VCE · Creative Response
Creative Response: Oppression Editorial
VCE Creative Response essay scoring 80%: For over a hundred years, dawn at the Shrine of Remembrance has been a place of heavy, sacred silence. It is a…
For over a hundred years, dawn at the Shrine of Remembrance has been a place of heavy, sacred silence. It is a moment where the nation stops to breathe and remember. But on April 25, 2026, that silence didn't just break, it shattered. As religious and political leaders stepped forward during the Welcome to Country, they weren’t met with the usual polite nods of the quiet, reverent Australian. Instead, they were met with a sound that has become the new anthem of this generation: a loud, unfiltered boo. To the media, it was a 'disgrace.' To the politicians, it was 'disrespectful.' But to a generation watching Indigenous freedom be treated as an afterthought for more than two centuries, it was a confirmation. It was the sound of a country waking up to the reality that when you leave historical wounds untreated, they don't heal; they fester and become infected with the kind of oppression we saw at the Shrine.
The government is quick to condemn the rebels in black shirts, yet they remain silently involved in the system that encourages them. How can we be surprised that hate groups feel comfortable at the Shrine when we still allow controversial leaders to stand boldly in our parliament? We are a nation that protects the oppressor while leaving the living victims of that oppression to drown in a 'welfare system' they have no control over. The hypocrisy lies in a government that will spend millions of taxpayer dollars on a 'Voice' referendum only to let the majority shut it down, effectively telling every extremist in the country that Indigenous authority is up for debate. Without a doubt, this is the truth no one wants to protest. The 'shadow of oppression' isn't a ghost from the past—it’s a living nightmare that flourishes in our streets while the cameras are on.
VCE · Creative Response
Creative Response: Write a creative piece based on this…
VCE Creative Response essay scoring 100%: All around me, vibrant hues of blue, green, orange, and everything in between coated the festival streets of…
All around me, vibrant hues of blue, green, orange, and everything in between coated the festival streets of Mumbai. There's a reason why every one of my ethnic friends suggests you come to India during Holi. It's because this is a spectacle that honestly, you can't see anywhere else in the world.
It was the good kind of hectic. Not the busy, crammed, tiring hectic I was used to, but the fun, colourful, and energetic kind. Even in Australia, the foreground of my life, with all of its stunning attributes, can anything match this day, with its stunning atmosphere and spirited colours? From what I've seen, no. That's what they don't understand. The kind of people who manage to generalise an entire nation into one bad interaction. Racists, if you will. Somehow, they rear their ugly faces everywhere. Social media, on the phone, and rarely, they get the courage to raise their sunlight-deprived faces to the shoulder of a minority and start telling a passport-wielding citizen to go back to his country. Which, as a matter of fact, he’s standing in right now.
VCE · Creative Response
Creative Response: A Work in Progress
VCE Creative Response essay scoring 90%: The cursor blinked, a tiny, rhythmic pulse in the digital silence of my Year 7 bedroom. It was 2020. The air…
The cursor blinked, a tiny, rhythmic pulse in the digital silence of my Year 7 bedroom. It was 2020. The air was stale from months of staying indoors during the lockdown, that familiar, stagnant atmosphere of life lived entirely through a screen. The only sound was the faint, overworked hum of my laptop fan. On one half of the screen was my Roland-Garros presentation, its animations poised and perfect. On the other was my real preparation: a stark white notepad file. It was a list of frantic, typed-out reminders—little anchors to keep me steady during my online French oral presentation. It was my secret armour, a digital talisman against the impending terror of speaking to a grid of silent, judging squares. This list, this script of self-reassurance, was my first real attempt at creating a work in progress. It was a user manual for a boy who felt like he was malfunctioning.
The presentation began. I clicked ‘share screen’ on Teams, launched into my over-rehearsed commentary on clay courts, and even committed to the silly, nasal French accent I’d practiced. I was getting through it. And then, a flicker of panic, a clumsy jab at the mouse to close an errant notification. Click. The wrong window. Not the glorious orange of Roland-Garros. The stark white of the list. My list. A wall of black text filled the screen, broadcasting my deepest anxieties to the entire French class: the world (probably) isn't going to end if you fail. one breath at a time. they're not paying attention. A heavy, suffocating silence followed. Then a muffled giggle from an unmuted mic. The Teams chat icon lit up with a furious ping, a single crying-laughing emoji appearing next to a classmate’s name. My face burned with a heat the laptop fan stood no chance of cooling. Shit.
VCE · Creative Response
Creative Response: Cost of living and how it affects…
VCE Creative Response essay scoring 95%: Check yourself before you wreck yourself. You've got one minute to explain yourself! Silence is violence.…
Check yourself before you wreck yourself. You've got one minute to explain yourself!
Silence is violence. Complacency is complicity. - Meyne Wyatt: City of Gold
The cost of living is like a poison, slowly taking over your life and everyone else you know. It is affecting our capacity to be fulfilled and enjoy, and the cost to live—especially with rising tensions in the Middle East is reaching a breaking point. Because oil is such a vital ingredient in our lives, any change in the industry affects everyone. Even if you might have an electric vehicle, supermarket and tanker ships run on oil; diesel to be exact. So when the price of oil goes up, so does everything else, whether we like it or not. Meyne Wyatt once stood on a stage and told us. Silence is violence, complacency is complicity.' So, I'll only take up one minute to talk on the cost of living, how it has been impacting your life, and why the Australian government has to step in to mitigate this dilemma.
(timer starts now)
VCE · Text Response
Text Response: how does chiang make emotioanlly resonant…
VCE Text Response essay scoring 87.5%: Chiang transforms ordinary moments into emotionally resonant experiences, demonstrating how loss and love are…
Chiang transforms ordinary moments into emotionally resonant experiences, demonstrating how loss and love are both inevitable and inescapable, yet argues that embracing these constraints intensifies, rather than diminishes human experience.
VCE · Creative Response
Creative Response: Protest- Join the Revolution
VCE Creative Response essay scoring 87.5%: We gather here today in sorrow, in grief, in reflection, mourning the long life of our Mother, who did not…
We gather here today in sorrow, in grief, in reflection, mourning the long life of our Mother, who did not pass away.
Who was killed. Slowly. By us. As we watched.
She was a mother who was life-giving, nurturing and enduring our grievances as she sustained our lifeblood. A mother that grew vocal cords that allowed us to speak through our silent mouths, a mother that condensed clouds of wisdom into our naive minds and taught us her language of protest - fire.
Our one and only Mother, Earth.
She was older than the concept of mothers, older than the word for love. Her skin of dark crumbly soil, that nested every seed we planted. Her arms were forest canopies, sheltering everything that moved or grew in the green cathedral beneath them. Her veins were rivers, running slowly and melodically towards the sea, flowing and overfilling reservoirs the way tears fill tear ducts.
When she shaped us from mud and clay, she took her time, moulded us with deep care and compassion. She did not ask to be thanked. Her palms stayed open. Wide as prairies, unclenched as a woman who has never needed to hold on because she was never afraid of losing, because she always had more to provide than we had the capacity to take.
Until we proved her wrong.
When we burned her forests, she grew them back. When we choked her skies, she sent rain to cleanse them. Even as we cut deeper, drilling the marrow from her bones, she never turned her back to us. She endured it. She was patient and resilient, never leaving any of her children behind, even if we intentionally harmed her. She was what a mother represented: Care, Comfort and Compassion.
However, unreciprocated love does not last forever.
Our Mother was dying. Slowly. Painfully.
Earth required us to unite for change.
She nudged us subtly at first. Her hair, once thick with snow, receded from the peaks of white topped mountains in thin frail streaks, desperately clinging to her scalp. Her flamboyant necklace of coral reefs, now bleached bone white. Her heartbeat, the drumming of migrating hooves across a steppe, slowly fading away as they are mercilessly poached by us humans.
But nudges don’t draw out a response.
We called her nudges natural variation. We called her warnings alarmism. We called her fevers a cycle.
So she stopped being subtle.
She sent storms that grew more violent each year, she melted ice and bloated seas.
She created floods that swallowed coastlines, droughts that cracked the earth like broken skin, set fires that turned the sky crimson and filled cities with smoke and haze.
She raised oceans that climbed against the edges of islands and cities and low-lying nations who had done the least to deserve it.
She was not being dramatic. She was protesting. Demanding us to give her attention, demanding us to join her cause.
VCE · Creative Response
Creative Response: AOS2 Framework: 'Writing about Country
VCE Creative Response essay scoring 90%: Between Departures Some words don't translate. Some countries don't either. Gate 14. Three hours until boarding…
Between Departures
Some words don't translate. Some countries don't either.
Gate 14. Three hours until boarding and the seat is already hard against my back. Outside the window the tarmac holds the last of the afternoon — that particular Melbourne gold that comes only in autumn, low and sideways, touching everything once before it leaves.
The man beside me is asleep. Somewhere behind, a child is working through something difficult near the vending machines. I uncap the pen. Open the notebook to the first clean page. Cross out the date at the top and find it easier without it.
The older pages I don't read back. I just find where the writing stops and begin there.
To the country that made me,
I know your mornings better than I know anything. The light coming in flat and without apology. The smell of a school oval in February — dry grass, red dust, the sound of someone's father calling out from behind a cyclone fence. My knees have your dirt in their scars.
I grew up inside you. Learned to read in you, learned to lose in you, learned the particular embarrassment of a packed lunch that didn't look like anyone else's. I sang your anthem with my hand on my chest and meant it. I still mean it, which is why I am writing this now.
But I have stood in rooms where people looked at my face and waited — past the suburb I gave them, past the school, past the football team — waited for something that would finally explain me. And I have come to understand, slowly, that loving a place and being claimed by it are not always the same thing.
Your eucalypts. The eucalypts. I notice I keep correcting myself.
What I want to say is that I have never doubted you. Only ever doubted my right to say you at all.
Somewhere over the Indian Ocean. The screen on the seat-back shows a small white plane over a large blue nothing, equidistant from everywhere it could belong.
VCE · Text Response
Text Response: Explain how a text offers a particular…
VCE Text Response essay scoring 72.5%: From 1977 to 1989, the Red Army hockey club won 13 consecutive Soviet championships. The next most consecutive…
From 1977 to 1989, the Red Army hockey club won 13 consecutive Soviet championships. The next most consecutive championships in hockey history is 5. This statistic alone displays the extraordinary dominance of the team and the effectiveness of the Soviet system that supported it. Gabe Polsky’s documentary Red Army, released in 2014, tells the story of the champion Soviet hockey team during the Cold War, primarily through the perspective of its captain, Slava Fetisov. Through his careful sequencing and storytelling, intercutting of archival footage and interviews, and changes in music, Polsky offers a particular perspective that criticises the oppressive communist regime while celebrating the humanity, creativity, and resilience of ordinary Soviet people. He challenges Western stereotypes of Russians and invites the audience to see the complexity of life under Soviet rule.
Polsky uses structure and sequencing in a scene to offer a perspective that highlights the creativity and happiness encouraged in Soviet hockey under coach Anatoly Tarasov. The scene opens with archival footage showing Tarasov teaching his players using ideas from ballet and chess, emphasizing the focus on artistry and imagination in replacement of aggression. Close-up shots capture the players smiling and moving with freedom and expression while training. Slava reflects warmly on this period, describing how Tarasov made them love the game. Through this positive sequencing and the combination of joyful archival footage with light, artistic music, Polsky offers the perspective that the Soviet system could foster creativity and genuine passion in sport, contrasting with the rigid, robotic image the Western audience held of Russians during the Cold War.
VCE · Text Response
Text Response: Explain how the purpose of a text is…
VCE Text Response essay scoring 72.5%: Under the Soviet System, the Red Army hockey club won 13 consecutive Soviet championships from the years 1977 to…
Under the Soviet System, the Red Army hockey club won 13 consecutive Soviet championships from the years 1977 to 1989. The next most consecutive hockey championships is 5. This lone statistic expresses the dominance and superiority of the Soviet approach to life and sport, which is exactly what Gabe Polsky’s purpose is in his documentary from 2014, Red Army. He tells the story of arguably the greatest team in hockey history, mainly through the perspective of its captain, Viacheslav (Slava) Fetisov. Polsky attempts to persuade his Western audience that socialism, teamwork, and unity is an essential part of life, however vastly different and superior to the ideology of communism, this is done through the use of a variety of textual features, including language features such as archival footage and interviews, visual and audio modes such as body language, music, and dialogue, and his overt use of a few key styles. He encourages his Western audience to understand and appreciate the socialist system and approach to sport, but criticize the overt controlling ways of communist system.
VCE · Text Response
Text Response: Analyse the way language features and/or…
VCE Text Response essay scoring 70%: From 1977 to 1989, the Red Army hockey club won 13 consecutive Soviet championships. The next most consecutive…
From 1977 to 1989, the Red Army hockey club won 13 consecutive Soviet championships. The next most consecutive championships in hockey history is 5. This statistic alone shows how dominant the team was, and respectively, how successful the socialist ideology was. Gabe Polsky’s documentary Red Army, released in 2014, tells the story of the champion Soviet hockey team during the cold war, primarily through the perspective of its captain, Slava Fetisov. Polsky encourages his American audience to respond through his incredible sequencing and storytelling, his intercutting of archival footage and interviews, and how he changes music throughout scenes. He criticizes the communist approach, whilst appreciating socialism in life and sport, along with using context and structure to represent the Soviets as underdogs, and his order of scenes to make the audience question their ideas about Russians during the Cold war.
Polsky uses structure in a scene to challenge his American audience's assumptions about ordinary Russians during the cold war. Whilst it does support the idea that the Soviet government was oppressive and controlling, it ultimately focuses on the players contentment and satisfaction within this system, as illustrated through the sequencing of archival footage and interviews. The scene begins with archival footage of the players flying to the west for the first time. The footage is dark and grainy, and the music is slow and sombre. Close ups of KGB agents watching the players helps to reinforce the idea that the players and citizens are being controlled by the government, which was the common depiction of Russians at the time. This is followed by footage and images which emphasise the West’s affluence in contrast to that of the Soviet Union. A montage of TV advertisements is shown, which include actors singing and dancing carrying and displaying an abundance of goods, specifically groceries. Slava’s dialogue is also important, as he recalls, “We got fish only one day a week, it was Fish Thursday.”, and KGB agent Felix Nechepore says “They (the players), were so surprised by the differences.” From the use of these language features, the American audience would assume the documentary is suggesting the superiority of Western life, but this is heavily contradicted by the sequence's end. Polsky concludes the scene with an interview with Slava, where he says “I was never even thinking about defect… I was happy.”, this structural sequencing emphasises the contentment of Soviets, and that they were satisfied and happy with what they had, even in the face of supposed control. It encourages American viewers to see Russians as human beings, whereas, at the time, Western media portrayed them as robotic, lab-grown, nationalistic slaves for their country.
VCE · Creative Response
Creative Response: It is on the title "This is me" and…
VCE Creative Response essay scoring 85%: We are, by nature, fascinated by the possibility of uncovering a pre-existing self that reflects our perceived…
We are, by nature, fascinated by the possibility of uncovering a pre-existing self that reflects our perceived authentic selves and, in turn, inspires others. There is rampant admiration in society for those who pursue an innate interest and then polish it and distil it until it becomes highly noteworthy. Additionally, those who succeed in pursuing their innate interests serve as examples of self-actualisation and authenticity. Whether it be the late Steve Jobs or the current titan that is Elon Musk, we admire their embodiment of the self-actualisation concept: the notion that one can uncover their “true” self and transform it into greatness. Viewing their personal success from rags to riches, it draws us to attempt to copy the same formula. Thus, in our lifelong search for an identity, we often look up to seemingly untouchable role models and wish to simply declare, “This
VCE · Creative Response
Creative Response: Protest - What Is Right
VCE Creative Response essay scoring 67.5%: Protest is a powerful way for society to push for what is right. Protest causes change to the worlds largest…
Protest is a powerful way for society to push for what is right. Protest causes change to the worlds largest societal issues and challenges by creating awareness on these problems through the use of media. Protest is not just to be seen, but to be heard, speaking out against issues is what brings true change to these challenges being faced. Protests are most effective when they push against the people with authority and power who have the ability to abolish and prevent societal problems.
VCE · Creative Response
Creative Response: Personal Journeys
VCE Creative Response essay scoring 85%: Fellow students We are born into a world saturated with ink. From the moment we enter the gates of high school,…
Fellow students
We are born into a world saturated with ink. From the moment we enter the gates of high school, we are handed a map—a detailed blueprint for a "successful" life. This map is drawn by societal architects: our parents, our educators, and our institutions. It is a comforting document, marked with safe harbors like a "high ATAR" and "conventional success." However, there is a fundamental flaw in this cartography. A map is a tool for a destination, but a compass is a tool for a soul. To adhere strictly to the map is to remain a tourist in a life that requires a sovereign explorer. Today, I argue that the only journey of true value is the one that begins precisely where the map ends.
To understand the weight of this map, we must consider the power of institutional authority acting as the definitive author of a student's trajectory. Society utilizes this power to create narrow narratives of achievement that function as restrictive coordinates. This map is a direction used to maintain social order; it promises that if we pursue the "safe" paths—those leading to traditional prestige—we will arrive at a state of completion. This is the Cartography of Conformity. It offers the illusion of immunity from failure. We are told that if we walk where others have walked, we are guaranteed their results. Yet, is this a journey, or merely a tour? A tour is predictable and static, whereas a personal journey is transformative. When we follow a pre-drawn map, we are merely performing a script.
VCE · Creative Response
Creative Response: Write About Country (Framework)
VCE Creative Response essay scoring 90%: The Fire We Carry for Country Outside my window, the sky is split in bright colours of orange, white, and…
The Fire We Carry for Country
Outside my window, the sky is split in bright colours of orange, white, and green, bursting like a wound that won’t close. Somewhere in the distance, people are cheering. Then it hits me: it’s Independence Day.
Inside, my room is quiet. The only sounds are the soft cling of my medals as they swish and tap against each other alongside the thoughts flowing into and out of my head. What to say. How to say it. You would think writing and speaking about yourself is easy. That talking about your country is easy. But that task becomes harder when you forget what your country is.
Where I come from, war carved itself into the bones of our fledgeling countries, but these embellishments faded as the countries grew. Sowing divisions of race and religions in threads of blood, the British had left the Indian subcontinent maimed, a shadow of its former glory. What began as a fight for unity of our country and sovereignty soon descended on the eternal rift between its citizens. Futures were erased and families rewritten to make way for poorly sketched colonial borders that left as bitter an aftertaste as their exploitative reign. The partition process was deliberately detrimental to the Indian people, seemingly blaming them for reclaiming their own country. It split communities, burned villages, and taught people that the best way to move on is by forgetting. And that we did. Too well. Now, 80 years after independence, I see the youth act as pitiful imitations of a culture that once oppressed us, forgetting the grief their forefathers had to swallow because facing it would prove too much.
I tap my pencil upon my paper. Once. Twice. Over and over, until a grey dot marks the spot where my words are meant to begin, but my thoughts simply end. I stare at the blank page, willing something, anything, to appear, but nothing does. My pencil sways as I fiddle with it as the piece of paper seems to look down on me with pity at my helpless state.
Another firework lights up the sky, ferociously bursting into flame louder than before. I instinctively flinch. The boom rolls through my chest like an old memory waking from its long, forced slumber. Something breaks loose within me, a crack tearing the seams of my vault of memories I vowed never to remember.
I release a breath I didn’t realise I was holding. It comes out shaky, as a mixture of grief, wistfulness and rage begins to unravel from within me. And suddenly, I’m 21 again, balancing my duties to love and country by making promises I can’t keep to the one I wish to spend my life with in a country I can call my own.
VCE · Creative Response
Creative Response: Title: life's journey is a collection…
VCE Creative Response essay scoring 90%: The smell of cardamom tea tingled in my nose as warmth from the fireplace spread across my face. "വാ മോളൂ, ഞാൻ…
The smell of cardamom tea tingled in my nose as warmth from the fireplace spread across my face. "വാ മോളൂ, ഞാൻ നിന്റെ മുടിയിൽ എണ്ണ തേച്ചു തരാം" (come here dear, I will oil your hair.) My grandma gestured me to come to her. I sat cross legged on the floor whilst she carefully brushed my hair as if it was silk. Back then, I thought stories were only things people told. I didn’t realise they could also live in rituals, in gestures, in the careful repetition of traditions passed from one generation to the next.
She always told stories like this, gently threading them between strands of hair as though memories could be woven into a person. Stories about temple festivals in Kerala, about jasmine flowers pinned into thick braids, about gold bangles passed from mother to daughter. I could almost hear the distant temple bells she once described, ringing through the heat of Kerala afternoons.
"ഞാൻ നിങ്ങളുടെ പ്രായത്തിലായിരുന്നപ്പോൾ, സ്വർണ്ണം ധരിച്ചപ്പോൾ ഞങ്ങൾ വളർന്നതായി തോന്നി." she said softly. (When I was your age, wearing gold made us feel grown up.).
I almost laughed at that.
VCE · Creative Response
Creative Response: prompt -shawdow and light. stimulus -…
VCE Creative Response essay scoring 77.5%: “When you stop expecting people to be perfect, you can like them for who they are.” I trace the permanent…
“When you stop expecting people to be perfect, you can like them for who they are.”
I trace the permanent black script on my wrist. I got it a week after the diagnosis. We had gone to a parlour in the dead of night. Impromptu. Quiet. She had held my hand as I gasped, visible happiness radiating from her skin. But then, for a fleeting second, her smile vanished. Her eyes went completely vacant, staring straight through the wall. The silence stretched, heavy and cold. Then she blinked, the warmth flooded back, and she touched the fresh ink.
“They’re perfect,” she affirmed.
The quote is from a memoir. The summer before the diagnosis, she had closed that book with trembling hands, tears carving tracks through her makeup.
“That was the best book I’ve ever read, Aari,” she whispered. Her wide, glassy eyes locked onto mine—waiting.
I stared down at the unread pages in my lap, my chest entirely hollow. Predictably, under the heavy weight of her gaze, I swallowed a yawn, forced my facial muscles into a mirror image of her awe, and nodded.
“I loved it too,” I blurted out.
I spent my life scrubbing the mysterious paint splotches off my fingers and suffocating my frizzy hair under harsh chemical straighteners, desperate to shrink myself into her tidy, acceptable world, in our family, girls were praised for being neat before they were praised for being happy; relatives called my curls “wild” with the same tight smile they used for bad news.
A bitter smile tugs at my lips as I stare at the exact words engraved into my flesh. I wonder if bleeding for this ink was purely another performance for her satisfaction. Perhaps it was always easier to brand myself with a quote about authenticity than to risk revealing the messy truth underneath.
A heavy impact vibrates through the floorboards.
Glass shatters. A desperate scream tears through the quiet house.
I dart towards the living room. I am an archivist in a museum that is slowly burning down. My eyes scan the debris. Cut fruit sits on the kitchen table, carved into jagged, irregular shapes.
A shattered mirror glistens beneath the wall, a discoloured crack splitting the glass. In the shards, I see the stiff, beige adult I project to the world—the controlled daughter constructed to meet society's sterile standards. But beneath my ribs, a panicked, vibrant little girl is hammering against my chest, desperate to get out.
VCE · Creative Response
Creative Response: prompt -shawdow and light. stimulus -…
VCE Creative Response essay scoring 75%: “When you stop expecting people to be perfect, you can like them for who they are.” I trace the permanent black…
“When you stop expecting people to be perfect, you can like them for who they are.”
I trace the permanent black script on my wrist. I got it a week after the diagnosis. We had gone to a parlour in the dead of night. Impromptu. Quiet. She had held my hand as I gasped, visible happiness radiating from her skin. But then, for a fleeting second, her smile vanished. Her eyes went completely vacant, staring straight through the wall. The silence stretched, heavy and cold. Then she blinked, the warmth flooded back, and she touched the fresh ink.
“They’re perfect,” she affirmed.
The quote is from a memoir. The summer before the diagnosis, she had closed that book with trembling hands, tears carving tracks through her makeup.
“That was the best book I’ve ever read, Aari,” she whispered. Her wide, glassy eyes locked onto mine—waiting.
I stared down at the unread pages in my lap, my chest entirely hollow. Predictably, under the heavy weight of her gaze, I swallowed a yawn, forced my facial muscles into a mirror image of her awe, and nodded.
“I loved it too,” I blurted out.
I spent my life scrubbing the mysterious paint splotches off my fingers and suffocating my frizzy hair under harsh chemical straighteners, desperate to shrink myself into her tidy, acceptable world.In our family, girls were praised for being neat before they were praised for being happy; relatives called my curls “wild” with the same tight smile they used for bad news.
A bitter smile tugs at my lips as I stare at the exact words engraved into my flesh. I wonder if bleeding for this ink was purely another performance for her satisfaction. Perhaps it was always easier to brand myself with a quote about authenticity than to risk revealing the messy truth underneath.
A heavy impact vibrates through the floorboards.
Glass shatters. A desperate scream tears through the quiet house.
I dart towards the living room. I am an archivist in a museum that is slowly burning down. My eyes scan the debris. Cut fruit sits on the kitchen table, carved into jagged, irregular shapes.
A shattered mirror glistens beneath the wall, a discoloured crack splitting the glass. In the shards, I see the stiff, beige adult I project to the world—the controlled daughter constructed to meet society's sterile standards. But beneath my ribs, a panicked, vibrant little girl is hammering against my chest, desperate to get out.
VCE · Text Response
Text Response: “In We Have Always Lived in the Castle,…
VCE Text Response essay scoring 70%: Isolation is presented throughout We Have Always Lived in the Castle as a paradoxical force that both shields…
Isolation is presented throughout We Have Always Lived in the Castle as a paradoxical force that both shields individuals from a hostile society and simultaneously deepens psychological instability and social decay. Through the isolated lives of the Blackwood family, Shirley Jackson explores how separation from society can create safety, control and identity, yet also imprison individuals within fear, delusion and resentment. Merricat and Constance retreat from the judgement of the village to preserve themselves after tragedy, but their isolation ultimately reinforces their inability to engage with reality and condemns them to emotional stagnation. Jackson therefore suggests that while isolation may temporarily protect vulnerable individuals from cruelty and persecution, it ultimately becomes destructive when it prevents growth, truth and human connection.
For Merricat, isolation initially functions as a vital form of protection against a world she perceives as threatening and cruel. Following the poisoning of the Blackwood family, Merricat and Constance become social outcasts, despised and mocked by the villagers. Their physical separation within the Blackwood estate allows Merricat to maintain a sense of security and control over her environment. Jackson establishes Merricat’s hostility toward society early in the novel through her fantasies of destruction and death directed at the villagers, revealing how deeply alienated she feels from the outside world. In response, Merricat creates protective rituals and magical practices intended to preserve the boundaries between the family home and the village beyond it. These rituals symbolise her desperate attempt to maintain stability in a world she cannot trust. The house itself becomes a sanctuary where the sisters are shielded from public scrutiny and cruelty. Constance, traumatised by her trial and the suspicion surrounding her, also relies on isolation as emotional protection. She refuses to leave the property and retreats into domestic routines that provide comfort and predictability. Through these characters, Jackson demonstrates that isolation can serve as a psychological defence mechanism against trauma, judgement and social hostility.
VCE · Creative Response
Creative Response: This is a section B creating texts,…
VCE Creative Response essay scoring 85%: As we stand on the edge of everything that we have worked towards, it's rather tempting to ask ourselves, "Why…
As we stand on the edge of everything that we have worked towards, it's rather tempting to ask ourselves, "Why does life test us?" For years, we've experienced great challenges along our journey that "test us in many ways", which tend to create misunderstandings, that these tests are hindering our personal journey. However, what if challenges are not simply obstacles in our journey but a type of training? The simple truth of the matter is, 'challenges' sharpen our character through the building of resilience, discovery of our true self and the stripping away of pretence. Thus, we acquire such talents only because of how life tests us in many ways.
VCE · Creative Response
Creative Response: Titled "To Be Heard", write a short…
VCE Creative Response essay scoring 87.5%: A little girl and her close friend made the brave decision to join a martial arts club. They were the only…
A little girl and her close friend made the brave decision to join a martial arts club. They were the only girls in the beginner class, contributing to their restlessness as they both know that they only had each other. It was a fun class though, with their older instructor easily eliciting giggles and revealing their playful personalities. At the end of class, they were both begging their mums to take them again next week.
VCE · Creative Response
Creative Response: The Turning Point. Personal journeys
VCE Creative Response essay scoring 90%: The Turning Point The close of a door has never felt so heavy. I can feel it. The slow lurch in my gut that…
The Turning Point
The close of a door has never felt so heavy. I can feel it. The slow lurch in my gut that tells me the cold metal box I’m in has started to move. I can hear radio static layered over some righteous sounding voices. ‘Unit 7 is en route’. As if I’m a parcel. I rip away my gaze from my whitened knuckles. Deep blue suit. Pants that taper down to some expensive looking loafers. The man who holds my life in his calloused palms.
I didn’t know it was going to end up this way. Three minutes. That was all it took. Three minutes is how long I used to brush my teeth. I could lounge in the sun for three minutes without batting an eye. And someone out there will never have three minutes again. I should feel guilty - but I don’t. I feel cheated. I feel unlucky.
I’ve been staring too long. I catch the type of glance some under-the-table gum would get from the cold eyes beside me, and suddenly I’m back to looking at my hands. Perhaps if I stare hard enough - with enough conviction - they’ll change shape. Morph into something that could take me back to that day. Those three minutes. But the harder I look, the more I remember. The warmth of a hand in mine. How it felt to cradle - to caress. To do anything at all with care. I trace my fingers, back and forth, but the rough hum of the wheels under me give me sick comfort. That there’s no going back.
VCE · Text Response
Text Response: Change is unwelcome in We Have Always…
VCE Text Response essay scoring 85%: In post-war America, the modification of societal norms can be considered as an unaccustomed topic. In her gothic…
In post-war America, the modification of societal norms can be considered as an unaccustomed topic. In her gothic novella “We Have Always Lived in the Castle”, author Shirley Jackson uses a static Blackwood estate as an eerily inert fortress that shields against a traumatic past. Through the construct of context-rich characters, Jackson demonstrates that change can be both rejected by society whilst being utilised by those who suffered from uniformity to her 1960s audience, as well as her contemporary readership. Initially, the novel showcases how alteration can be a violent intrusion whilst stasis can be a survival strategy for the sisters. Furthermore, Jackson demonstrates through the villagers with a mob-like mentality, how a change in social order can lead to blind bitterness. Ultimately, however, change can be welcome if it is one that completes the sister’s goal of complete isolation and withdrawal from a society that dislikes them so much.
Jackson demonstrates how a “restoration” of order can also be seen as an abrupt invasion to peace. After the death of the Blackwood family initiated by Merricat, in which we hear the novel from her distorted point of view, Jackson introduces the boorish character Charles Blackwood, which she allegorises as the typical patriarchal figure in a 1960s household. Jackson portrays him as an ‘invader’ to the now-matriarchal household of the Blackwoods, that brings back stereotypical patriarchal values to a household void of them for so long. Jackson subverts the antagonist Charles as the ‘normal’ of American society in a clear contrast to the ‘abnormal’ Merricat, which can be seen as Merricat mockingly asks him why “[he] mean[s to] send [her] to bed without dinner”, demonstrating his traditional methods of discipline which are seen as ‘acceptable’ to the society of Jackson’s time. Jackson therefore demonstrates the change in the Blackwood estate as a juxtaposition to early 1960s society which inhibited societal change in general. While her 1962 readership may view Charles’ actions as moral, her modern readership may view the ‘colonisation’ of Charles’ ideas as immoral.
VCE · Text Response
Text Response: Explain Vladek's voice in the Complete…
VCE Text Response essay scoring 65%: MAUS is a combination of an autobiographical and biographical graphic novel by Art Spiegelman, capturing his father…
MAUS is a combination of an autobiographical and biographical graphic novel by Art Spiegelman, capturing his father Vladek’s story during the Holocaust and their complex father-son relationship. Art Spiegelman constructs Vladek’s perspective as a Holocaust survivor whose resilience and love for his wife forces him to keep on fighting for survival. This is shown through the usage of Vladek’s authentic voice, which reveals the horrors of the Holocaust.
Though the graphic novel contains anthropomorphism, it doesn’t take away the realness of what Vladek experienced during the Holocaust. Art Spiegelman obtained his father’s traumatic past through multiple interviews, many going into detail about his life on concentration/death camps. Vladek’s hesitation to fully tell his story by telling Art ‘it would take many books, my life,’ and that ‘no one wants anyway to hear such stories,’ shows how even thinking of his past haunts him. His reluctancy to tell his story adds an aspect of realism to what he went through and how it still has an impact on his daily life.
VCE · Text Response
Text Response: Born a Crime is a story of overcoming…
VCE Text Response essay scoring 70%: Set against a ‘sinister’ apartheid and its enduring aftermath, Trevor Noah’s poignant memoir Born a Crime…
Set against a ‘sinister’ apartheid and its enduring aftermath, Trevor Noah’s poignant memoir Born a Crime illuminates the systemic limitations during a time of racial segregation and institutionalised racism in South Africa. The non-linear narrative centres around individuals triumphing over trials and tribulations under apartheid. Noah underlines how characters within the memoir overcame systemic racism and racial segregation through education and language under an oppressive regime. Noah also underscores how characters within the narrative conquered societal hindrances through entrepreneurship despite living under systemically enforced poverty. Through his comedic collection of vignettes, Noah highlights how humour was used as a tool to resist unjust systems.
In the coming-of-age journey, Noah examines how education and language function as a tool to overcome discrimination and marginalisation. As a mixed race child during apartheid’s “perfect racism”, Trevor was able to learn several languages to “cross boundaries, handle situations, navigate the world.” Because Trevor was “born a crime” under the Immorality Act 1927, the ability to speak languages was valuable in assisting him to bypass racism and societal barriers. Even among the Zulu and Xhosa minority groups, who “went to war with [one another]”, and the “coloured” people, a racial classification meant to “sow confusion, hatred and mistrust”, Noah was able to utilise language to“go to [the] hearts” of an oppressed nation. By knowing the “language of [his] oppressor”, Trevor was able to “bridge the gap” during the Zulu mugging incident, exhibiting language as “a tool that served him his whole life”. By depicting English as “the language of money”, Noah celebrates the importance of language and how it can lead to economic freedom, functioning as a powerful tool for survival. Similarly, the “architects of apartheid” designed the Bantu education system to limit black South Africans resulting in societal limitations and loss of valuable opportunities as they “weren’t taught to think”. Through his mother Patricia, Trevor was ‘beholden to no fate” and was taught how to “think critically.” By questioning the logic of the Eucharist, Trevor exhibits critical thinking that would have been otherwise limited under his arbitrary schooling. Noah champions education as a pathway to empowerment and condemns the disparities in the Bantu education system.