VCE · Text Response
Text Response: ‘In Born a Crime, Trevor Noah shows that…
VCE Text Response essay scoring 80%: In Trevor Noah’s ‘Born a Crime’, Noah experiences the difficult upbringing of being a “mixed-race individual” under…
In Trevor Noah’s ‘Born a Crime’, Noah experiences the difficult upbringing of being a “mixed-race individual” under a strict, grim legal system that was built to enforce segregation between individuals based on their appearance. Noah utilises his journey to illustrate that one’s upbringing allows individuals to navigate environments that weren’t meant for them. By exploring Patricia’s influence, the power of multilingualism and his criticism of the legal system, Noah demonstrates that the lessons from his mother allowed him to subvert the very limitations of his environment by providing him with the ‘tools’ to transcend systemic oppression and cope with complex scenarios.
Although the apartheid system was engineered to hold Noah in a state of endless ‘servitude’, Patricia’s rebellious spirit provided him with the mental autonomy that prevented him from adopting a victim mentality. Patricia taught Noah that critical thinking was the ultimate way to achieve freedom. For example, when they lived in Eden Park, which was a predominantly coloured neighbourhood, Noah felt like an “outsider”; considering that he is mixed-race, Noah didn’t feel he belonged in an environment that he couldn’t resonate with. Rather than allowing him to conform to the “neighbourhood’s rules” to feel like he belonged, Patricia utilised this “coloured” environment to prove that his identity was his own to ‘embrace’, rather than a label dictated by the absurd legal system. Consequently, through Patricia’s guidance, Noah learned to view his surroundings not as a cage, but as a landscape that he could use to his advantage through his strategic perception of the very environment that was not for him.
VCE · Creative Response
Creative Response: it was in relation to the category of…
VCE Creative Response essay scoring 77.5%: The tiling was cold against his cheek, smelling like a damp rag and stained with the failed ambitions of the…
The tiling was cold against his cheek, smelling like a damp rag and stained with the failed ambitions of the few before him. A heavy boot held his head to the floor but the man didn't struggle. His wrists were cinched behind his back with plastic ties digging into his bony skin, yet he felt a strange, buoyant lightness. A weightlessness he hadn't known for a decade. The feeling of freedom. Inside his closed fist, he felt along the comforting edges of the gold band on his ring finger. He squeezed it like a child on their parents finger, clutching onto those memories for strength.
"Look at me!", a voice barked. He looked up only to be greeted by the never ending hollow black void of a rifle barrel. But he didn't even blink.
BANG.
Three hours earlier the man sat by Desk 203 in the Ministry of Clarity. The room was a vast, windowless grid of beige cubicles. The rhythmic scritch-scratch of markers against documents echoed through the chamber like a ceaseless tune. His job was simple. He was an architect of silence. Ever since that night, the uprising scrubbed from every piece of media in the country, the state had existed in a state of enforced blindness. And he was one of those blinders. His friends at the canteen told him his silence was a shield. A way to keep his head down and his daughter safe. But as he dragged his black marker across the morning's papers, the shield felt more like a shroud covering what spark he once had. He glanced over at the wedding ring on his finger, its golden lustre dimmed by years of ink dust, and felt nothing but the drab, dull weight of the city's secrets dangling over him.
VCE · Text Response
Text Response: i made her a star and i cannot let her be…
VCE Text Response essay scoring 70%: Through Billy Wilder's film noir piece, Sunset Boulevard functions as a symbol for the disposable and immoral…
Through Billy Wilder's film noir piece, Sunset Boulevard functions as a symbol for the disposable and immoral system of Hollywood. He explores the psychological decline of the characters in sunset boulevard as a side effect of many collective forces. He exposes the ways in which this detachment from reality can be manifested through both the immoral actions of others, as well as individual deceit. Furthermore, Wilder highlights Hollywood's deceptive system as a key factor leading to an inescapable psychological erosion. Ultimately presenting this decline as a side effect of a plethora of factors.
Sunset Boulevard conveys the ways in which relationships with others can instigate consciousness of their reality. Wilder uses Joe's narration to reveal the role hemplayed in Norma's loss of reality. Joe narrates his experiences with norma claiming she was “waving to a parade that had long passed her by, revealing how he was aware of her failing career. Despite this Joe continued to feed into her delusions, symbolised by his continued work on her “salome” script. By pandering to normas delusions, Joe becomes an instigator to normas reality revealing the responsibility he holds for Norma's ultimate demise. Complementing this Wilder draws on the relationship between Norma and Max, to explore how the actions of those close to you can become detrimental when shaping someone's consciousness. Max is often depicted in the shadows and backgrounds of mise-en-scenes within sunset boulevard. This encapsulates how Max is constantly supervising Norma, controlling the reality she sees. Wilder further implies Max’s responsibility through his conversations with Joe. These reveal that Max feels as if he “cannot let her [norma] be destroyed” and that it is him that writes the “fan mail”. As a result of Max’s compliance in distorting and controlling Norma's reality to protect her from a world that has forgotten her, Max is shown to be liable for Norma's dissociative state. Ultimately Wilder parallels the relationships Norma holds with those closest to her to reveal the responsibility they hold over her ultimate psychological decline, revealing those closest to use as being a key factor that plays a responsibility in one's realities.
VCE · Creative Response
Creative Response: Framework 3: Writing about personal…
VCE Creative Response essay scoring 85%: Growing up, I always admired the little robots my mother would create. Sometimes she’d use scraps from an old…
Growing up, I always admired the little robots my mother would create. Sometimes she’d use scraps from an old laptop, or an old toy to create something entirely new. To me, that was the purest form of art.
I wanted to open the gate into her world. That was the direction I wanted to steer my life in.
During my earlier school years, I found myself obsessed with math, the way the world around us worked, and of course, mechas, robots, and anything to do with machines. I still remember showing my mother my creations, and one time that I did…I had seen an expression of pure love and wonder on her face. My creation wasn’t even that good, it was quite rudimentary. My mother however, chose to encourage me.
I must confess, I was honestly never good at the stuff I found myself obsessed with. My mother may have been proud of my creation, but it was a cheap copy of something she had made ages ago. Among the strained scoldings from my mum, the bad grades, and the several, several disfigured robots that I caused, I had to wonder – maybe chasing the direction my mother decided to travel in wasn’t the best idea for me.
I had no idea what to do with myself.
VCE · Text Response
Text Response: Change is unwelcome in We Have Always…
VCE Text Response essay scoring 87.5%: Shirley Jackson's Gothic novel presents change as a threat to be repelled, but its deeper interest lies in what…
Shirley Jackson's Gothic novel presents change as a threat to be repelled, but its deeper interest lies in what such resistance costs. The Blackwoods, and Merricat above all, fear change because their safety depends on sameness; the village hates change because the Blackwoods' difference unsettles its own order. Yet Jackson suggests that a life protected from all change is also a life without growth, and that unwelcome change may be the only thing that ever tests it. The novel's ending, in which the sisters achieve the stasis they wanted, leaves the reader uneasy about whether they have been saved or entombed.
Merricat's world is built from ritual precisely because ritual holds time still. Her days are arranged as a series of protective acts: burying objects, nailing a book to a tree, and walking 'safe' routes through the grounds. These rites are Jackson's way of showing that, for Merricat, change is always a form of danger. Her magic is a defence against the return of the arsenic poisoning that destroyed her family, and its logic is that if nothing moves, nothing can be lost again. The house itself reinforces this. Constance's domestic routines, the preserved rooms and the untouched dead parents' belongings suggest a household embalmed in the moment of catastrophe. Even the first-person narration is static: Merricat's flat, childlike declarative voice, with its cheerful obsession with 'werewolf' fantasies and killing, refuses development, so that the reader is confined to her perspective just as the sisters are confined to the property. Jackson thus makes the unwelcomeness of change not merely a theme but a feature of the novel's form.
VCE · Text Response
Text Response: To what extent is revenge a form of…
VCE Text Response essay scoring 77.5%: In his 2020 revisionist Western High Ground, director Stephen Maxwell Johnson elucidates the missed opportunity…
In his 2020 revisionist Western High Ground, director Stephen Maxwell Johnson elucidates the missed opportunity for understanding between two cultures, challenging accepted notions of Australia’s settlement and its devastating consequences for Indigenous Australians. Set in 1919 Northern Australia, the film follows the violent collision between Yolngu communities and colonial authorities. Johnson examines the extent to which revenge can function as a form of justice, revealing that this distinction is ultimately dictated by an individual’s experiences and perception of morality. Cultural superiority can legitimise vengeance as a justified response to perceived wrongdoing, while profound suffering can similarly provoke individuals to seek retribution against those responsible for their injustice. However, Johnson ultimately suggests that justice can be achieved without exacting violent revenge, through acknowledging wrongdoing, reconciliation and the restoration of cultural balance.
Johnson demonstrates that cultural superiority can distort an individual’s perception of justice, allowing acts of vengeance to be justified as legitimate punishment. Through a Eurocentric outlook, colonial authorities perceive European law and morality as inherently superior, granting themselves the supposed authority to determine both wrongdoing and its appropriate punishment. This ideology is personified through Moran’s insistence , “That is the law that I am duty bound to uphold.” visually reinforced through the props of Moran’s official badges, which he proudly declares ,symbolising the British institutional values through which he legitimises his authority over Indigenous Country. The absolutist reference to “the law” characterises European law as an unquestionable moral authority, while “duty bound” reveals Moran’s belief that enforcing colonial values is an obligation rather than a choice, and will contonue to achieve justice if it eqautes to tupholding his ideological beliefs.. Johnson therefore exposes how cultural superiority enables vengeance to be morally reframed as the legitimate enforcement of justice. Johnson immediately destabilises this supposed moral authority through the opening massacre, where rapid-paced editing and confronting diegetic sounds of gunfire, and the horrifying screams of the Yolngu peoples ,construct a chaotic soundscape surrounding the indiscriminate killing of the Yolngu community. Drawing upon the historical 1911 Gan Gan massacre, Johnson confronts audiences with the brutality concealed beneath colonial practices of reprisal, challenging romanticised understandings of Australia’s settlement by exposing the violence that could be legitimised as the enforcement of Western order. Moran’s campfire narration further exposes the subjectivity of this supposed justice as he claims the Yolngu “crossed a line” and “killed a white woman.” Moran’s voice accompanies the unfolding events, granting him narrative control over where the conflict seemingly begins and constructing subsequent colonial vengeance as justified punishment. Yet Johnson destabilises his account through the audience’s prior knowledge that “seventeen” Indigenous people were killed by the station men, and Moran later orders in Act 3 to “Kill them all” The disparity exposes a racialised perception of justice whereby white suffering warrants vengeance, while Indigenous suffering is denied equivalent moral significance.
VCE · Creative Response
Creative Response: Break The Silence Image of a group of…
VCE Creative Response essay scoring 85%: Everyone looks back fondly on their time in Primary School. At recess you would just run around and have fun,…
Everyone looks back fondly on their time in Primary School. At recess you would just run around and have fun, with no care in the world. Then you get to high school, where a change is obvious. You aren't innocent to the world anymore. You begin to learn your morals, what is right and what is wrong. Soon enough, you begin to witness mistreatment, bullying, around the school. The bigger and stronger kids assume power and control over everyone else. Once you witness this, you are given a choice, stand up, and fight for justice, putting yourself at risk in the process. Or do you stay silent, let the corruption and oppression go unopposed. This hypothetical is alive all throughout the world, not just in the school yard, but everywhere. Everyday, people face the difficult choice of letting injustice continue to survive, or breaking the silence, and creating change. So, I pose to the audience, if it is your friend being bullied, which option do you choose?
Let's say you choose to let it happen, keep yourself away from the danger. You choose silence. Because that is exactly what it is. Silence, is a choice. And it is a good choice, clearly. Billions of people around the world are choosing it every day so it must be good. Right? Silence can be a good choice for the individual, but it is never a good choice for the collective. If you are neutral in situations of injustice, you have chosen the side of the oppression. Because that is exactly what they want. The school bully doesn't want intrusion, corrupt governments don't want minorities to speak up, let their stories be heard. They know they are in the wrong, and they know that visibility is their weakness. So what do we do? Speak up. Break the silence. Expose the injustices so we can cut them out of our lives. Humans are born with a special talent. Their voice, their words. So why do we not use it?
VCE · Creative Response
Creative Response: Title: “Where The Map Ends” Stimulus:…
VCE Creative Response essay scoring 85%: Nala Tanvi 25 Albert Ave Melbourne, Vic, 3000 25th June, 2026 Senator Pauline Hanson Parliament of Australia…
Nala Tanvi
25 Albert Ave
Melbourne, Vic, 3000
25th June, 2026
Senator Pauline Hanson
Parliament of Australia
Canberra, ACT, 2650
Dear Senator Hanson,
I've travelled as far as where the map ends to live in this great nation. I was eight years old when I first saw this land from above. I was literally sitting in the window seat watching the clouds breaking over the red earth as we began to descend. When my family came here, we came seeking better opportunities, a better future a better home. You however, have spent the last 3 decades, certainly telling me and other immigrants like myself that this country is not ours to land in or to call home.
In 1996, you stood at Parliament warning that Australia was going to be "swamped by Asians." In 2016, you regurgitated the same words but with a different target. Muslims. Twenty-years apart and you continue to say the same thing, but with a new threat, demographic that you say are "invading" this country. It does not matter what ends of the earth a person comes from, if they come to this country seeking refuge, or seeking a better life, they have no right of calling this place home.
Underneath the word "swamped" is what you truly believe.
You believe that a nation that is built on more than one culture cannot be strong and united. You blame difference for this country's disunity. Pointing at countries like Ireland, Bosnia and parts of Africa to explain your prejudice. But, these countries are not case studies of multiculturalism failing. They're borders that have been built by people that never have to experience the consequences their construction. They're nations that are exploited by their own oppressors, and then are "gifted" independance, just be governed by leaders just as evil as their oppressors. These are not examples of nations built on multiculturalism. These are false equivalences that you use to push your xenophobic, and bigotted agenda.
VCE · Text Response
Text Response: Oliver's poems capture the universe within…
VCE Text Response essay scoring 90%: Oliver's poems capture the universe within ordinary objects and experiences. Discuss Written during a period of…
Oliver's poems capture the universe within ordinary objects and experiences. Discuss
Written during a period of extreme social and political upheaval, Mary Oliver's “New and Selected Poems, Volume One” (1986) repeatedly suggests that the universe is not an abstract concept, but one that is enclosed in daily ordinary moments. Through multiple scenarios, Oliver uncovers cosmic ideologies of the universe’s nature, and spiritual renewal in the most familiar moments. Yet whilst many poems reveal eternity in the small and domestic, others turn towards the violence and historical experiences, demonstrating that her vision of the universe exceeds what may be considered as ordinary.
Oliver often begins with recognisable and comfortable experiences surrounding nature and utilises them to branch into a vast sense of the universe and the human role within it. In her poem “August,” the speaker describes an individual’s experience eating from a blackberry bush “nobody owns.” Throughout the poem, Oliver threads soft “o” assonance into images of the “swollen” berries, the surrounding “woods,” and the sense that the bush is something “nobody owns.” This repeated succession of the sounds emphasises the speaker's transition as they exit the realms of human ownership into a purer, divine space within nature by sonically enacting the speaker’s slow movement away from human concepts of ownership and into a more open, sacred natural realm. By doing so, Oliver demonstrates that within the mundane and seemingly ordinary experience of eating the blackberries, the deeper relationship with the universe was able to be uncovered. Oliver extends this exploration in her poem “Wild Geese” as she illustrates the “blue air” and how the geese migrate. The speaker describes the normal weather with the cyclical migratory patterns of the birds to delve into not only the cyclical nature of the natural world but also the underlying cosmic order of the world. This order includes the reader and invites them to take their “place in the family of things.” Oliver thereby uses the vivid and accessible scenes in order to be able to capture the universe, without the use of abstract philosophy.
VCE · Text Response
Text Response: How does Harvey explore the idea that…
VCE Text Response essay scoring 85%: Samantha Harvey's award winning space pastoral novel ‘Orbital’ follows a crew of six astronauts on a space station…
Samantha Harvey's award winning space pastoral novel ‘Orbital’ follows a crew of six astronauts on a space station and explores the cost of human endeavor. `Harvey depicts how human endeavour results in the devastation of the earth and reveals humanity's superficial mindset but also provides mankind with opportunity to benefit. This is highlighted through how human endeavour has resulted in the degradation of the natural environment and how it reveals humanity's myopic perspective. She additionally underscores this through how human endeavor comes at a high cost but provides mankind with opportunity to benefit.
Human endeavour has caused the destruction of the natural environment. Harvey illustrates how mankind's desire to progress and its achievements has damaged the earth. Harvey questions whether humanity “cannot find peace with one another?” or with “the earth?” as they continue to “tyrannise” and “ransack” the one thing on which they depend upon for survival. Harvey uses a third person omniscient perspective to adopt a god-like perspective and directly critique humanity's inability to maintain peace amongst each other and the earth. Using this, Harvey displays how humanity's journey to advancement and the milestones it has achieved has jeopardized mankind's future survival through the degradation of the natural world. Additionally, Harvey underscores the irony in humanity's actions as they continue to destroy the earth in their quest for evolution, as without the earth “they are all finished" and would be sailors on a “deep, dark unswimmable sea”. Harvey employs the use of a metaphor to emphasize the reliance humans have on the earth, as without it they are vulnerable to the deep dark neverending void of the expanding universe. Harevy communicates her morals of how instead of constantly trying to advance, mankind's only true priority should be taking better care of the environment as it is the sole reason for their survival. Through this, ‘Orbital’ demonstrates how human endeavour has resulted in the ruin of the natural world.
VCE · Text Response
Text Response: To what extent do people find power in a…
VCE Text Response essay scoring 80%: In his memoir Born A Crime Trevor Noah, a comedian and political commentator, explores the intricacies of the lack…
In his memoir Born A Crime Trevor Noah, a comedian and political commentator, explores the intricacies of the lack of human agency in everyday life, set out by an oppressive and segregatory, Apartheid Regime. Set in the late 1980s and early 90s, Noah depicts the lack of autonomy all individuals experience within a regime, separating people based on their racial classification. While Noah expresses the ability of individuals to organically find power, subverting Apartheid’s control, through Language, Noah ultimately asserts that the stark divisions set out by Apartheid, limit the power of victims of the regime. Writing to a global audience, Noah seeks to reveal the fatalism and inevitability of oppression within an hate-fuelled society to educate readers with little knowledge of the brutality. In doing so, Noah constructs his self-mythology, also, to educate a more specific American readership, on his cultural background, which created a survival instinct for Noah.
Noah expresses the lack of human agency through the state-fuelled, weaponized tribalism, turning racial groups against each other. Noah identifies the “genius of Apartheid” as their government's agenda to exploit the existing divisions within a post-colonial South Africa. In the prelude of his first chapter Run, Noah labels the system of Apartheid as “Aparthate”, employing a portmanteau effect where blending the word ‘hate’ with Apartheid cements the association in his readers mind. Later on in the chapter Run, Noah depicts the consequences of Apartheid’s inorganic development of the Zulu vs Xhosa rivalry. By assigning varying levels of privilege and authority to different groups, the Apartheid regime manufactured animosity between the Zulu and Xhosa tribes. Noah employs the illegal bus route tension as an example of this, exploring that the Xhosa bus driver was almost killed by the Zulu bus driver for interfering in his route. Noah depicts how Apartheid was able to polarize these two tribes, to deflect attention from their own discrimination. Noah then utilizes the Zulu driver’s hatred against Patricia, as he calls all Xhosa women “Sluts”, and his decision to capture Patricia and Trevor as a symbol of individuals' lack of autonomy. Despite not having done anything to upset the bus driver, Noah reveals their very identity as Xhosa, a rival club was enough to warrant the bus driver's violence. Thus Noah depicts how an individual's ability to bond and connect with an other, is controlled by Apartheid’s grasp. The regime leaves no room for individuals of different groups, to combine as their integration would expose the illegitimacy of Apartheid. In exploring this, Noah seeks to foster a deep sense of tragedy and frustration against the regime, in a global audience.
VCE · Creative Response
Creative Response: Personal Journey
VCE Creative Response essay scoring 92.5%: Everyone notices the empty chair beside me but no one has ever asked who it belongs to. It has a name. Not…
Everyone notices the empty chair beside me but no one has ever asked who it belongs to.
It
has
a
name.
Not someone living. Not someone dead. The spare chair belongs to Maron, and she takes up exactly the right amount of space.
The classroom empties the same way every Friday. Chairs scrape against the floor, bags zip shut, and the door creaks closed. One by one, the noise disappears into the corridor until there is nothing left but the hum of the lights. I am always the one who stays behind, watching their backs disappear through the doorway.
I sight of them through the window as they cross the oval, four of them, already laughing at something I can't hear.
My fingers settle against the pencil case, tracing its familiar edge.
"They simply forgot," Maron says, knowing what I need to hear. "That is all it was."
Their footsteps fade beyond me, carrying them along a path I never stepped onto.
Outside, the tall one is doing an impression. They fold into laughter together once more, shoulders touching, pulled toward each other.
Whatever is pulling them stops short of me.
I know them all separately. The loudest, the latest, the one who smooths things over before they break.
These things stick with you, even when you wish they wouldn’t, small details that somehow find a way to stay.
“They always laugh like that,” Maron says. “It’s not even that funny.” I leave her words where they are. They are easier to hold than the silence outside.
Through the window, the tall one starts another impression. I lean closer, catching only fragments of her voice until the punchline reaches me. I understand it a second after they do, just as their laughter rises together.
Without warning, something escapes, a laugh, abrupt and unwelcome. My hand flies to my mouth but it's already out, spilling into a silence that wasn't built to hold it.
Another follows before I can swallow the first. Two laughs now, loose in a room with no one to catch them, no one to laugh back. I watch them outside, one covering her mouth, eyes crinkling as the other bends forward beside her.
Maron taps her pencil against my desk, waiting until I look at her instead.
VCE · Text Response
Text Response: "They're humans with a godly view and…
VCE Text Response essay scoring 100%: Samantha Harvey's Booker Prize-winning novel Orbital (2023) follows six astronauts and cosmonauts aboard the…
Samantha Harvey's Booker Prize-winning novel Orbital (2023) follows six astronauts and cosmonauts aboard the International Space Station over a single orbital day. Written amid the isolation of Covid-19 lockdowns, accelerating environmental degradation, and resurgent nationalism, Harvey positions readers with a godlike vantage over Earth, one that destabilises the frames of reference — time, space, value — through which the crew, and by extension the reader, ordinarily understand their place in the world. Across individual, geopolitical, and cosmic scales, Harvey traces a single arc: the disintegration of human significance is never left as simple diminishment, but is repeatedly recovered as a fiercer, more urgent form of belonging.
At the individual scale, Harvey explores how identity depends on our anchoring to Earth's rhythms, and what is lost when that anchor slips. Roman clings to sequential markers — "days, sunrises, orbits and moonrises" — which he "carefully marks" to stay synchronised with the world below; stripped of them, he wakes to the disoriented refrain "where are we, where are we." This anxiety reflects a broader instruction given to the crew, to "look often at your watch to anchor your mind," yet space resists this discipline, "shred[ding] time to pieces" until even the narration seems to ask, "what's a day?" Harvey's use of free indirect discourse here blurs Roman's private disorientation into the novel's collective voice, suggesting that the "day-less freak zone" the mind drifts into is not his alone but a shared condition of the station itself. Chie's grief offers a counterpoint: receiving news of her mother's death in orbit, she cannot process its finality, admitting "everything that's left of my mother is there, and soon it will be burned and gone." The station becomes a pause rather than an escape. Yet this same distance recasts her relationship to Earth as protective rather than passive — the "spinning globe" becomes something she must guard as a daughter guards a parent, an identification Harvey makes explicit through the recurring metaphor of Earth as mother, "strong and full of joy," fragile and mortal like Chie's own. Through Roman and Chie, Harvey suggests that selfhood in isolation is not abandoned but re-anchored — to number, to memory, to a planet reimagined as kin.
VCE · Creative Response
Creative Response: Framework country
VCE Creative Response essay scoring 90%: The stadium was full of countries. They were draped over shoulders, tied around wrists and held above the crowd…
The stadium was full of countries. They were draped over shoulders, tied around wrists and held above the crowd as people shouted for the places they had come from. An Italian flag moved through the seats like a wave, followed by the green and white of Pakistan. Somewhere behind me, a Brazilian jersey flashed between Australians wearing their own colours. I watched how easily people carried their countries with them, and then I looked for mine.
Lebanon.
My eyes moved across the crowd, searching between flags and jerseys, waiting for the red and white to appear. Everyone around me seemed to have something they could point to and say, There. That is where I am from. I had nothing to point to.
My feet were planted on Australian soil. Yet sometimes I wondered what it meant to call this soil mine when it had held stories long before mine ever arrived. This land had belonged to First Peoples who had known and cared for Country for generations before Australia was the country I recognised today. Beneath the stadium was a history older than my own.
And still, Lebanon had always existed somewhere else.
It lived in the stories my family carried from a land I knew mostly through their memories. It lived in the way my relatives spoke, in names passed from one generation to the next, in photographs where mountains rose behind houses and the sea stretched beyond them. Lebanon was not just the name of a country on a map. It was land that had held the people who came before me.
Then a name appeared on the screen. I almost missed it, but when I read it again, I knew it immediately: a Lebanese name. The player ran onto the field beneath Australian colours. To everyone around me, he was another Australian athlete.
But I knew the name.
Something rose in my chest before I could stop it. There you are.
VCE · Text Response
Text Response: we have always lived in the castle is a…
VCE Text Response essay scoring 85%: In Shirely Jackson’s gothic novel ‘We Have Always Lived in the Castle’ the sense of control is established as a…
In Shirely Jackson’s gothic novel ‘We Have Always Lived in the Castle’ the sense of control is established as a highly desirable and sought out power to have. Jackson’s novella depicts the intense desire for status and reflects the struggle between social classes in an era of change. Moreover, Jackson condemns the patriarchal structure that controls women’s lives, and finally, Jackson emphasizes the need for societal change and diminishes the drive to control. Therefore, Jackson’s novel is a reflection of disastrous battles for power in which she critiques as a terrible motivator in the world, exposing its obsessive nature and harmful effects, thereby she seeks to illuminate the much needed change in 1960’s American society.
The novel represents the aspiration for status and reflects the class barriers as a struggle in an emerging society. In the 1950’s, tensions between dividing classes were high, specifically between old money and new money. Jackson includes this is her novel, highlighting the social barrier between the wealthy Blackwood family and the regular villagers. Jackson creates this clear divide in her opening chapters, through her symbolic inclusion of the fence which surrounds the “entire Blackwood property”, in order to keep the “common people” away from their status in the world. Jackson develops this fence as a way to physically represent the clear barriers between the two classes, in which the Blackwoods believe they are superior, as they want to claim their dominance in society. The villagers are aggrieved by the fence as it limits them from the “highway”, as well as reinforcing that the Blackwoods have an ideology of superiority. Jackson thereby uses the fence as a way to create tension in her novel, as the two classes fight to gain control in their small community. Furthermore, Jackson illustrates the clear split in society through her structuring of her novella. In the beginning of her text she establishes the divide, but it is in her narrative arc where she intensifies the tensions in driving for influence. After the climactic fire, the remanning Blackwoods venture back into their castle where they find their historic “silver wear” completely “smashed”, by the villagers. Jackson includes the silverware to not only hint the wealth of the Blackwood family, but also as a strong indicator of the villagers resentment of the power the Blackwood family have always had, which they had never been included in. Therefore, Jackson critiques the motivator to have status as it knowingly creates tension and conflict, and ultimately the novel reflects the struggle to gain power in a classist world.
VCE · Text Response
Text Response: “We Have Always Lived in the Castle”…
VCE Text Response essay scoring 85%: Shirley Jackson's 1962 novel WHALITC, is set in post-war II America, where society's culture was rooted in strict…
Shirley Jackson's 1962 novel WHALITC, is set in post-war II America, where society's culture was rooted in strict mid-century gendered roles and the rise in fear of otherness was gradually accelerating. In the novel the Jackson explores the dynamics between society and its outcasts. Ultimately endorsing withdrawal from the world as the only path to the peace that achieve what she defines as peace.
In WHALITC Jackson presents her ideal version of peace. The idea that peace is a state of harmony where is characterised as the absence of hostility, violence or mental anxiety, Jackson also presents peace as a state of freedom and autonomy for women. Jackson does this through the contrast between the Blackwood home and the village. In the beginning of the novel Jackson presents the village through the lense of the eccentric protagonist Merricat Blackwood. As she walks through the village Jackson creates a sense of tension within the reader. through short, fragmented sentences. Creating a choppy, urgent rhythm that mimics panic. By doing this Jackson associates the village environment with anxiety, fear and hostility. Merricat also states that she only goes to the village for the "simple need for food and books" this highlights her lack of autonomy that she has. Through this Jackson positions society as a place of hostility and violence. In juxtaposition Jackson presents home as a place of safety, peace and comfort. Jackson shifts demenor with her use of descriptive language such as "safe" and "secure." Jackson's use of language that is generally associated with safety, presents the home as a space
that individuals are left to be free. Jackson further establishes the Blackwood home as a fortress that protects the family from the hostile environment of the village. Through the symbolism of the fence around the estate, it acts as a physical barrier that isolates them from the world. Showing that separation from the outside world is a path to peace. The Blackwood home is also presented as a place with order and routine with the Blackwood sisters living a relatively privileged lifestyle in the home waiting for something to grow, "adding to the food in the cellar," and eating the year away. This lifestyle is self-sufficient and quiet. The absense of the hostility and disorder highlights the lack of agency and freedom that the sisters have outside the estate. With Merricat's use of rituals and magic, a like playing a game that restricts where she can walk and fantasising "walking on the bodies" of the villagers, further revealing that separation from society can be a path to achieve peace, with the Blackwood home representing that withdrawal and the village as the world in which individuals escape from.
VCE · Text Response
Text Response: 'In Twelfth Night, disguise is both…
VCE Text Response essay scoring 100%: While Shakespeare’s play ‘Twelfth Night’ is understood to be a romantic comedy, the story seeks to expose the…
While Shakespeare’s play ‘Twelfth Night’ is understood to be a romantic comedy, the story seeks to expose the duality of the use of disguise and concealment. Shakespeare suggests that disguise can allow for control over one’s life, yet also exemplifies the consequences of concealment regardless of intent. Ultimately, he highlights how disguise is complex and subtly counterintuitive.
Disguise liberates identity while providing a sense of protection. Olivia grieves the recent loss of her brother with “eye-offending brine” every night. While people seek to take advantage of her emotional state, she takes control of her own wishes by controlling her outward presentation. She walks “veiled” and “like a cloistress” to put a barrier between her and other people and control how they can see her. Disguise and concealment can be used to regain a sense of control when circumstances in life change and become uncontrollable, as portrayed through Olivia’s use of her veil. Disguise thus becomes a mechanism for retaining stability, framing concealment as a liberating force. Olivia also uses her veil to protect herself from the influences of others, especially suitors. She commands that she will not see a man “for seven years”, and so when Cesario appears at her door with the intention to woo her, she tells her servants, “fetch my veil, come throw it o’er my face”. Olivia’s veil conceals her appearance from Cesario, allowing her control and protection in the situation, and only when she feels comfortable to show herself does she tell Cesario “we shall draw the curtain and show you the picture”. Commanding a situation through disguise thus becomes a form of liberation. By safeguarding the vulnerable until they choose to relinquish it, disguise is portrayed as empowering and emancipating. Viola similarly employs a disguise to make a life for herself in the foreign land upon which she found herself shipwrecked. She landed on the shores of Illyria with the ship captain, and concluded that her brother may have died at sea. The captain tried to console her by saying that he saw her brother “like Arion on the dolphin’s back”, riding to shore, and so Viola decided that there was little point in grieving for long. She soon planned to join the court of Duke Orsino, but told the captain “conceal me what I am” for “my disguise shall haply become the form of my intent” so she could do so. Shakespeare constructs Viola’s steadfast planning to demonstrate how disguise facilitates survival and endurance. The mythological allusion to the Greek god Arion frames Sebastian’s survival as miraculous, thereby motivating Viola’s own strategic reinvention. The reference also illuminates the thematic focus on hope and freedom, liberating Viola from being trapped in sadness and uncertainty. Disguise is exemplified as an agent for self-control and freedom.
VCE · Creative Response
Creative Response: Framework country
VCE Creative Response essay scoring 92.5%: The stadium was full of countries. They were draped over shoulders, tied around wrists and held above the…
The stadium was full of countries. They were draped over shoulders, tied around wrists and held above the crowd as people shouted for the places they had come from. An Italian flag moved through the seats like a wave, followed by the green and white of Pakistan. Somewhere behind me, a Brazilian jersey flashed between rows of Australians wearing their own colours. For a few hours, the stadium seemed to make the whole world fit inside it. I watched how easily people carried their countries with them, and then I looked for mine.
Lebanon.
My eyes moved across the crowd again, searching between flags and jerseys, waiting for the red and white to appear. I knew it was only a piece of fabric, yet its absence felt larger than that. Everyone around me seemed to have something they could point to and say, There. That is where I am from. I had nothing to point to.
My feet were planted on Australian soil. I had grown up here. This was the ground I walked to school on, the streets I knew without thinking, the stadiums where I had watched sport since I was young. Australia was not somewhere I had simply visited. It was the place beneath my feet. Yet sometimes I wondered what it meant to call this soil mine when it had held stories long before mine ever arrived. This land had belonged to First Peoples who had known and cared for Country for generations before Australia was the country I recognised today. Beneath the noise of the stadium, beneath the concrete and the seats and the field, there was a history older than my own.
And still, Lebanon had always existed somewhere else.
It lived in the stories my family carried from a land I knew mostly through their memories. It lived in the way my relatives spoke, in the names passed from one generation to the next, in the photographs where mountains rose behind houses and the sea stretched beyond them. Lebanon was not just the name of a country on a map. It was land that had held the people who came before me.
Sometimes I wondered whether that was what made Country so difficult. How could I belong to a place whose earth I stood on when another place had shaped the people who shaped me? I had left one piece of land behind, yet I was still carrying what it had given me.
VCE · Creative Response
Creative Response: Framework country
VCE Creative Response essay scoring 92.5%: The stadium was full of countries. They were draped over shoulders, tied around wrists and held above the…
The stadium was full of countries. They were draped over shoulders, tied around wrists and held above the crowd as people shouted for the places they had come from. An Indian flag moved through the seats like a wave, followed by the green and white of Pakistan. Somewhere behind me, a Brazilian jersey flashed between rows of Australians wearing their own colours. For a few hours, the stadium seemed to make the whole world fit inside it. I watched how easily people carried their countries with them, and then I looked for mine.
Lebanon.
My eyes moved across the crowd again, searching between flags and jerseys, waiting for the red and white to appear. I knew it was only a piece of fabric, yet its absence felt larger than that. Everyone around me seemed to have something they could point to and say, There. That is where I am from. I had nothing to point to.
My feet were planted on Australian soil. I had grown up here. This was the ground I walked to school on, the streets I knew without thinking, the stadiums where I had watched sport since I was young. Australia was not somewhere I had simply visited. It was the place beneath my feet. Yet sometimes I wondered what it meant to call this soil mine when it had held stories long before mine ever arrived. This land had belonged to First Peoples who had known and cared for Country for generations before Australia was the country I recognised today. Beneath the noise of the stadium, beneath the concrete and the seats and the field, there was a history older than my own.
And still, Lebanon had always existed somewhere else.
It lived in the stories my family carried from a land I knew mostly through their memories. It lived in the way my relatives spoke, in the names passed from one generation to the next, in the photographs where mountains rose behind houses and the sea stretched beyond them. Lebanon was not just the name of a country on a map. It was land that had held the people who came before me.
Sometimes I wondered whether that was what made Country so difficult. How could I belong to a place whose earth I stood on when another place had shaped the people who shaped me? I had left one piece of land behind, yet I was still carrying what it had given me.
VCE · Creative Response
Creative Response: Framework country
VCE Creative Response essay scoring 82.5%: The stadium was full of countries. They were draped over shoulders, tied around wrists and held above the…
The stadium was full of countries.
They were draped over shoulders, tied around wrists and held above the crowd as people shouted for the places they had come from. An Indian flag moved through the seats like a wave, followed by the green and white of Pakistan. Somewhere behind me, a Brazilian jersey flashed between rows of Australians wearing their own colours. For a few hours, the stadium seemed to make the whole world fit inside it.
I watched them all.
I watched how easily people carried their countries with them.
Then I looked for mine.
Lebanon.
My eyes moved across the crowd again, searching between flags and jerseys, waiting for the red and white to appear. I knew it was only a piece of fabric, yet its absence felt larger than that. Everyone around me seemed to have something they could point to and say, There. That is where I am from.
I had nothing to point to.
My feet were planted on Australian soil.
I had grown up here. This was the ground I walked to school on, the streets I knew without thinking, the stadiums where I had watched sport since I was young. Australia was not somewhere I had simply visited. It was the place beneath my feet.
But Lebanon had always existed somewhere else.
It lived in the stories my family carried from a land I knew mostly through their memories. It lived in the way my relatives spoke, in the names passed from one generation to the next, in the photographs where mountains rose behind houses and the sea stretched beyond them. Lebanon was not just the name of a country on a map. It was land that had held the people who came before me.
Sometimes I wondered whether that was what made Country so difficult.
How could I belong to a place whose earth I stood on when another place had shaped the people who shaped me?
The question stayed with me as the match continued.
Then a name appeared on the screen.
I almost missed it.
I read it once, then again.
A Lebanese name.
VCE · Text Response
Text Response: How does orbitalo demonstrate the…
VCE Text Response essay scoring 70%: In Orbital, Samantha Harvey explores the transformative power of understanding and its capacity to reshape how…
In Orbital, Samantha Harvey explores the transformative power of understanding and its capacity to reshape how individuals perceive themselves, others and the world they inhabit. Through the experiences of six astronauts orbiting Earth, Harvey demonstrates that physical distance from the planet can paradoxically create a deeper emotional and intellectual connection to it. As the astronauts observe Earth from space, their perspectives are challenged, allowing them to recognise the fragility of human life, the interconnectedness of humanity and the beauty of the natural world. Ultimately, Orbital demonstrates that understanding is important because it enables individuals to move beyond narrow perspectives, develop empathy for others and recognise their responsibility towards the world they share.
Harvey first demonstrates the importance of understanding through the astronauts’ changing perceptions of themselves and their place within the universe. From their position in orbit, the astronauts are physically separated from the ordinary routines and concerns of life on Earth, allowing them to reflect on their own existence from an unfamiliar perspective. Harvey repeatedly contrasts the immense scale of Earth and space with the smallness of individual human beings, encouraging the astronauts to recognise their own limitations. The description of Earth as a “blue and white marble” emphasises its delicacy and apparent smallness when viewed from space. The metaphor reduces the enormous planet to something seemingly fragile and insignificant, prompting the astronauts to reconsider the importance they place on their individual lives and problems. Similarly, Harvey’s recurring focus on the astronauts’ movement around Earth highlights the repetitive nature of their existence, as they experience “sixteen sunrises and sunsets a day”. This unusual experience disrupts their ordinary understanding of time and encourages them to contemplate the temporary nature of human existence. By placing her characters in a setting where conventional perceptions of time, scale and identity are disrupted, Harvey demonstrates that understanding ourselves requires us to step outside our familiar perspectives. In doing so, Orbital suggests that self-understanding can emerge when individuals recognise both their individuality and their smallness within a much larger universe.
VCE · Text Response
Text Response: 'This day will bring your birth and your…
VCE Text Response essay scoring 85%: The ancient Greek tragedy Oedipus The King, written by Sophocles in the fifth century BCE, displays the effects of…
The ancient Greek tragedy Oedipus The King, written by Sophocles in the fifth century BCE, displays the effects of mankind’s desperation to avoid their divine fate. Sophocles illustrates that humankind cannot defy the gods without amplifying their fate, thus rendering humanity as powerless against the gods. Sophocles presents this by displaying how the gods reveal one’s fate, thus holding supreme authority, and that trying to defy the gods given fate acts as a mechanism of suffering which is ultimately a sign of the unsustainable nature of defiance against the gods.
Sophocles postulates the defiance of the gods as a sly mechanism of suffering. The outcome of Oedipus’ defiance led to the peripeteia in which Oedipus was revealed as a “man of agony”. Sophocles uses the label ‘man’ to emphasise Oedipus’ inequality with the gods. Inequality, which was not apparent to Oedipus through his hubris, thus leading to his agonising downfall. In the midst of the “wailing miseries of Thebes”, Oedipus arrogantly told his people to “let me answer your prayers”. This places Oedipus as a god, someone capable of divine power. Sophocles embedded this hubristic nature into Oedipus to make a lesson from his catharsis that despite one’s fame, ultimately mankind cannot equal the gods. By Oedipus announcing his supposed capability to answer the prayers of his people, he defies the position that mankind are in with the gods. Sophocles illustrates the effect of this through Oedipus’ transition to a “godforsaken” exiled man, who justly served the consequences of defying his divine fate and natural standing with his gods.
VCE · Text Response
Text Response: Oedipus the King suggests that reason has…
VCE Text Response essay scoring 95%: Sophocles’ Oedipus the King explores the tension between human knowledge and the forces that remain beyond human…
Sophocles’ Oedipus the King explores the tension between human knowledge and the forces that remain beyond human understanding. Although reason enables individuals to investigate their circumstances, solve problems and pursue truth, Sophocles ultimately exposes its limitations when it is confronted by fate, divine knowledge and human emotion. Oedipus initially relies upon his intelligence to establish his authority and resolve the crisis in Thebes, yet his confidence in his own reasoning gradually becomes a source of blindness. Similarly, Jocasta and Oedipus attempt to rationalise the prophecies that threaten their understanding of themselves, demonstrating how reason can be distorted by fear and self-interest. Ultimately, however, Oedipus’ investigation succeeds in uncovering the truth while failing to give him the power to change it. Thus, Sophocles suggests that reason has an important role in human life, but its capacity to provide knowledge and control is fundamentally limited.
Sophocles initially presents reason as a powerful and valuable human capacity, particularly through Oedipus’ reputation as an intelligent and capable ruler. Before the events of the play, Oedipus has defeated the Sphinx by solving its riddle, demonstrating that human intelligence can overcome seemingly impossible challenges. Consequently, he approaches the crisis in Thebes with confidence in his ability to discover its cause. Oedipus declares, “I shall bring it all to light myself,” positioning himself as an active investigator who believes that truth can be uncovered through rational inquiry. The imagery of “light” is significant, as Oedipus associates knowledge with illumination and assumes that he possesses the intellectual capacity necessary to expose what is hidden. However, Sophocles creates dramatic irony because the audience understands that Oedipus’ investigation will uncover a truth that he does not expect: his own identity as the murderer of Laius. His intellectual success therefore becomes inseparable from his tragic downfall. Oedipus’ confidence is further demonstrated through his willingness to challenge Tiresias, demanding that the prophet reveal what he knows. His accusation, “You have no truth, no vision,” reveals his belief that his own understanding is superior to that of the prophet. While Oedipus’ reasoning allows him to investigate the murder, his certainty in his own intellectual abilities prevents him from recognising the limitations of his knowledge. Sophocles therefore does not present reason as inherently destructive; rather, he demonstrates that reason becomes dangerous when confidence in human intelligence develops into intellectual arrogance.
VCE · Creative Response
Creative Response: Title: Let’s do it Prompt: Play is…
VCE Creative Response essay scoring 85%: Dear Father Time 31/12/25 I’m not ready. I don’t understand how anyone around could be ready, but I know that I…
Dear Father Time 31/12/25
I’m not ready. I don’t understand how anyone around could be ready, but I know that I am not ready. How am I supposed to be ready to graduate when I swear it was only a couple years ago that I was playing in a sand box not wanting recess to end? You’ve made a game out of my time, so I’ll appreciate it if you just pause it for now. Won’t be long, just long enough so I can some time to catch up to my peers. Please, Father time I need you to do me this one favour since you’ve been messing me up all these past years, I believe I deserve it this one time. I am not ready to graduate, I am not ready for this part of my life to end, please I am not ready for this limited time I have left to continue to tick by.
This game that you made all these years ago, this game that I wasn’t aware that I was even playing. If you pause this time for me, I promise when I do graduate, I’ll continue playing with you straight away. I promise I won’t waste the extra time you provide me, I won’t hesitate like Harry, I won’t daydream like Dan, and I won’t just wait like Wayne. I’ll just every second you provide me like it’s my last. I’m not asking for the buses to stop coming, I’m not asking for time to never continue again, I just want to be able to catch the right bus, so I’m not left behind at my stop. You’re more powerful than, you’re more understanding than me, you’re more than I ever could so please be on my side for once and help me out. I won’t ask again, I promise.