…
Dear Diary,
It took so long for me to realise.
The long nights and early mornings all compiled into one. I didn't know how to cope with the thoughts running through my busy mind, I wonder if they looked both ways before that ran.
Cupid only had to shoot me once before I fell flat on my face; little did I know it would cause me more pain and bruises than any fall I'd ever experienced. Eyes like the ocean and a laugh that would fill a room with optimism; I'd never take it for granted. I never wanted today to end, but always looked forward to the future of tomorrow.
The warmth of love filled my spirit, laughing and crying together all held the same sentimental value. Absolutely nothing could change the sparkle in my eyes that I held for her. “Why couldn't the toilet paper cross the road? Because it would fall down a crack!”, Every joke captured her joyful giggle and pearly white smile, no matter how generic.
To me, love was a concept only a few could grasp. I felt like I'd climbed a mountain no one else had conquered. Late-night drives possessed the loud sound of Spotify's top singles, windows down and volume up to 30. Where did it all go wrong?
The giggles faded; feelings shared were accompanied by arguments. She no longer felt like home, no warmth, no security, no nothing. Seventeen years old, looking up like she was on a pedestal, happiness is all I wanted for her but that wasn't enough to make it last.
Back then, my eyes filled with glimmer. Now, empty. Bottomless without a tear left to cry. My soul telling me there's no reason to keep going, why continue.