VCE · Creative Response
Creative Response: "If you are neutral in situations of…
VCE Creative Response essay scoring 85%: Good morning, Councilors, welcome guests and members of Melbourne's community. Thank you all for giving me the…
Good morning, Councilors, welcome guests and members of Melbourne's community. Thank you all for giving me the opportunity to speak at the Melbourne City Hall. My name is Erik. I am a legal advocate with a background in public law. Over the years, I have worked with legal aid services and reform initiatives to bring attention to how systems affect vulnerable communities. Today, I will be discussing an issue within the judicial system, the bail system and why it needs change to promote fairness and justice.
The moral imperative to stop injustice has created changes throughout history for the betterment of society. When we apply this to the bail system, we must confront and question its failures. The original bail system was created to ensure returns to trial and minimize risk to society. Our contemporary bail system has lost its original purpose. Instead, modern bail imprisons individuals for being poor, designed in a way that disproportionately affects people of disadvantaged backgrounds. Effectively, bail treats freedom as a matter of money. While 'being tough on crime' appeals to a sense of security, using bail to embody this idea only functions to exacerbate the existing oppression of people with lower financial status. The bail system in Australia treats cases as 'poor crimes' and 'rich mistakes'.
A recent study conducted by the Australian Bureau of Statistics reported that 41% of Australia's prisoners are on remand. Under the principle of the presumption of innocence until proven guilty, all pre-trial detainees are 'legally innocent'. Obviously, these people in pre-trial detention are still being treated as if they were proven guilty and are being punished through imprisonment. To bail, being unable to pay a sum of money decides
VCE · Creative Response
Creative Response: "What is play", 'work and play are…
VCE Creative Response essay scoring 70%: What is play? Ladies and Gentlemen, I appreciate you all doing yourselves a favour by attending our…
What is play? Ladies and Gentlemen, I appreciate you all doing yourselves a favour by attending our motivational "more to life" seminar, I am Edward Halley.
Today, my question to you all is, what is play?
Many of you are tired of living, attending jobs you do not like and wondering why you feel as if your lives aren't as fulfilled as you wish them to be.
Many of us here depict play as children's fun and something only children can take a part of, but many of us don't realise our choices determine if we continue play in our lives or not.
VCE · Creative Response
Creative Response: Title: Time to Play Stimulus: “I can…
VCE Creative Response essay scoring 90%: I was never just a toy. Once, I was everything. Chosen from the store shelf, unboxed with ceremony and…
I was never just a toy.
Once, I was everything.
Chosen from the store shelf, unboxed with ceremony and excitement. Held tightly, carried everywhere like a talisman against nightmares. He gave me a name. Not the one printed on my packaging – “Delta Blazer 5000” – but something smaller. Something his.
Rocket.
In his hands, I was real.
We fought invisible enemies. The kitchen was a war zone, the stairs our launch ramp, the hallway a wormhole to distant galaxies. He gave me missions, voices, sound effects. Even though my arm never bent quite right and my visor was scratched, I never felt more powerful. In those moments, we lived by no rules but our own. We could think whatever we liked to think. We could play however we liked to play.
Then came the silence.
Not all at once. First, he left me at the foot of the bed. Then by the bookshelf. One day, I was placed on the top shelf. Out of reach. Out of mind.
No farewell. No final mission.
The sun that once warmed my armour now stopped just short. The light couldn’t reach me anymore – and neither could he. I counted footsteps. Waited for my name – Rocket! – but it never came.
The others faded quickly. The plush fox curled in on itself. The wind-up monkey stopped grinning. Even the ballerina from the music box spun slower and slower until she froze. We were still. Forgotten.
But not me.
Because after dark – when the world grew quiet, when the screens went black and breathing slowed – we remembered.
We played.
It always began the same way. The ballerina’s music would chime softly. A creak from the toy chest. A whisper from under the bed. I’d climb down from my shelf like I used to leap from chairs, joints stiffer now but still functional.
VCE · Creative Response
Creative Response: titel: here i stand
VCE Creative Response essay scoring 90%: Here I stand Silence: The roar that shook the Empire By Reginald H. Fairchild, Manchester Guardian, May 5 1930…
Here I stand
Silence: The roar that shook the Empire
By Reginald H. Fairchild, Manchester Guardian, May 5 1930
On that oppressively sultry April afternoon at Dandi, I was held in rapt attention at an odd tableau: the scene was striking in exotic nature, hundreds if not thousands of Indians, devoid of any noise and demands, but the monotonous scrape of feet as they crossed the barren land. The silent procession, in all its solemnity, was a spectacle so absurdly paradoxical like a quiet revolt dressed in silence, that it made me pause and wonder about the rebellion stirring beneath the calm exterior.
BAREFOOT REVOLUTIONARIES: GANDHI’S QUEST TO SALT THE EARTH
More than an idealist, Gandhi is a self-proclaimed prophet of nonviolence, an ever-present figure in his loincloth, deluding himself that walking barefoot across the subcontinent would bring the British Empire to its knees. It was impossible to understand the Fakir of Delhi unless something was known of the Hindu religion. “An eye for an eye only ends up making the whole world blind,” as he famously said remains a central force in Gandhi’s philosophy. While such an idea may seem well-suited to religious devotion, it appears, to many, a rather far-fetched approach when pitted against the might of an empire.
I remember one man in particular, much like the saint himself, walked steadily, head high, hands clasped behind his back, as if the very act of marching could bend the course of history. The constabulary, representatives of the Raj's authority, advanced. Then followed only the sickening sound of the cracking of a baton against bone. Crimson spread swiftly through the white khadi cloth, soaking into the parched, fractured earth below…a silent witness to the unspoken brutality.
Before I could register the horrid scene before me a small figure had emerged from the sizable crowd, a child, no older than ten. “Baba!” she screamed, her voice striking through the stunned silence. She wrapped her thin arms around her fathers battered body, as if her tiny body could shield him from the next blow. The officer hovered
VCE · Creative Response
Creative Response: Title: “Where is home?” Stimulus 1…
VCE Creative Response essay scoring 95%: The first sound I heard in the kitchen brought me joy — the hiss of onions surrendering to olive oil, sharp and…
The first sound I heard in the kitchen brought me joy — the hiss of onions surrendering to olive oil, sharp and sweet. It was almost worth skipping school for. While the chatter of classrooms promised knowledge, it was here, in this sanctuary of scent and sound, that I began to understand where home truly was. Not a building, not a town, but a space where the body and spirit finally meet — rooted in the earth, yet reaching for something beyond it.
My mother never measured, never checked a recipe. Her hands moved with quiet certainty — a pinch of salt, snapped by the wrist; the plash of stock meeting heat. She cooked with memory, not method. Honey poured from the jar like sunlight over the bench, and I remember thinking that the world could be rebuilt from gestures like these. Our cookbook was filled with blank pages, not from neglect, but from trust — an invitation to write our own stories in flavour. I didn’t know it then, but I was learning more than how to cook; I was learning how to belong.
VCE · Creative Response
Creative Response: the stimulus the a picture of the…
VCE Creative Response essay scoring 77.5%: Dual responsibilities Everyone in the world has their own responsibilities, but many are very much different…
Dual responsibilities
Everyone in the world has their own responsibilities, but many are very much different to others, which is the way it should be. I am Australian, I hold many responsibilities; I must obey the law, vote in federal, state or territory elections, defend Australia should the need arise and serve on jury duty if called on. I am Singaporean, I also must obey the law, vote, pay taxes, but it is mandatory I also serve 2 years of national service. Australia and Singapore share many similar responsibilities, like many countries, apart from the fact that I must serve for the Singaporean Armed Forces. It’s a new experience I must go through, but it is one that will change my life forever.
The thought of national service is frightening, going away for 2 years getting pushed to my limits physically, mentally and out of my comfort zone, but as I grew older, I’ve realized that it is an experience that I cannot miss out on. Whenever I go back to Singapore to visit my family, I see many young adults suited up in their green army jackets, green work boots, caps, and nametags with badges all around them, roaming around malls and the streets. Whenever I see them, I picture myself in those young men representing and serving for their country. While living in a new country at first is always different and scary, but the fact that I will be training there as well makes it more of a diverse experience. Not only will I have serve, but I must make the commitment to which country I call home.
National Service – Worlds view
More than 60 countries enforce mandatory military service to young citizens as it helps to reflect its importance to both an individual level and national level. Each country will have its own many reasons to why they have national service, but in reality they all aim to teach young people discipline, responsibility and build resilience. Countries differ between enlistments dates, some ranging from 9 months to 12, others to 24 months and even 32 months. While Singapore is a small country where direct threats are less immediate, they value service to be a pillar of Singaporean culture, instilling discipline, mental resilience and a sense of national pride. Other countries require individual
VCE · Creative Response
Creative Response: protest- there is no such thing as…
VCE Creative Response essay scoring 90%: The room buzzed with the quiet flicker of the overhead lights — the kind that always seemed too bright, too…
The room buzzed with the quiet flicker of the overhead lights — the kind that always seemed too bright, too clinical. Chairs lined the walls in neat rows, and an emptiness lingered in the air. The clock on the wall ticked with deliberate slowness, as if mocking the tension that hung over the room. Five women sat scattered throughout, each carrying a story heavier than their silence.
At the front desk, the receptionist typed softly, her expression steady. She had worked here for five years, long enough to recognize the look on each woman’s face — fear, relief, guilt, or simply exhaustion. Her smile was gentle, but practiced. She had learned to stay calm when protesters shouted outside.Sometimes she wondered whether her silence was compassion or cowardice. Every day she told herself she was just doing her job, but deep down, she knew there was no such thing as neutrality here.
Outside, faint voices echoed through the door — a small group of protesters stood across the street, their signs swaying in the wind. “Choose life,” one read, painted in red. Another woman knelt in prayer, whispering words no one inside could hear. Maya had seen them when she arrived. She couldn’t bear to look again. She didn’t want to see the faces of people who thought they already knew her story.
Maya sat closest to the door, her clammy hands folded tightly in her lap and her heart nearly pounding out of her chest. She was only nineteen, barely out of high school, and hadn’t yet experienced what life truly had to offer. She had dreams bigger than her small town could hold, but those dreams didn’t include the two pink lines that appeared three weeks ago. She blinked hard, pretending not to notice the way her legs bounced with nervous energy.
Maya worked part-time as a waitress, saving every spare dollar to move out of her house. She hadn’t told her mother — not that it would have mattered. Her mother had barely looked at her since she was thirteen, since the night she came home with bruises on her arms and was told, “Well, what did you expect?” The house was never a home, just a place filled with slammed doors and unanswered questions. Maya had spent most of her life surviving, taking extra shifts at the diner just to stay out late. Now, sitting here, waiting for her name to be called, she knew this was the first real choice she had ever made for herself — and she wasn’t going to let anyone take it from her.
Next to Maya sat Diane, her hands cradling her stomach out of habit. She was forty-two, with two kids already in middle school and a mortgage that seemed to grow heavier every month. She had told no one — not her husband, not her sister. The idea of starting over felt impossible. She exhaled softly, staring down at
VCE · Creative Response
Creative Response: A better tomorrow
VCE Creative Response essay scoring 87.5%: 27/10/2005 It’s our first year anniversary! I cannot believe Greyson and I have been married for a year…
27/10/2005
It’s our first year anniversary! I cannot believe Greyson and I have been married for a year already!! Time flies so fast, almost too fast. We went on a trip to Paris, the city of love. Maybe even new beginnings, this is where Greyson told me that he wants to have kids… something I didn’t even want to think about for the next three years. I told him to give me some time, I love him, I really do and I would do anything for him. He means so much to me and he made motherhood sound like a dream. I guess for Greyson and of course for myself I said yes, I said yes to something I didn't want till I turned twenty-eight and here I am writing this two months pregnant at the age of twenty four. I can't help but think maybe I didn’t want this, maybe not now. Travelling with Greyson was so incredible and now I don’t even know when my next car ride will be. My sister is concerned, she thinks that this is abuse, but i know Greyson, and he wouldn’t hurt me, he knows what's best for the both of us. I just hope I stop feeling this way soon, I guess a part of me is excited for a little me or Greyson. I don’t really mind the gender but Greyson is set on having a little boy first, something about carrying the family name? I don’t understand what’s wrong with a little girl though and he keeps saying if it’s a girl we should just get an abortion acting as if we share the same body. we don’t this is my body and yet i feel like a puppet being controlled by her master. when i get mad at him for saying it he says I can’t take a joke but who says that as a joke.
Okay he will be home soon. The next time I update I will be a mother to a beautiful baby.
27/10/2006
Our second anniversary. It’s strange how time moves fast in some ways and unbearably slow in others. I’m a mother now. We had a boy, just like Greyson wanted. We named him Ethan after his great grandfather, a man I don't even know but the name makes Greyson happy. He’s the most beautiful
VCE · Creative Response
Creative Response: Title - The Truth Stimulus - Freedom…
VCE Creative Response essay scoring 90%: The Truth "The winner of the 107th Academy Awards for actor in leading role is..." My palms filled with water,…
The Truth
"The winner of the 107th Academy Awards for actor in leading role is..."
My palms filled with water, as I rose above those screaming waves. I couldn't see the difference between my thoughts and my truth.
Was my mind playing tricks on me?
As I walked through the onslaught of flailing hands, I recalled those final words from my manager.
"You must say this, in this order, do as the card says and nothing else."
Was that the truth? Maybe for others, but it wasn't mine.
My feet followed the lights. As if I was walking alone, like I had so frequently before. I was alone, but freedom lies in being bold. If it wasn't me, who?
I stood on the alter. The waves of adrenaline washed over me as I looked out across the enchanting hallowed hall. I noticed a young actor in the seats below. Full of youth. I thought of myself at that age.
He would have no idea. No idea of the truth. The truth behind our world. Not its creation, nor its development, but its civil battles. The internal battles of speaking up, or being passengers. The battle of courage. The battle of courage.
I refocused my vision. The words continued to stumble through the gaps in my lips. I smelt that draining, worthless smell of wealth. That smell of superficial. That smell of obnoxiousness, if that's even a word. That smell of passivity. It always made me curious how they got to where they are. They didn't fight. They stayed silent. They didn't need courage in their hundreds of millions dollar houses.
I needed to fight.
I needed to speak up.
I needed to have courage.
I was a minority.
VCE · Creative Response
Creative Response: Personal journeys framework titled…
VCE Creative Response essay scoring 87.5%: The Same But Different καφές (coffee): A girl sits in her room, staring at her blank wall with fresh white…
The Same But Different
καφές (coffee):
A girl sits in her room, staring at her blank wall with fresh white paint masking the light pink from her past.
She reflects on her childhood, and how she had always known she was unique. Whilst her cousins and older siblings chose the noise and bustle of the outdoors, she would always return to her favourite spot on the harsh, worn rug besides the heater. To her right was a dark wooden cabinet carrying toys and books, everything she held. To her left, a coffee table adorned with a white lace table cloth, always set ready for guests.
"Who wants a coffee?" The girl's mother, who said she saw herself in the girl, yet unlike her, never had a problem gaining the attention of a room. The girl was quiet and didn't like to bring people's eyes to her. She was different to her mother.
"I teach you to make". Her Yiayia, in broken English, gestured to the girl, removing her from the warmth of the heater and sitting her on top of the cold stone countertop, too tall for her to reach ground. She watched as her Yiayia precisely measured out three tablespoons of the rich coffee, scent looming in the air, and they counted together:
"ένα δύο τρία..."
Though she didn't share her wisdom, the girl beamed with pride as she felt herself placed in the caretaking role of her Yiayia. As she watched everyone sipping their coffees, and hoped she could sense a newfound closeness to the women in her family.
γυναίκες (women):
The girl, now tall enough to peer over the countertop, continued to return to her position by the heater.
She listened as her aunt and mother laughed, reminiscing on their youth. They recalled her aunt's trip to Europe, only intended to be 6 weeks, which extended into 6 long years and saw her returning with a husband and a child. To the girl's left was an empty seat where her own sister would usually be sitting had she not been in Europe herself. The girl was different to her sister. Her life hadn't begun yet, and she was not sure if it ever would.
Though she knew she was unique, she saw herself in her mother who described being silenced by the noise of her older sister's life during her childhood. She knew her mother was a high achiever in school, and similarly valued education. She overheard her mother expressing that she spent a lot of time alone when she was younger, causing the girl to think about her own quiet pastimes, and how she only ever kept a few friends close.
VCE · Creative Response
Creative Response: If you fell down yesterday, stand up…
VCE Creative Response essay scoring 87.5%: [Mary steps out onto the stage. The lights soften to a muted glow as she approaches the microphone. A long…
[Mary steps out onto the stage. The lights soften to a muted glow as she approaches the microphone. A long exhale escapes her lips; the crowd falls silent. Her voice trembles at first — fragile, yet fierce.]
MARY: To those denied the right to speak — silenced by the walls of prejudice and buried beneath the crushing weight of injustice — I hear you. I feel you. I feel the times we’ve gone unheard. The moments when the world looks at us but never sees us. When the weight of systemic oppression chips away at our spirit until we are told we are nothing.
It began in 1619 — the year we were stolen, chained, and sold like objects. The year slavery began.
But it was never just about labour; it was about breaking us, stripping away our voices so we could no longer stand tall.
We must resist this oppression.
We are all human- beings
All flesh and bone.
Yet, too often, we are treated as less — as wild things to be tamed.
Every time I step outside, I feel it: the tightness in my chest, the eyes that follow, the words that sting. The ride home isn’t a journey — it’s a reminder. “Go back to the field, negro.” “You’re just a black coon.” Their voices cling to me like cobwebs, but I refuse to be caught in
VCE · Creative Response
Creative Response: Title to be used: Resist and Persist…
VCE Creative Response essay scoring 85%: Resist and Persist, when others don’t. Ria Antony 7th October Protest has always been humanity’s biggest answer…
Resist and Persist, when others don’t.
Ria Antony
7th October
Protest has always been humanity’s biggest answer to silence. It spreads like wildfire, from the protests surrounding the humanitarian crisis in Gaza to MLK’s speech about what he dreamed of.
It has always been spreading like wildfire.
And we know complacency and silence are why protest exists. So why are we seeing more silence? Why are we seeing more complacency from others?
Growing up in a multi-facted environment, both offline and in person, I have been exposed to the cultural differences in politics. Both generation-wise and culturally. From sitting with my family as we watched another riot break out in our hometown in India, only protected by the bliss of being a child.
To now being protected behind a screen as another Palestinian mother begs for people to save her and her child, as others quickly scroll past.
Crazy, isn’t it?
By being exposed to this vast political atmosphere, and hearing others of my age say:
“I’m not really into politics.”
VCE · Creative Response
Creative Response: Time to play!
VCE Creative Response essay scoring 87.5%: Time to Play Parents, listen up! Are your little ones struggling to find time to play? Are their creative…
Time to Play
Parents, listen up! Are your little ones struggling to find time to play? Are their creative minds being constricted in what they can do in school? Do you wish there was a place where they were free to do whatever they want to do? Well you’re in luck! Here at ‘Little Bodies Big Minds’ we are aiming to provide kindergarten-primary school children a safe space in which they can think whatever they like to think and play whatever they like to play! Come on parents, it’s time to play!
We are strong believers in supporting creativity here at Little Bodies Big Minds. Your mind is a rocket ship, let your ideas soar! Think outside of the box! It is so important to support creative thinking while your children are still young. It is fundamental to their development and their skills to encourage them to think and play freely. We know that at school, it’s hard for kids to do whatever they want to do, which is just as important for them to learn rules and understand boundaries, but we believe there should be a balance. Children have such unique minds and abilities, why not celebrate them? If you still aren’t convinced, here’s how we work.
VCE · Creative Response
Creative Response: Title: Tales from the country…
VCE Creative Response essay scoring 87.5%: (reflective short story) I grew up believing the wind on the ridge belonged to no one. It ran wild through…
(reflective short story)
I grew up believing the wind on the ridge belonged to no one. It ran wild through the peppercorn trees and over Grandpa's tin roof, carrying the smell of dust and eucalyptus down to the creek. Back then, I thought the country was simply generous – always giving, never asking. It fed us, shaded us, and filled our stories with colour. That was the first of many tales from the country: how easy it is to love a place you never have to tend.
At dawn, Grandpa would take me out to the paddock. The dew caught on his boots as he knelt to scoop a handful of soil into my palm. “This is what keeps us,” he’d say. “Be good to it.” I only half listened, too busy watching the sunlight spread across the ridge. When he spoke of care, I heard comfort; when he meant duty, I heard affection. The country was good to us, and I believed that was enough – that gratitude certainly required no reply.
VCE · Creative Response
Creative Response: Protest - Courage
VCE Creative Response essay scoring 92.5%: "Write about protest" you say. "Be roused by and caught up in saying and feeling something about it", because…
"Write about protest" you say. "Be roused by and caught up in saying and feeling something about it", because as a student, not a human being, but a student, I'm required to "explore the perspectives of those that are disenfranchised", and to "find myself intertwined with those who are voiceless"
Don't make me laugh.
When the COVID accusations were thrown around in school and the blame for a pandemic was placed on my face - I wasn't given a space to speak.
When slurs and stereotypes were made jokes by my own teacher who said that my kind of people had small eyes and were bad drivers - I was expected to be silent.
When my voice came to you; raw, broken, and soaked in tears because a boy in my P.E class said that my face looked like a joke and that my family didn't belong here, I was told to "ignore him". That "he didn't know what he was saying". To "not let it get to me"
But sure. Let's "explore perspectives". Let's write about the voiceless like I haven't spent years having to swallow every scream and every cry just so I wouldn't be torn apart for being too difficult, too loud;
Too much of a reminder that I'd only ever be welcomed here if I stayed quiet.
So don't ask me for perspective when you only want a token of inclusivity that folds seamlessly into something you think is a "diverse curriculum".
Don't demand my 'creative writing' when you only want the type of 'creativity' that will give you just enough credit to make it seem like you're on the right side of history.
Don't tell me to "find myself intertwined with those who are voiceless", because I have found myself voiceless in the face of your excuses, your silence, and your neglection of the pain and struggles that myself and every single coloured student has had to endure because you haven't done anything to help us.
You wanted protest?
Then brace yourself for the sound of it.
Because it's not a piece of writing that's formulated using a planning template and an editing checklist
It’s not fiction that's spoken through creative metaphors or a well-structured reflective essay
It's not an assessment that can be warped and washed so it fits your criteria, and it's not something that's graded and ranked and "goes towards your study score"
It's confrontation - because you've been running a system that thinks its politically engaged enough to have your students write about social injustice when you don't even do anything about the injustices occuring in your own schools
It's fearlessness - because saying something about it means risking the grade, the praise, the tick in the
VCE · Creative Response
Creative Response: personal journeys - change
VCE Creative Response essay scoring 90%: For me, there’s a certain joy that only belongs to Christmas. It’s the sticky heat of a summer’s day, the hum…
For me, there’s a certain joy that only belongs to Christmas. It’s the sticky heat of a summer’s day, the hum of the fan, and the smell of sunscreen and ham. It’s barefoot backyard cricket, the bark of hunting dogs, prawns sizzling on the barbecue, and colourful paper crowns from bonbons. It was never about lavish food or fancy dress, but about the oak table groaning under homemade pudding and crunchy ice cream, and the sound of thongs tapping beneath the table as laughter filled the air.
Christmas wasn’t always at my house, but it always felt like home — because home was never a place; it was the joy, the laughter, and the people around me. At the time, I thought Christmas was only about fun, but looking back, I realise those moments were shaping something deeper. They were quietly teaching me what truly matters.
My great-grandfather usually sat at the head of the table. Normally quiet, he came alive at Christmas. His eyes would shine as he told the same stories about the mud, the fear, and the friends he lost after enlisting in 1942. His voice cracked as he spoke, the weight of memory still pressing on him, yet in his pain, he taught us resilience — not just through his words, but through the warmth that still lived in his eyes despite everything he’d seen. Watching the way grief and gentleness coexisted in him redefined my understanding of strength: it wasn’t the absence of suffering, but the courage to keep loving through it. From him, I learned that true strength lies not only in surviving hardship but in choosing to hold on to love.
VCE · Creative Response
Creative Response: personal journeys - change
VCE Creative Response essay scoring 80%: For me, there’s a certain joy that only belongs to Christmas. It’s the sticky heat of a summer’s day, the hum…
For me, there’s a certain joy that only belongs to Christmas. It’s the sticky heat of a summer’s day, the hum of the fan, and the smell of sunscreen and ham. It’s barefoot backyard cricket, the bark of hunting dogs, prawns sizzling on the barbecue, and colourful paper crowns from bonbons. It was never about lavish food or fancy dress, but about the oak table groaning under homemade pudding and crunchy ice cream, and the sound of thongs tapping beneath the table as laughter filled the air.
Christmas wasn’t always at my house, but it always felt like home, because home was never a place, it was the joy, the laughter, and the people around me. At the time, I thought Christmas was only about fun, but looking back, I realise those moments were shaping me. They were teaching me what really matters.
My great-grandfather usually sat at the head of the table. Normally quiet, he came alive at Christmas. His eyes would shine as he told the same stories about the mud, the fear, and the friends he lost after enlisting in 1942. His voice cracked as he spoke, the weight of memory still pressing on him, but in his pain he taught us resilience not just through his words, but through the warmth that still lived in his eyes despite everything he’d seen. From him, I learned that true strength lies not just in surviving hardship, but in choosing to hold on to love.
Around the flicker of red Christmas candles and the cheerful clink of glasses, my Uncle Pidge also taught me a lot. A farmer with strong hands and a husky voice, he spoke quietly one Christmas about the hard years on the farm,
VCE · Creative Response
Creative Response: Title: “Resist and Persist” Stimulus:…
VCE Creative Response essay scoring 90%: The raccoon perched on the rim of a dumpster, his masked face illuminated by the flicker of streetlamps. Below,…
The raccoon perched on the rim of a dumpster, his masked face illuminated by the flicker of streetlamps. Below, a crowd of humans surged forward, chanting, waving placards, their fists slicing through the night air. He did not understand their slogans, but he recognised their hunger — the same desperate gnawing that had driven him to scavenge through their waste. Every overturned bin, every paw dipped into scraps, was his protest: an untidy disruption of the order they sought to impose. It was not the same as the humans below, but it was his way. Everyone, he thought, must find their own voice.
Beneath the dark surface of the ocean, a whale moved slowly, each breath scraping against her lungs. She swallowed water laced with fragments of plastic that snagged in her baleen, poisoning her body. Yet she sang. Her song, once smooth and sonorous, was now fractured — a hymn of defiance carried through the saltwater. She could not march or chant, but her body had become a battlefield, her illness a disruption that forced humans to reckon with their negligence. In her song lived grief, but also a plea: a voice rising from the deep.
High above, pigeons circled the cathedral spires, their wings flashing silver against the city’s haze. To the humans below, they were vermin, scatterings of nuisance, interruptions of order. Yet the pigeons
VCE · Creative Response
Creative Response: Resist and Persist - protest essay
VCE Creative Response essay scoring 90%: The air in the courtroom was heavy — a breath held too long. As the judge delivered the sentence — six months,…
The air in the courtroom was heavy — a breath held too long.
As the judge delivered the sentence — six months, suspended — the oxygen seemed to vanish. The man who had left my brother broken and bruised in a hospital bed would walk free today. My father, a police officer who had built his life on faith in the system, sat beside me, jaw locked, eyes fixed forward. For the first time, I saw not authority in his posture, but disbelief.
I couldn’t breathe.
The night replayed itself in my mind — the alleyway, the thud of flesh against concrete, the blood pooling beneath my brother’s body. The man who did it hadn’t even run. He’d just stood there, reeking of alcohol and arrogance, certain the law would cushion him. And he was right.
This wasn’t just about my brother. It was about a system that inhaled corruption and exhaled leniency. A system that choked the powerless while giving breath to the privileged. That suffocating truth clung to me as we stepped outside into a world that had already moved on.
My brother, still learning to walk again, waited at home. He kept asking why. I had no answer — only that sick, stale air of injustice trapped in my lungs.
That night, when the courthouse lights dimmed and the world forgot, I couldn’t.
I found a can of red spray paint — cold metal, trembling fingers. My pulse beat like a drum as I stood before the Magistrates’ Court of Victoria, the marble façade gleaming under fluorescent light — an idol to a justice that had lost its soul. I took a breath — steady, defiant — and wrote across its wall in bold scarlet letters:
JUSTICE FOR THE FORGOTTEN.
VCE · Creative Response
Creative Response: Resist and Persist - protest essay
VCE Creative Response essay scoring 85%: The air in the courtroom was thick, suffocating, as the judge delivered the sentence. Six months. Suspended.…
The air in the courtroom was thick, suffocating, as the judge delivered the sentence. Six months. Suspended. The man who had left my brother broken and bruised in a hospital bed would walk free today. My father, a police officer who had spent his career believing in the system, sat rigid beside me, his jaw clenched so tight I thought it might crack.
I thought about that night—the alleyway, the sickening thud of my brother’s body hitting the pavement, the blood pooling beneath him as I screamed for help. The attacker hadn’t even run. He stood there, drunk and smug, knowing the system would protect him. And he was right.
This wasn’t just about my brother. It was about a system that favored the powerful while crushing the vulnerable. The leniency, the easy sentencing—it wasn’t an accident. It was a pattern. And that pattern had crushed my family.
Outside, the world moved on, unaware that justice had slipped through our fingers. My brother, still unable to walk on his own, was at home, wondering how his attacker faced no real consequences. I felt the sting of the injustice burning inside me, my frustration turning into something bigger.
That night, when the courthouse had emptied and the world had forgotten, I couldn’t. I grabbed a can of spray paint, my fingers tightening around the cold metal, and walked straight to the Magistrates’ Court of Victoria. My pulse pounded in my ears as I stood before the building, a symbol of a broken system. My hands trembled, but my resolve was steady. In bold red letters, I scrawled across the walls: "Justice for the Forgotten."
It was reckless. Illegal. But it was the only way I could make them see.
The act made headlines. The message resonated. People who had been silent for too long started speaking
VCE · Creative Response
Creative Response: Title: Resist and Persist Prompt: 'if…
VCE Creative Response essay scoring 80%: Vangel clasps the microphone as the dim spotlight shines on him. He feels restless but is determined to speak…
Vangel clasps the microphone as the dim spotlight shines on him. He feels restless but is determined to speak his truth.
Vangel: I stand before you, but do you even see me? I'm a son of a land that is no longer mine to claim. A voice that screams through generations.
I have been silenced my whole life not being able to express who I really am. An Aegean Macedonian! Shunned for even speaking my native tongue in the village I was born in. All of this happened because of the war. At the tender age of five years old I was forced to leave the village I loved with the faint memory of sleeping to the sounds of the river flowing peacefully replaced with the worrying words of my mother ushering me to gather what little belongings I had to leave.
And those who decided to stay?
They were threatened with imprisonment or even death. Just because they had the courage to resist the Greek soldiers commands to change their names nationality culture the whole identity itself!
Making me wonder how could they just do that to us?
We were human just like them, just flesh and bones.
The sadness Vangel’s
VCE · Creative Response
Creative Response: Title: Overwhelmed and Spellbound.…
VCE Creative Response essay scoring 85%: If you were to condense the Earth's entire lifespan into 24 hours, human existence would only have been present…
If you were to condense the Earth's entire lifespan into 24 hours, human existence would only have been present for 3 seconds
1 ... 2 ... 3
I - Beginnings.
Billions of years, floating in space; content, satisfied. Life giver. The blood that runs through the veins of anything that has lived, or will ever live. 'Mother', we call her.
She supercedes any form of life and yet provides for millions. Her beautiful beaches, wonderful waterfalls, magnificent mountains, ethereal ecosystems. The Home of all, a sanctuary of sanctity. She presents the delicate balance of experience, the only permanent in an ephemeral world.
The footsteps of the past blow away in the wind as the steps of the future arrive.
But there has been a change.
Homosapiens they call themselves - wise men. Perhaps a tad presumptuous but nevertheless she will provide. There is no denying their intelligence, superior to any species that predates them. But what is most curious is their lack of instinct, they seem to be neither predator nor prey. They possess no natural impulses, whether this is for better or worse cannot be said.
They live off the land, respecting it within their 'traditions', worshipping her during their rituals. They ensure to preserve her, care for her, but there is something unsettling about these "humans".
Ambition which seems to know no bound, intelligence limited only by their imagination, they have the potential to be the greatest or worst species in the history of this world.
II - Revolution
These creatures are brilliant, innovation personified, their technology immitates what could have been considered sorcery mere generations ago. They have created civilisations out of nothing, breaking the boundaries of possibilities year after year.
However, they lack control.
VCE · Creative Response
Creative Response: title: transformation stimulus: with…
VCE Creative Response essay scoring 87.5%: The earth beneath my feet is not just soil; it is layered with memory. Every step I take presses into a land…
The earth beneath my feet is not just soil; it is layered with memory. Every step I take presses into a land whose story stretches far beyond me, carrying the weight of lives, cultures and histories that endured for tens of thousands of years before colonisation. I know this land does not know me in the way it knew its First Peoples, yet it still bears witness to what was taken and what survived.
Walking through the bush, I feel time folding in on itself, the past and present entwined. Echoes of ceremony and community rise and fall with the wind through the gum trees. But those echoes are fractured. Colonisation cut through this land with fences and roads, glass towers stabbing into the earth, and rivers drained of their song. The transformation of the landscape was more than physical — it was an assault on culture, an attempt to silence voices and break connections between people and Country.
The wound of dispossession is more than the loss of place; it is the severing of memory and continuity. To
VCE · Creative Response
Creative Response: Title: Silence “To free the voice is…
VCE Creative Response essay scoring 80%: In these shoes, we took our first steps, In these shoes, we inspire, we teach, and we advocate for the future…
In these shoes, we took our first steps,
In these shoes, we inspire, we teach, and we advocate for the future of Australia.
In these shoes we march,
And now, here I stand, fighting for our voice to be heard.
We started that morning on the steps of Parliament House, with its elongated pilasters standing still and proud. A well-known building, known to hold power and authority, one that could be used to voice concerns about the treatment of our mentors too often fails to address the flaws within our education system.
The city had followed its trademark for miserable weather, which was somewhat appropriate for the occasion. The overcast of dark stormy clouds hung low in the skies above, strong winds enclosing us together as we stood there with pride and marked our territory, ready to pursue change.
I felt free, letting my anger go, letting all this pain out that I’ve kept so deep within.
Signs and banners rippled through the tense atmosphere, arms raised proudly with writing that read “overworked, underpaid, over it!” the red pigmented writing highlighting the blood shed that teachers face. “Save our schools” “I made this sign with the resources THAT I PAID FOR!” I speak for thousands of teachers who cannot be safe until protests like these are no longer needed.
We came to echo the truth; I came to echo the truth.
Chants reverberated through the swarm of people. “The future is doomed!” we shouted in unison. (Our voices raised as one)
Til the last chant, the last scream and my last breath, I stand. I stand here and protest for the future.
As the chants fade and crowds disappear, I find myself standing, thinking of my teacher who stayed back those countless hours, when no one else did, hours that I cannot forget. Hours filled with laughter and guidance in who I could become. Her smile on constant replay in my mind as I also educate others.
The value that she brought to young minds was far more than just education,