VCE · Creative Response
Creative Response: Writing about the future
VCE Creative Response essay scoring 85%: INT. APARTMENT. MORNING Bare walls. No decorations. A calendar by the door, flipped months ahead. A suitcase…
INT. APARTMENT. MORNING
Bare walls. No decorations. A calendar by the door, flipped months ahead. A suitcase sits half-unpacked in the corner.
ADAM eats standing up, looking at the city through the window. His laptop is on the ground, already open. On the screen- “TOP CITIES TO LIVE IN YOUR 20S”. Adam’s phone buzzes.
TERESA: (Text) Hey Adam dinner tonight?
Adam reads it. He doesn’t reply. He continues scrolling as he faces his phone down.
ADAM: (Dismissive) I’ll reply later.
INT. APARTMENT. LATE AFTERNOON
ADAM is sitting against a pile of sealed cardboard boxes with ‘LIVING ROOM’ labelled. He is fixated on his computer screen. He scrolls through guides- “BEST APARTMENT PROPERTIES IN 2026”, “BEST SPACES TO LIVE IN CBD”.
ADAM: (Typing) Single bedroom apartment city centre available now.
A ray of light from the sunset hits his eyes. Adam winces and gets up to draw the blinds down. He returns to sitting on the floor.
Adam stares are the two results that popped up.
ADAM: (Sighs) Tomorrow. I’ll do it tomorrow.
Adam’s phone rings.
ADAM: (Picks up) Hey Teresa, what’s up.
TERESA (Over the phone) Adam, you haven’t been responding to my texts.
ADAM: (Hesitant) I’ve been…Unpacking.
Adam looks at the stacks of closed boxes, the blue plastic peel on his appliances, the pile of letters by his door.
TERESA: Oh okay, I’ll leave you to it. Call me when you’re free.
ADAM: Yeah got it. I’ll catch you later.
Adam looks at his phone, then at his laptop. Both devices are almost drained of battery.
INT. APARTMENT. NIGHT
The room is dimly lit by the laptop. Multiple tabs are open. Spreadsheets, budgets, apartment floor plans.
ADAM: (Types quickly) This should be fine. Oh wait, I need to change this.
VCE · Text Response
Text Response: We have always lived in the castle…
VCE Text Response essay scoring 85%: Introduction: Isolation is presented as a multifaceted experience within the gothic novella We have Always Lived In…
Introduction:
Isolation is presented as a multifaceted experience within the gothic novella We have Always Lived In The Castle by Shirley Jackson. Segregation possesses qualities that present it as both a threat as well as a form of protection to individuals. The sophisticated outlook of isolation is presented through the novella to occur as a result of wealth disparities and social class that precipitates cruelty. Positioning individuals in jeopardy to both physical and emotional harm. Masculine power is also a catalyst that intensifies isolation through authority within the domestic site. Patriarchal control was normalised in the 1950s , allowing men to ostracise women without guilt , creating an atmosphere of peril. Jackson , however portrays the rebellious nature of seclusion revealing it as a vessel for female power to retreat from male dominated systems opposing gender roles during the 1950s where women were expected to be conservative. Jackson constructs isolation as a threat to an extent affecting one's sustenance however revealing scope of ostracisation to be protective for vulnerable characters.
BP1:
Jackson presents variance in wealth and power as a major catalyst in implementing isolation accompanied with acts of cruelty and violence onto individuals in the society through cruelty and violence.The Blackwoods and the villagers revolve in a cycle of mutual hatred.This leads into Merricat's interactions with a number of villagers in the town when she goes shopping she recounts their “horrified little laugh” with disgust, this underscores how the villagers hardly attempt to cover up their dislike towards Merricat but also how Merricat interprets their cruel gestures to be of unkind nature. Jackson illustrates how Merricat's persistent exposure to trauma through social isolation/ ostracisation has left her tormented emotionally , stripping her away of security and making her vulnerable to danger at all times in her mind.
VCE · Text Response
Text Response: ‘While Born A Crime depicts hardship, it…
VCE Text Response essay scoring 85%: In the face of adversity, individuals often take different approaches to liberty that are ultimately influenced and…
In the face of adversity, individuals often take different approaches to liberty that are ultimately influenced and shaped by the world around them. In his 2016 memoir, ‘Born A Crime’, Trevor Noah seeks to explore how the dehumanizing system of Apartheid in South Africa played a significant role in how individuals of society carved their own pathways in overcoming hardships such as poverty, gender norms, and racial discrimination. In doing so, Noah explicitly uses humour and symbolism to highlight that ‘agency’ can be taken in the forms of resilience and navigation in response to the limitations of systemic oppression. Constrastingly, Noah juxtaposed the devastating consequences of oppressive systems when a person’s latent agency has been crushed, revealing that these consequences are cycles of violence that often mirror the very systems that subjugates society.
In a world where despair and suffering was prevalent, resilience was a necessity in order to navigate the restricted society of Apartheid. During the devastation of Apartheid, being a black female made the achievability of being free and the idea of living nearly impossible. However, Patricia Noah was a symbol of defiance that rejects all expectations of the oppressive rule. Throughout her childhood, she was abandoned by her family and was forced to navigate a cruel world that was designed to treat her like a ‘cow’. However, while the state was ‘perfecting its racism’, its oppressive laws actually acted inversely - Patricia used the system as a tool that made her stronger instead of weaker; emphasizing how unstable and disorganized the system was. Yet, despite her struggles, Patricia took on the role and strived to become a ‘freespirit’ who ‘didn’t care about anyone, or anything’; whether it was having to jump out of a moving bus to survive or laughing off being shot in the head, Patricia aimed to persevere through it all. Noah’s encouraging descriptions of his mother provide readers with a sense of how truly defiant and strong Patricia was, ‘My mother showed me what was possible.’ Additionally, Noah predisposed readers in his very first descriptions of his mother, labelling her as a ‘rebel’, promoting the illusion of a fearless character who absolutely refuses to go down under oppressive pressure. Interestingly, throughout the book, we can also observe that Patricia’s resilience is also deeply rooted to her faith in God, ‘Without God, who am I?’ Ultimately emphasizing how being faithful to God - or anything else at that matter - such as one’s own capabilities, was a significant factor in overcoming a system that has failed society.
VCE · Text Response
Text Response: ‘...if I can’t conform in one area of…
VCE Text Response essay scoring 87.5%: In restrictive societies, external and internal forces clash for supremacy over one’s psyche. In early 19th…
In restrictive societies, external and internal forces clash for supremacy over one’s psyche. In early 19th century Britain, defined by institutional constraints, Barker explores the interaction between societal power and individual conscience to define how one presents themselves to the world. In a period defined by stifling gender expectations, Barker illustrates the tension between institutional norms and individual expression. She also explores the conflict between societal notions of duty and individual morality, and the influence of institutional power over one’s conscience through the inducement of shame.
Throughout Regeneration, Pat Barker illustrates the conflict between expression and norms in a society defined by strict gender expectations. Across parallel treatment scenes, Barker highlights the commonplace nature of this conflict, with multiple characters grappling with a need for emotional expression and societal conditioning prohibiting them from doing so. Through endorsing emotional expression, Rivers inadvertently creates the internal conflict of expression within where acknowledging the acceptability of emotional expression sets them ‘against the whole tenor of their upbringing’. This underscores the degree to which institutional notions of gender are carried within one’s psyche, and the level of difficulty in promoting individual expression over societal norms. Societal dynamics around homosexuality are explored by Barker, with Siegfried and Graves deciding upon their expression in significantly different ways. Graves’ suppression of his ‘disgusting feelings’ points to a capitulation of individual conscience in the face of institutional stigma. Despite being ‘vulnerable’ Sassoon acknowledges he ‘can’t conform’ and refuses to alter his expression, representing a victory of conscience over societal norms. The marked differences between Sassoon and Graves are evident in an exploration by Barker of the different responses by homosexuals towards the conflict between their own expression and societal expectations. The changing role of women is explored throughout the novel, through Sarah Lumb and her friends. Their dialogue, delivered with informal and ‘rough’ modality, and their ‘boyish’ mannerisms, are evident of the newfound weakening of institutional power in confining them to ‘prettiness’ and ‘pliability’. Through Sarah and her friends, Barker explores the tension between expectations of womanhood and female conscience, suggesting a weakening of the former, allowing women to be led by the latter. Throughout Regeneration, Barker explores how societal gender expectations collide with individual expression, creating an internal conflict as to how to express oneself.
VCE · Creative Response
Creative Response: Stimulus 1 ‘You cannot swim for new…
VCE Creative Response essay scoring 87.5%: Leap of faith The noises of ‘fitting in’ drowned me. The BBQ felt like a chorus of forced laughter. Patties…
Leap of faith
The noises of ‘fitting in’ drowned me. The BBQ felt like a chorus of forced laughter. Patties were being flipped, and with every sizzle my anger grew.
“Yo manky, how long has it been since you washed that pump cover,” Jarred chuckled pretentiously.
I clenched my fists, trying not to stand up and knock jarred out at the mention of my newest nickname, instead like always I sat quietly accepting the inevitable. I knew what would happen if I tried fighting back, I would be left all alone.
I instinctively pulling at the oversized sleeves of my hoodie, further retreating into its comfort. I’d always thought a pump cover was something you’d use to hide a nice physique, but Jarred, in his usual fashion, had turned it into a mockery.
“Haha nice one dingus,” I said, in a irritable tone. My blood boiled. It was the ultimate sacrifice—my false sense of security for endless torment.
This was a never-ending story for me. Over the years I had grown accustomed to such ‘banter’. After years of being ridiculed. I thought “maybe this time it’ll be better”. Nevertheless, I was always proven wrong. Relentlessly, they would make fun of my body, my name, my hobbies and all I would do is simply retreat into my false sense of security—my pump cover.
I promised to stand up for myself every time, but like always I was too afraid, too afraid to trust myself.
I knew this wasn’t healthy but it felt like there was no way out.
The time was 3.30, the woody aroma from my perfume could be smelt a mile away. My pump cover slid down my back as I heard a knock on the door.
The rhythmic knock immediately gave away who was behind the door. As I went to go open the door I was met with Leo’s overbearing and joyful face.
“You ready to head off, Mankaran?”
“I’m ready” I said in a monotone voice.
Leo’s ushered me towards his car. He could tell something was wrong.
As I plonked down on the passenger seat I sank into my pit of despair. I tried pretending like nothing was wrong—but I knew, he could see through the flimsy walls I put up for others.
“You gonna tell me what’s wrong or do I gotta interrogate you CIA style?” said Leo jokingly
“Nothing,” I said.
“Nothing?”
“Yeah nothing”
“That’s absolute bullshit mate, have some faith in me”
“No, I promise there’s nothing wrong I’m just a bit tired or something”
“Look, if there’s anything I’ve learnt about you in the fourteen years we’ve known each other is when you bullshit me— so either you tell me what’s going on or I turn the car back around right now.”
“OKAY FINE—You really wanna know?”
“Yeah I really wanna know?” Leo exasperated.
“I’m tired of Jarred and the group”
“They make these jokes and think that it’s all ‘love’ but really they don’t give a shit about me—I don’t know what to do, I feel stuck but I don’t know how to get past this.”
“You think I don’t know this?” Leo said annoyingly
“I’ve been knowing this since the start, I’ve just been waiting for you to come to the same realisation.”
“You’ve gotta stop letting those douchebags get the better of you.”
“You need to understand that you don’t need them.”
“That false sense of ‘acceptance’ you feel every time they include you in activities is nothing but a ploy to make sure their entertainment does not leave.”
“You KNOW what your potential is, you KNOW you deserve better than whatever fake sense of acceptance these douchebags give you.”
“Stop letting them win—leave them in the past and never look back.”
“I get what your saying but its not that simple”—Ching, my phone interrupted.
“Who is it?” asked Leo as he glanced over trying to see into my phone.
“It’s jarred asking how much longer till we get there”
“what are you going to say?” asked Leo hoping that something was understood by my thick skull.
“Im gonna text him, we’re 5 minutes away”
Leo let out a deep sigh.
I could feel the disappointment in the air.
Leo’s face went black as my mind raced.
“Is Leo right?”
“Do I need this false sense of acceptance?”
“Am I better off just focusing on myself?”
All these unanswered questions drilled deep into my skull.
VCE · Creative Response
Creative Response: “People tend to forget that play is…
VCE Creative Response essay scoring 90%: They told us to stop playing and start being serious. I spent thirteen years trying to work out what that meant…
They told us to stop playing and start being serious. I spent thirteen years trying to work out what that meant — and I'm still not sure they were right.
I want to tell you about a moment from Year 7. It was lunchtime, and a group of us had decided — for reasons that made complete sense at the time — to build a city out of milk cartons behind the science block. We had zoning laws. We had a mayor. We argued for twenty minutes about whether the library should go near the oval. We weren't doing anything useful. We weren't preparing for anything. And it was, I think, one of the most genuinely intelligent things I did in six years of secondary school.
Because we were practising something that no class explicitly taught us: how to make something from nothing, how to negotiate, how to care about an idea enough to defend it. We just didn't call it that. We called it playing.
We came into this world knowing nothing but play. We learned language through it, learned trust through it, learned who we were through it. And then, somewhere along the way, we were handed a timetable and told that was over. Today, as we leave, I want to ask: what if it never had to be?
Consider what it actually means to play. It means attempting something with no guarantee of success. It means building the tower, and then — deliberately — knocking it down, just to see if you can build it higher next time. Every scientist who has ever changed the world did so by playing: by asking what if, by refusing to accept that the answer was already known.
We talk about 'the real world' as if it is a place that exists beyond the classroom gates — serious, unforgiving, certain. But the real world, if we are honest, is nothing but an elaborate game whose rules keep changing. The people who thrive in it are not the ones who stopped playing. They are the ones who never forgot how.
VCE · Creative Response
Creative Response: “People tend to forget that play is…
VCE Creative Response essay scoring 80%: They told us to stop playing and start being serious. I spent thirteen years trying to work out what that meant…
They told us to stop playing and start being serious. I spent thirteen years trying to work out what that meant — and I'm still not sure they were right.
We came into this world knowing nothing but play. We learned language through it, learned trust through it, learned who we were through it. And then, somewhere along the way, we were handed a timetable and told that was over. Today, as we leave, I want to ask: what if it never had to be?"
Consider what it actually means to play. It means attempting something with no guarantee of success. It means building the tower, and then — deliberately — knocking it down, just to see if you can build it higher next time. Every scientist who has ever changed the world did so by playing: by asking what if, by refusing to accept that the answer was already known.
We talk about 'the real world' as if it is a place that exists beyond the classroom gates — serious, unforgiving, certain. But the real world, if we are honest, is nothing but an elaborate game whose rules keep changing. The people who thrive in it are not the ones who stopped playing. They are the ones who never forgot how.
VCE · Creative Response
Creative Response: Mentor text: "The Yellow Wallpaper".…
VCE Creative Response essay scoring 85%: It’s happening again. I look away for one second. And it appears. I look away for one second. And my head…
It’s happening again.
I look away for one second. And it appears.
I look away for one second. And my head splits.
Shaking. Rumbling. As if in a rage.
Not a rage of fury, but a rage of knowledge.
It feels like I know everything. And yet nothing at all.
I don’t remember how long I’ve been here for.
Days have blended into one.
What a cliche for someone like me!
I wish I could see myself. And even though I can’t, I know what I look like.
My swollen, bloodshot eyes. Eyes. How they compel me!
It happens again.
I look at it. I look away. I can’t.
There’s a pattern in the yellow. There has always been a pattern. I see it in the way you see a face in the bark of a tree.
And then the bark becomes just bark again.
Only now, the pattern is not a face. It is more like -
More like a form of grammar. A logic beneath the surface, and the longer I follow one strand of it, the more I understand that I am not reading it so much as being read by it.
VCE · Creative Response
Creative Response: Framework: play Title: ‘Life is a…
VCE Creative Response essay scoring 75%: Life is a Game Red dirt kicked up from underneath my tires, coating not only my ute but my forearm resting out…
Life is a Game
Red dirt kicked up from underneath my tires, coating not only my ute but my forearm resting out the window in the red dust I had known too well. The gum trees along the road appeared as they always had withered, thirsty yet sturdy and resilient. The road was almost identical to the last time I had been on it. Lost behind years of the opening of train doors and the scurry of commuters, the distant memory of the property I was pulling into flooded back. Pushing the gate open, the squeak that filled my childhood years was just the same. However that seemed about it. The patio had caved in. Gone. The cricket pitch Dad and I had worn into the ground and yet adored so much was now overgrown with invasive wild shrubbery. The makeshift cricket bat my Dad made out of a plank of wood was nowhere to be seen. The times where we had to hand make our toys came flooding back; makeshift balls, bats, stumps. That was the only time I truly felt like myself, when my brother, Father and I would play cricket. Everything else seemed to immediately disappear. All gone. The windows were boarded and the door falling off the hinges almost as if it had nothing left to protect. No sign of life. Nothing. Just still, stale air.
VCE · Creative Response
Creative Response: Considering a challenge in your own…
VCE Creative Response essay scoring 70%: It’s dark. The frisk, unsettling air quietly gathered around me as it inched slower underneath my hidden…
It’s dark. The frisk, unsettling air quietly gathered around me as it inched slower underneath my hidden warmth. Cold air clung onto my face and sucked out all the heat from it. It felt uneasy. Unexpectedly, a screech from outside pierced my ears. It sounded so … lifeless and ominous.I peeked out my window, struggling to figure what monstrosity created such forbidding noise.
And there it was. Camouflaged behind the tree’s shadow’s like it was its shadow. The menacing creature stared at me. It seemed like the light died down where the bird stood still. Its claws-razor sharp, tightly digging in the tree to stay straight. Its feather seemed straight out of the darkness of a black hole and all light seemed to disappear near it.
“What the hell” as I thought to myself.
My room door was slammed open.
“Wake up! I am not going to drop you if you do not get ready on time!” yelled my mum. And then for the next few minutes she lectured me on how I should “set a bloody alarm”.
“Ugh I hate you so much. Stop lecturing me just because I forgot once!”. Her eyes widened and then she stomped out of the room.
I look back outside, at the tree however there is no evidence of the bird. It had disappeared. The sky looked so mundane and gray, as if someone had drowned it with a harrowing pain and suffering . The clouds suffocated the sun as only a handful rays of sunshine pierced through the wall of clouds. What a great way to start a day.
I rushed to get ready, shoving my books and laptop in my backpack in one hand while juggling my ironed uniform in the other. As I walking out my front door to my car, I caught a glimpse of something unusual.
My mother loved plants. She poured her whole heart into nursing them rather than on me. Everyday when leaving, they sparked like diamonds with their ruby red petals. However, today it was different. One of the petals had disappeared from the stem. Instead it laid lifeless on the floor, without its colour.
I shrugged it off.
I opened the car door and stood in front of the gates. The clouds had now fully choked out the sun as there were no signs of the sunrays. I ignored it and entered the gates and I gripped my backpack for another day of pain and struggle.
VCE · Creative Response
Creative Response: write about death as the end of a…
VCE Creative Response essay scoring 72.5%: “When you stop expecting people to be perfect, you can like them for who they are.” - Donald Miller
“When you stop expecting people to be perfect, you can like them for who they are.” - Donald Miller
VCE · Text Response
Text Response: ‘...if I can’t conform in one area of…
VCE Text Response essay scoring 87.5%: In restrictive societies, external and internal forces clash for supremacy over one’s psyche. In early 19th…
In restrictive societies, external and internal forces clash for supremacy over one’s psyche. In early 19th century Britain, defined by institutional constraints, Barker explores the interaction between societal power and individual conscience to define how one presents themselves to the world. In a period defined by stifling gender expectations, Barker illustrates the tension between institutional norms and individual expression. She also explores the conflict between societal notions of duty and individual morality, and the influence of institutional power over one’s conscience through the inducement of shame.
Throughout Regeneration, Pat Barker illustrates the conflict between expression and norms in a society defined by strict gender expectations. Across parallel treatment scenes, Barker highlights the commonplace nature of this conflict, with multiple characters grappling with a need for emotional expression and societal conditioning prohibiting them from doing so. Through endorsing emotional expression, Rivers inadvertently creates the internal conflict of expression within where acknowledging the acceptability of emotional expression sets them ‘against the whole tenor of their upbringing’. This underscores the degree to which institutional notions of gender are carried within one’s psyche, and the level of difficulty in promoting individual expression over societal norms. Societal dynamics around homosexuality are explored by Barker, with Siegfried and Graves deciding upon their expression in significantly different ways. Graves’ suppression of his ‘disgusting feelings’ point to a capitulation of individual conscience in the face of institutional stigma. Despite being ‘vulnerable’ Sassoon acknowledges he ‘can’t conform’ and refuses to alter his expression, representing a victory of conscience over societal norms. The marked differences between Sassoon and Graves are evident in an exploration by Barker of the different responses by homosexuals towards the conflict between their own expression and societal expectations. The changing role of women is explored throughout the novel, through Sarah Lumb and her friends. Their dialogue, delivered with informal and ‘rough’ modality, and their ‘boyish’ mannerisms, are evident of the newfound weakening of institutional power in confining them to ‘prettiness’ and ‘pliability’. Through Sarah and her friends, Barker explores the tension between expectations of womanhood and female conscience, suggesting a weakening of the former, allowing women to be led by the latter. Throughout Regeneration, Barker explores how societal gender expectations collide with individual expression, creating an internal conflict as to how to express oneself.
VCE · Creative Response
Creative Response: To create a 700-900 word written piece…
VCE Creative Response essay scoring 87.5%: I want you all to look behind me. Look at that building. They call it the "People's House.” It is supposed to…
I want you all to look behind me. Look at that building. They call it the "People's House.” It is supposed to be a symbol of the American Dream, the ethos that anyone in the U.S., regardless of background, can achieve upward mobility, prosperity, and a better life through hard work, determination, and initiative.
Yet three weeks ago, I was standing in a security line at Dulles Airport, just a few miles from where we stand now. I was just trying to get home for my cousin's wedding. But while everyone else walked through the scanners, I was pulled aside. Again. I stood there for twenty minutes while a stranger in a uniform went through my luggage piece by piece. They looked through my clothes, my books and my prayer beads. They treated my body like a threat and my heritage like a problem to be solved. They checked everything because they were looking for a danger that wasn't there.
As I stood there humiliated in that sterile terminal, I couldn't stop thinking about the irony of this moment. Our government will spend 20 minutes meticulously profiling a 20-year-old student but they won’t check the power of the man inside that White House to drop a 12 billion dollar bomb on a country half a world away. Is this the “land of the free” we were promised? They check my bag for a threat, while they provide the missiles that pose a threat to so many people there.
My name is Khadija Muhammad. I have Iranian blood, but I am a daughter of this Republic. I grew up here, just like you. I pledged allegiance to the same flag. I dreamed the same dreams. But I look out at you, and I don't see a threat. I see the heart of this Republic. I see the doctors, the teachers, the students, and the voters who refuse to be silenced. I see your hands weathered and cold gripped tight around those plastic megaphones. I see your grip on those plywood boards. And I can read your words from here
They say: ‘No Kings in a Republic.’ They say: ‘Dissent is Patriotism.’ They say: ‘My Heritage is Not Your Battlefield.’
VCE · Creative Response
Creative Response: Stories of the untold: Stimulus 1:…
VCE Creative Response essay scoring 85%: Stories of the Untold There was a quote I heard from renowned author Lloyd Alexander. He stated … “the journey…
Stories of the Untold
There was a quote I heard from renowned author Lloyd Alexander.
He stated … “the journey is the treasure”
We all go through life collecting stories, where some are told and others are kept deep in the chambers of one's heart, never to be forgotten.
For me that story was about self-discovery and finding a purpose in life.
And today is the day, where the chamber’s gates get unlocked to reveal a story so you can write yours.
This story is mine.
A story of a boy…
Who found light in dark.
Stood ground against cruel world.
And filled an empty soul.
My life was mindless and hollow from the inside. It was like driftwood, simply carried by the current of the sea, bobbing aimlessly washed up on a shore it didn’t choose to be in.
Nothing changes… You walk the same streets, sit in the same classroom, talk to the same people, life is plain, bored…… Ordinary.
But then something forces you to stop. A spark.
For me, that spark wasn’t dramatic. It wasn’t a cinematic turning point. It was realisation. Simple, uncomfortable and impossible to ignore.
Every single person will experience the same two events.
We live.
And we die.
Right now, you would be asking what living and dying got to do with my journey of self-discovery?
Well around the age of fourteen when I was an ‘empty shell’ I was lying in bed sinking my bottom in the plushness of the mattress, with my spine shaped across the fabric headboard. My laptop on my thighs acting as a fireless fireplace playing an anime.
The anime was about a boy who transforms from an innocent and cheerful child into a ragefilled, vengeance-seeking elite viking warrior obsessed with avenging the murder of his father. Following many struggles such as slavery, trauma and the loss of his purpose during his infamous child soldier arc. He matures into a thoughtful young man, seeking to establish a peaceful, non-violent colony, embodying and restoring his father’s will and pride of being a “true warrior”.
Why is this relevant?
It’s relevant, because it highlights the importance of finding purpose. It provides real-world insight that challenges are always going to come, its your job to stay steadfast to overcome them in order to write your story.
But what stuck with me the most from watching this anime was he understood the meaning of life and death, which led him to finding his purpose.
I still remember when he quoted.
“Why do we have to fear death? Do we live because we don’t want to die? Does anything good come from being alive?”
As soon as he finished saying that, everything froze, time stopped. Suddenly, my heart rate increased, the feeling was unexplainable. It was like a butterfly breaking through cacoon.
Rebirth.
VCE · Creative Response
Creative Response: The prompt was to create a short…
VCE Creative Response essay scoring 87.5%: The doctor's words were a frost that chilled my life. They settled into the corners of the living room, f…
The doctor's words were a frost that chilled my life. They settled into the corners of the living room, f turning the air hard in my chest. The role I had begun to find an odd comfort in felt as though it were being ripped away, usurped by a shadow I could not yet name. Like a family tree wilting, the bark was falling off to uncover their raw, newfound dynamic of carer and cared for.
This sickness is the most malevolent thing to be placed upon this family. I've watched my father over the past two months since the diagnosis,a t stage one; he still holds his glass like a man who owns his body, though those hinges rusting, I know the trust. The doors have begun to stick. As if the metal is faltering with my fathers tears caused byt his loss.. I first blamed him for getting sick. Ruge bubbled at every favor asked; helping him to bed, cooking dinner, and even the simple act of passing his water.
Yet, I found a sense of self through these tasks uncovering a maternal instinct where the act of giving grew into accomplishment. I became the sole architect of his care. But people subconsciously send out sos signals in times of need, a call to anything willing to listen. In desperation, a man will take any aid given, even from the earth itself.
The graden has begun to answer him
I noticed it first at the edges. The ivy on the walls, creeping up with an intentionality unfit to the season, its vines finding the windowsill like fingers seeking a steady grip. The old elm shunned into the corner of the yard, casting a shadow at an angle uncorrelated to the time of day. I have stood with my back towards the trunk, squinting at the sky, trying to understand it. The shadow falls where it chooses, offering no explanation.
He spends hours out there now. On his good days, he moves between the beds with a tender authority. On his bad days, he simply stands on the terrace, overlooking the garden, his face wearing a mask of solemnity. When I ask what he sees, he simply tells me “nothing”. Though I have learnt that his nothings are heavy with somethings now. Silence not as a dismissal, but as a wall.
Inside, I flail for the territory of his care. Scrubbing with intent until the ceramic gleams, trying to wash away the metallic scent of his tremors, though the air has been shifting. The scent of amber and wood being choked out by something more earthy and mineral, the scent of wet stone and mildew. The floorboard outside his bedroom, the one I have spent my youth on learning to avoid, has vanished, no desperate shriek, unnervingly silent. I stepped on it today, bracing for the noise, but it responded with nothing. It has been silenced, familiarity in this house continuously diminishing.
VCE · Creative Response
Creative Response: Considering a challenge in your own…
VCE Creative Response essay scoring 70%: It’s dark. The frisk, unsettling air quietly gathered around me as it inched slower underneath my hidden…
It’s dark. The frisk, unsettling air quietly gathered around me as it inched slower underneath my hidden warmth. Cold air clinged to my face and sucked out all the heat from it. It felt uneasy. Unexpectedly, a screech from outside pierced my ears. It sounded so … lifeless and ominous.I peeked out my window, struggling to figure what monstrosity created such forbidding noise.
And there it was. Camouflaged behind the tree’s shadow’s like it was its shadow. The menacing creature stared at me. It seemed like the light died down where the bird stood still. Its claws are razor sharp, tightly digging in the tree to stay straight. Its feather seemed straight out of the darkness of a black hole and all light seemed to disappear near it.
“What the hell” as I thought to myself.
My room door was slammed open.
“Wake up! I am not going to drop you if you do not get ready on time!” yelled my mum. And then for the next few minutes she lectured me on how I should “set a bloody alarm”.
“Ugh I hate you so much. Stop lecturing me just because I forgot once!”. Her eyes widened and then she stomped out of the room.
I look back outside, at the tree however there is no evidence of the bird. It had disappeared. The sky looked so mundane and gray, as if someone had drowned it with a harrowing pain and suffering . The clouds suffocated the sun as only a handful rays of sunshine pierced through the wall of clouds. What a great way to start a day.
I hurriedly got ready, bunching my stationeries and laptop in my backpack in one hand while juggling my ironed uniform in the other. Walking out my front door to my car, I caught a glimpse of something unusual.
My mother loved plants. She poured her whole heart into nursing them rather than on me. Everyday when leaving, they sparked like diamonds with their ruby red petals. However, today it was different. One of the petals had disappeared from the stem. Instead it laid lifeless on the floor, without its colour.
I shrugged it off.
I opened the car door and stood in front of the gates. The clouds had now fully choked out the sun as there were no signs of the sunrays. I ignored it and entered the gates and I gripped my backpack for another day of pain and struggle.
VCE · Creative Response
Creative Response: Do friends or family have more…
VCE Creative Response essay scoring 90%: The influence of a person’s family unit and peer group is not mutually exclusive. The debate over whether a…
The influence of a person’s family unit and peer group is not mutually exclusive. The debate over whether a child’s development is influenced more by their friendships or parental guidance presents a false dichotomy, inaccurately placing one over the other. A young person’s maturation is not a tug-of-war between competing forces, but rather an interconnected dynamic between two sides of the same coin. Family provides the foundation for behavioural patterns, attitudes and values, shaping our self-identity, emotional resilience and social skills. On the other hand, friends provide a more relevant space for identity experimentation—exploring social hierarchies, intimacy, and conflict resolution away from the watchful gaze of their ‘authority figure’. Ultimately, to achieve a healthy transition into adulthood, an adolescent requires both the predictability and safe harbour of familial guidance and the challenging relevance of peer influence. One cannot truly grow without the anchor of the former, nor the exploration of the latter.
Picture this. You’re 12 years old—your best friend, your entire life has been your mother. Everything she knows to be true, you know to be true. Everything you experience, she can recite back to you. She is your entire world—she had to be your entire world. You’ve had a few friends, but ultimately, the one you solely turn to for guidance is her. That comfort and familial guidance protect you from the uncertainties of the outside world. However, as you enter high school, start your first period, and begin to make new friends, your relationship with her shifts. She can no longer recite every part of your life. You no longer know everything that she knows to be true. More frequently, you start turning to your friends for guidance, exploring intimacy, leadership skills, and acceptable behaviours with them. It’s not that you hate your mother. It’s not that you don’t trust her. But she can’t teach you how to navigate the qualms of the modern-day adolescence period.
VCE · Creative Response
Creative Response: Task: explore the idea of the…
VCE Creative Response essay scoring 90%: This Australian Life Episode 1 – The Australian Identity Dan Chadwick: Welcome to the very first episode of…
This Australian Life
Episode 1 – The Australian Identity
Dan Chadwick: Welcome to the very first episode of This Australian Life where we discover how the multifaceted nature of the Australian identity shapes who we are today.
This week, our contributors were posed with the question – what does it mean to be Australian?
In today’s episode of This Australian Life, we explore the quintessential aspects of the Australian identity – harmony, diversity, egalitarianism and everything in between.
First up is Rayanna, a contributor from the regional city of Ballarat who paints an evocative picture of the unwavering presence of an antipodean staple in her childhood. The iconic fairy bread.
Act 1 – My Life as an Avid Fairy Bread Lover
BACKGROUND MUSIC OF THE NUTBUSH PLAYING SOFTLY OVER THE COLES SUPERMARKET LOUDSPEAKERS
Rayanna: Leisurely strolling down the aisles of my local Coles supermarket, I found my gaze veering towards the hundreds and thousands displayed on the wide shelves. In response to this sighting, nostalgia pierced through my heart as I reminisced savouring the quintessential Aussie snack – fairy bread- during my playful days as an innocent, young child. Every single time I devoured this antipodean delicacy, buttery smiles and wide grins with bits of sprinkles stuck between teeth would fill the room, filling me with pure happiness. When making fairy bread at home, I distinctly remember the scowling look on my mum’s face when I demanded her to make more fairy bread – probably more than what she could handle.
FLACKBACK TO CHILDHOOD
Rayanna: Mmmm… so yummy! Mum, make me more!
Mum: Oh c’mon. You’ve already had so many already! You are genuinely munching fairy bread down like an absolute monster! Take a bloody break! And would you wipe your mouth for god’s sake- you have sprinkles all over your face! What kind of child did I give birth to?
Rayanna: Hehe… make me more!
Mum: Fine you little rascal.
FLASHBACK ENDS
Rayanna: And so, this easy-to-make homemade snack surely was a fan-favourite amongst all Aussies and definitely had a ubiquitous presence in my childhood. I often found myself gobbling it down simply everywhere I went – at home, school or even at my favourite park!
MUSIC ENDS
Dan: Wow… seems like you really enjoy eating fairy bread.
Rayanna: Yeah mate, I sure do.
Dan: Would you mind sharing with our listeners the moment when you realised your profound love for fairy bread?
Rayanna: I vividly remember the very first time I was granted the heavenly experience of taking my first-ever bite of fairy bread. It was when I attended my best mate’s birthday party.
BACKGROUND NOISE OF YOUNG CHILDREN CHATTING
VCE · Creative Response
Creative Response: A person walks down a trail they have…
VCE Creative Response essay scoring 70%: It was a tranquil trail. The path, paved by eroded pebbles and unkept shrubs, a testament to the years left…
It was a tranquil trail. The path, paved by eroded pebbles and unkept shrubs, a testament to the years left neglected and forgotten. From a distance, I hear the aubade of the early birds. I stop myself dead in my tracks, allowing myself to bask in the sun’s ethereal morning glaze as the sky divided into the hues of dawn.
A saturated fuchsia splashed first upon the canvas, a bright orange — the colour of fresh marmalade, following soon after. Within an instant, the moon had been erased, like a shooting star which had lost its glow.
The air, wafting with the scent of petrichor, as the buds of the morning glories began to blossom.
I decide to get back on track, strolling through the peaceful path. Eager to see what other sights dwelled beyond the overhanging branches of cedar trees and lush foliage. I skipped along the path, embracing the long forgotten feeling of naivety, the charm of childish innocence which blinded me with rose-coloured glasses.
VCE · Creative Response
Creative Response: knowledge vs ignorance the soceity on…
VCE Creative Response essay scoring 75%: A society which takes pride in ignorance, and disdains a passion for intelect. This society exists in the…
A society which takes pride in ignorance, and disdains a passion for intelect. This society exists in the dystopian novel 'Fahrenheit 451' and cognitive stimulation. The protagonist Guy Montag lives within this society, as a fire man, he goes through an identity crisis, after and finds himself questioning knowledge and ignorance. Ray Bradbury depicts a world where knowledge is perceived as an immense weakness and social decline. The society embodies ignorance and romantises obliviousness. It also prohibits and disdains those who seek knowledge, due to the auto cratic regime. This imulsifies itself into our world as the lack of passion for literature and cognitive thinking is prevelant vastly as well as the superiority of ignorance over knowledge.
VCE · Creative Response
Creative Response: This is a section B personal journeys…
VCE Creative Response essay scoring 85%: .
.
VCE · Creative Response
Creative Response: Write a speech about protest, with the…
VCE Creative Response essay scoring 100%: Namaste! Welcome to the Himalayas, home to the highest summit in the world. Enjoy our unparalleled views above…
Namaste! Welcome to the Himalayas, home to the highest summit in the world. Enjoy our unparalleled views above the skies that will take your breath away! Tick off your bucket lists and complete a one-in-a-lifetime expedition!
But watch your step, you wouldn’t want to step on our skiddy slopes!
Or maybe the countless bodies buried by the snow. By our footsteps. Our selfishness.
By our determination! Take on our gruelling challenge and reach our 29035ft peak! Be one of the few to complete the mission and take the familiar routes guided by our own experienced and successful climbers! Your prize?
Bragging rights.
“But it’s worth it right?”
Wrong.
Every year, tourists and climbers trample on our beloved land. They pollute Sagarmatha and leave behind corpses, marking their territory and taking over our mountains. Our peaks. Paths are naturally formed from eroding footsteps. Trails of blood follow those who summit, clouded by no remorse. We stand above the world, yet we have never been lower. We look down from the peak of Sagarmatha, breathing through oxygen tanks, while the mountain holding us up suffocates under the weight of our pride.
Today, I am not here to celebrate a feat of human endurance, I am here to protest a massacre of our sacred land. I am here to demand that we stop treating our most prized natural wonder as a pathetic landfill.
Its image is often painted as a white, pristine, pure beauty, yet the truth is far from that. According to National Geographic, Mount Everest has become the “world’s highest garbage dump.” Since the first successful ascent in 1953, the surge in climbers has left behind a trail of wreckage. Tonnes of discarded oxygen tanks, tents, plastic, and even worse, human waste.
VCE · Creative Response
Creative Response: Write a speech about protest, with the…
VCE Creative Response essay scoring 95%: Namaste! Welcome to the Himalayas, home to the highest summit in the world. Enjoy our unparalleled views above…
Namaste! Welcome to the Himalayas, home to the highest summit in the world. Enjoy our unparalleled views above the skies that will take your breath away! Tick off your bucket lists and complete a one-in-a-lifetime expedition!
But watch your step, you wouldn’t want to step on our skiddy slopes!
Or maybe the countless bodies buried by the snow. By our footsteps. Our selfishness.
By our determination! Take on our gruelling challenge and reach our 29035ft peak! Be one of the few to complete the mission and take the familiar routes guided by our own experienced and successful climbers! Your prize?
Bragging rights.
“But it’s worth it right?”
Wrong.
Every year, tourists and climbers trample on our beloved land. They pollute Sagarmatha and leave behind corpses, marking their territory and taking over our mountains. Our peaks. Paths are naturally formed from eroding footsteps. Trails of blood follow those who summit, clouded by no remorse. We stand above the world, yet we have never been lower. We look down from the peak of Sagarmatha, breathing through oxygen tanks, while the mountain holding us up suffocates under the weight of our pride.
Today, I am not here to celebrate a feat of human endurance, I am here to protest a massacre of our sacred land. I am here to demand that we stop treating our most prized natural wonder as a pathetic landfill.
Its image is often painted as a white, pristine, pure wilderness, yet the truth is far from that. According to National Geographic, Mount Everest has become the “world’s highest garbage dump.” Since the first successful ascent in 1953, the surge in climbers has left behind a trail of wreckage. Tonnes of discarded oxygen tanks, tents, plastic, and even worse, human waste.
VCE · Creative Response
Creative Response: Write a speech about protest, with the…
VCE Creative Response essay scoring 85%: Namaste! Welcome to the Himalayas, home to the highest summit in the world. Enjoy our unparalleled views above…
Namaste! Welcome to the Himalayas, home to the highest summit in the world. Enjoy our unparalleled views above the skies that will take your breath away! Tick off your bucket lists and complete a one-in-a-lifetime expedition!
But watch your step, you wouldn’t want to step on our skiddy slopes!
Or maybe the countless bodies buried by the snow. By our footsteps. Our selfishness.
By our determination! Take on our gruelling challenge and reach our 29035ft peak! Be one of the few to complete the mission and take the familiar routes guided by our own experienced and successful climbers! Your prize?
Bragging rights.
“But it’s worth it right?”
Wrong.
Every year, tourists and climbers trample on our beloved land. They pollute Sagarmatha and leave behind corpses, marking their territory and taking over our mountains. Our peaks. Paths are naturally formed from eroding footsteps. Trails of blood follow those who summit, clouded by no remorse. We stand above the world, yet we have never been lower. We look down from the peak of Sagarmatha, breathing through oxygen tanks, while the mountain holding us up suffocates under the weight of our pride.
Today, I am not here to celebrate a feat of human endurance, I am here to protest a massacre of our sacred land. I am here to demand that we stop treating out most prized natural wonder as a pathetic landfill.
Its image is often painted as a white, pristine, pure wilderness, yet the truth is far from that. According to National Geographic, Mount Everest has become the “world’s highest garbage dump.” Since the first successful ascent in 1953, the surge in climbers has left behind a trail of wreckage. Tonnes of discarded oxygen tanks, tents, plastic, and even worse, human waste.