VCE · Creative Response
Creative Response: picking up the pieces
VCE Creative Response essay scoring 85%: The front door closed behind me with its usual long creak, and I stopped in the hallway for a moment, letting…
The front door closed behind me with its usual long creak, and I stopped in the hallway for a moment, letting the weight of my backpack drag against my shoulders. The straps had rubbed the skin near my neck raw during the walk home. My spine ached. My shirt clung damply to my back beneath the blazer.
The house smelled the same gut-wrenching smell it's always been.
Stale beer. Damp plaster. Boiled cabbage left too long in a pot somewhere. The air sat heavily in the hallway without moving, thick enough to taste. Wallpaper peeled away from the walls in curling strips, exposing cracks underneath that stretched toward the ceiling like spreading veins. Near the skirting boards, the plaster had swollen from water damage and crumbled into soft grey dust.
I nudged the front door shut properly with my heel.
From the living room came the low murmur of voices.
Not loud yet.
I slipped off my shoes beside the staircase and moved carefully through the hallway. Old newspapers leaned in unstable towers against the wall. Empty bottles crowded the side table near the kitchen door. Somewhere upstairs a tap dripped steadily into a sink.
The kitchen light buzzed faintly overhead.
The sink was full again.
Cloudy water sat beneath a slick layer of grease. Soggy cereal floated near the drain beside scraps of onion skin and pale ribbons of fat. A plate balanced precariously against the faucet. Another cup sat overturned in the water like something drowned.
I rolled my sleeves up.
The water was lukewarm when I pushed my hands into it. Grease slid across my wrists. I scrubbed silently, listening to the voices in the next room through the wall.
I heard my father's voice first. Low. Tight. Each word clipped short.
Mum answered faster, her sentences running into each other as though she was trying to get everything out before he cut her off again.
A cupboard door slammed but I kept washing.
The plates clinked softly against each other in the sink. Water dripped from my elbows onto the floorboards. Behind me, the fridge motor rattled unevenly, coughing every few seconds like it was struggling to stay alive.
The voices sharpened.
“You always do this—”
“Oh, and you don’t?”
“You think I don’t notice?”
A chair scraped violently across the floor.
I dried one plate. Then reached for another.
VCE · Text Response
Text Response: Belonging to more than one community…
VCE Text Response essay scoring 70%: ‘The hate U Give’, a novel written by Angie Thomas reflects on Starr’s experience with dichotomy, shifting from her…
‘The hate U Give’, a novel written by Angie Thomas reflects on Starr’s experience with dichotomy, shifting from her life in Garden Heights, where people are in gangs, sell drugs, abuse them, and gun violence is prominent. Her linguistics change as she goes to her prep school far away from her home, being predominantly white, and rich. After Starr’s best friend Khalil was shot, she tried to keep it from her friends in Williamson, yet this caused more conflict with Starr in the end. Her code switching had also made her friends in Garden Heights feel as though she’s ashamed of them. Starr trying to contrast these worlds had caused difficult desicions, with losing friends, lying to friends, and hiding a whole part of herself that isn’t her.
VCE · Text Response
Text Response: #PROMPT 77: "In The Help, the act of…
VCE Text Response essay scoring 100%: #PROMPT 77: "In The Help, the act of speaking truth is presented as liberating. To what extent do you agree?…
#PROMPT 77: "In The Help, the act of speaking truth is presented as liberating. To what extent do you agree? Discuss."
The belief that telling one's story is inherently freeing is among the most seductive ideas a culture can offer to those it has silenced. Tate Taylor's The Help (2011), set in 1960s Jackson, Mississippi, structures its entire narrative around the act of testimony, presenting the maids' decision to speak as the film's moral and emotional climax. To a significant degree, the film earns this framing: the testimony of women who have been rendered invisible by their social world carries genuine weight, and the act of recording their experience constitutes a real, if partial, defiance. Yet the film's account of liberation through voice is complicated at every turn by the question of whose voice is ultimately amplified, who controls the record, and what materially changes for those who spoke. Ultimately, The Help presents speaking truth as liberating in emotional terms while leaving its audience largely untroubled by the evidence that, for the women who took the greatest risks, language alone changed almost nothing.
The power of testimony is real, but it is never evenly distributed, and The Help understands this unevenly. Aibileen Clark's opening voiceover, "My name is Aibileen Clark. I'm a thirty-nine-year-old coloured woman. I was told to write two pages on my life. I don't know where to begin," is the film's most formally loaded moment. Taylor delivers it over a close-up of her hands before her face appears, establishing her first as labour and only then as a speaking subject, a sequence that encodes the world's hierarchy even in the act of introducing the woman who will narrate against it. The uncertainty of "I don't know where to begin" is not hesitation but history: a woman for whom the concept of her own story as a starting point is genuinely strange, because the world has never asked where she would choose to begin. Her voiceover grants her the formal position of narrator, which appears to confer authority, but voiceover is also a distancing technique, placing the speaker outside the action, commenting rather than acting. Aibileen narrates events she does not control and outcomes she does not determine. The typewriter on which she eventually records her testimony is the film's most honest symbol of this tension. Taylor frames it in close-up, the diegetic clatter of the keys the only sound on the track, emphasising that this liberation is physical labour before it is anything else. It transforms private endurance into public record and connects her to her son Treelore, whose ambition to write about the Black experience in the South was ended by his death. When Aibileen types, she completes what he began. But the book that results is published under another name, reaches an audience that finds it scandalous rather than actionable, and costs Aibileen her employment. The film presents her typewriter as liberation. It is also, precisely, the instrument through which her voice is mediated, recorded, and handed to someone else.
VCE · Text Response
Text Response: #PROMPT 77: "In The Help, the act of…
VCE Text Response essay scoring 90%: #PROMPT 77: "In The Help, the act of speaking truth is presented as liberating. To what extent do you agree?…
#PROMPT 77: "In The Help, the act of speaking truth is presented as liberating. To what extent do you agree? Discuss."
The belief that telling one's story is inherently freeing is among the most seductive ideas a culture can offer to those it has silenced. Tate Taylor's The Help (2011), set in 1960s Jackson, Mississippi, structures its entire narrative around the act of testimony, presenting the maids' decision to speak as the film's moral and emotional climax. To a significant degree, the film earns this framing: the testimony of women who have been rendered invisible by their social world carries genuine weight, and the act of recording their experience constitutes a real, if partial, defiance. Yet the film's account of liberation through voice is complicated at every turn by the question of whose voice is ultimately amplified, who controls the record, and what materially changes for those who spoke. Ultimately, The Help presents speaking truth as liberating in emotional terms while leaving its audience largely untroubled by the evidence that, for the women who took the greatest risks, language alone changed almost nothing.
The power of testimony is real, but it is never evenly distributed, and The Help understands this unevenly. Aibileen Clark's opening voiceover, "My name is Aibileen Clark. I'm a thirty-nine-year-old coloured woman. I was told to write two pages on my life. I don't know where to begin," is the film's most formally loaded moment. Taylor delivers it over a close-up of her hands before her face appears, establishing her first as labour and only then as a speaking subject, a sequence that encodes the world's hierarchy even in the act of introducing the woman who will narrate against it. The uncertainty of "I don't know where to begin" is not hesitation but history: a woman for whom the concept of her own story as a starting point is genuinely strange, because the world has never asked where she would choose to begin. Her voiceover grants her the formal position of narrator, which appears to confer authority, but voiceover is also a distancing technique, placing the speaker outside the action, commenting rather than acting. Aibileen narrates events she does not control and outcomes she does not determine. The typewriter on which she eventually records her testimony is the film's most honest symbol of this tension: it transforms private endurance into public record, and connects her to her son Treelore, whose ambition to write about the Black experience in the South was ended by his death. When Aibileen types, she completes what he began. But the book that results is published under another name, reaches an audience that finds it scandalous rather than actionable, and costs Aibileen her employment. The film presents her typewriter as liberation. It is also, precisely, the instrument through which her voice is mediated, recorded, and handed to someone else.
VCE · Language Analysis
Language Analysis: AFP slammed for turning…
VCE Language Analysis essay scoring 82.5%: Following a career marred by allegations of war crimes, Ben Roberts-Smith was arrested in a widely-publicised…
Following a career marred by allegations of war crimes, Ben Roberts-Smith was arrested in a widely-publicised affair in April. In an opinion piece for news.com.au (AFP slammed for turning Ben-Roberts-Smith into a media circus), Caleb Bond argues that the prosecution and publicised nature of the arrest of Ben Roberts-Smith is both purposeless and damaging. He directs this piece to a centre-right audience, inclined to be empathetic but also questioning of authority, with an intention of placing criticism on institutional motives in the Ben Roberts-Smith case therefore undermining audience support for the prosecution.
Bond’s first substantive criticises the prosecution of Ben Roberts-Smith as purposeless and damaging, encouraging the audience to discredit the legitimacy of the prosecution. Bond inaugurates his article by rhetorically questioning ‘why should the court have to rule on this in the first place’, directly addressing the reader and questioning their justification of the practical benefits of prosecuting Roberts-Smith, subtly shifting their position to skepticism of the prosecution. Bond pre-emptively shields his critique by conceding that shooting unarmed prisoners must not be ‘condoned, encouraged or allowed to become commonplace.’ The tricolon establishes moral credibility in order to reframe skepticism of the prosecution as principled rather than permissive. Bond shifts to criticism of the Roberts-Smith prosecution as impractical, stating that it ‘does nothing to help anyone’, and that it ‘will do nothing to prevent that kind of behaviour in the military’. Through repeated negation, Bond utilises the already-established rapport with his audience to build upon the prior forcing of audience questioning to encourage their conclusion of the prosecution’s purposelessness. This is reinforced through a second rhetorical question in, ‘So what?’, building on Bond’s earlier assertions of the prosecution’s limited gains, to encourage the audience to question whether, due to its apparent lack of purpose, the marginal benefit warrants the use of the courts. To conclude the article, Bond consummates his questioning of the prosecution with the assertion of it being a ‘trial for show’ to ‘prove that we don’t like war crimes’, aided by his positioning of the audience to question the purpose of the charges, therefore persuading them to see the prosecution through a politically-motivated, and therefore illegitimate, lens. Throughout the first substantive, Bond argues that the charges against Roberts-Smith are purposeless and without benefit, positioning the readership to criticism of the prosecution.
VCE · Text Response
Text Response: ‘In The Hate U Give, silenced voices…
VCE Text Response essay scoring 87.5%: In Angie Thomas’s young adult fiction, ‘The Hate U Give’ (2017), she explores the impact of a silenced voice to…
In Angie Thomas’s young adult fiction, ‘The Hate U Give’ (2017), she explores the impact of a silenced voice to prove the necessity of speaking out. She emphasises the impacts personal emotions can have in influencing decisions to stay silent, as well as how community unification of minorities can lead to large groups combining to ensure their voice has been heard. However, she also highlights how sometimes the voice isn’t enough to receive justice.
Thomas effectively explores the way a silenced voice can be the result of negative emotions. Initially, Starr seems to be unwilling to speak out about Khalil’s shooting, as she is fearful of her life and of the backlash she would receive. Kenya's simple assertion that Khalil “would’ve [spoken out] for you in a heartbeat” causes Starr immense anguish. The use of such simple wording and phrasing makes it clear to readers the type of person Khalil would’ve been had he not been killed. Thomas reveals through this sentence that Starr is feeling conflicted, as she doesn’t want to speak out but knows that it is the right thing she should do. Furthermore, the fear of the King Lords in Garden Heights is presented as a factor which silences the voices of residents of the community. After Mr Lewis challenges King, and he gets assaulted by the drug lords, Thomas produces the idea that “snitches get stitches doesn’t apply to King Lords. More like snitches get graves”. The play on the common idiom of “snitches get stitches” is used to resonate with the readers, as well as encompass how Starr must have had this fear from a young age. Furthermore, the use of a monosyllabic, negatively connotated “graves” – which ends in a harsh, blunt sound – provides a dark and ominous end to the sentence. Thomas reveals through this the reason Starr is so scared to speak out, in complement to the imagery of Mr Lewis’s bloody face. Fear, anguish and other negative emotions are shown to have a significant influence on silencing the voices of those within the community of Garden Heights.
VCE · Text Response
Text Response: ‘In The Hate U Give, silenced voices…
VCE Text Response essay scoring 87.5%: In Angie Thomas’s young adult fiction, ‘The Hate U Give’ (2017), she explores the impact of a silenced voice to…
In Angie Thomas’s young adult fiction, ‘The Hate U Give’ (2017), she explores the impact of a silenced voice to prove the necessity of speaking out. She emphasises the impacts personal emotions can have in influencing decisions to stay silent, as well as how community unification of minorities can lead to large groups combining to ensure their voice has been heard. However, she also highlights how sometimes the voice isn’t enough to receive justice.
Thomas effectively explores the way a silenced voice can be the result of negative emotions. Initially, Starr seems to be unwilling to speak out about Khalil’s shooting, as she is fearful of her life and of the backlash she would receive. Kenya's simple assertion that Khalil “would’ve [spoken out] for you in a heartbeat” causes Starr immense anguish. The use of such simple wording and phrasing makes it clear to readers the type of person Khalil would’ve been had he not been killed. Thomas reveals through this sentence that Starr is feeling conflicted, as she doesn’t want to speak out but knows that it is the right thing she should do. Furthermore, the fear of the King Lords in Garden Heights is presented as a factor which silences the voices of residents of the community. After Mr Lewis challenges King, and he gets assaulted by the drug lords, Thomas produces the idea that “snitches get stitches doesn’t apply to King Lords. More like snitches get graves”. The play on the common idiom of “snitches get stitches” is used to resonate with the readers, as well as encompass how Starr must have had this fear from a young age. Furthermore, the use of a monosyllabic, negatively connotated “graves” – which ends in a harsh, blunt sound – provides a dark and ominous end to the sentence. Thomas reveals through this the reason Starr is so scared to speak out, in complement to the imagery of Mr Lewis’s bloody face. Fear, anguish and other negative emotions are shown to have a significant influence on silencing the voices of those within the community of Garden Heights.
VCE · Text Response
Text Response: ‘In The Hate U Give, silenced voices…
VCE Text Response essay scoring 82.5%: In Angie Thomas’s young adult fiction, ‘The Hate U Give’ (2017), she explores the impact of a silenced voice to…
In Angie Thomas’s young adult fiction, ‘The Hate U Give’ (2017), she explores the impact of a silenced voice to prove the necessity of speaking out. She emphasises the impacts personal emotions can have in influencing decisions to stay silent, as well as how community unification of minorities can lead to large groups combining to ensure their voice has been heard. However, she also highlights how sometimes the voice isn’t enough to receive justice.
Thomas effectively explores the way a silenced voice can be the result of negative emotions. Initially, Starr seems to be unwilling to speak out about Khalil’s shooting, as she is fearful of her life and of the backlash she would receive. Kenya's simple assertion that Khalil “would’ve [spoken out] for you in a heartbeat” causes Starr immense anguish. The use of such simple wording and phrasing makes it clear to readers the type of person Khalil would’ve been had he not been killed. Thomas reveals through this sentence that Starr is feeling conflicted, as she doesn’t want to speak out but knows that it is the right thing she should do. Furthermore, the fear of the King Lords in Garden Heights is presented as a factor which silences the voices of residents of the community. After Mr Lewis challenges King, and he gets assaulted by the drug lords, Thomas produces the idea that “snitches get stitches doesn’t apply to King Lords. More like snitches get graves”. The play on the common idiom of “snitches get stitches” is used to resonate with the readers, as well as encompass how Starr must have had this fear from a young age. Furthermore, the use of a monosyllabic, negatively connotated “graves” – which ends in a harsh, blunt sound – provides a dark and ominous end to the sentence. Thomas reveals through this the reason Starr is so scared to speak out, in complement to the imagery of Mr Lewis’s bloody face. Fear, anguish and other negative emotions are shown to have a significant influence on silencing the voices of those within the community of Garden Heights.
VCE · Text Response
Text Response: ‘In The Hate U Give, silenced voices…
VCE Text Response essay scoring 82.5%: In Angie Thomas’s young adult fiction, ‘The Hate U Give’ (2017), she explores the impact of a silenced voice to…
In Angie Thomas’s young adult fiction, ‘The Hate U Give’ (2017), she explores the impact of a silenced voice to prove the necessity of speaking out. She emphasises the impacts personal emotions can have in influencing decisions to stay silent, as well as how community unification of minorities can lead to large groups combining to ensure their voice has been heard. However, she also highlights how sometimes the voice isn’t enough to receive justice.
Thomas effectively explores the way a silenced voice can be the result of negative emotions. Initially, Starr seems to be unwilling to speak out about Khalil’s shooting, as she is fearful of her life and of the backlash she would receive. Kenya's simple assertion that Khalil “would’ve [spoken out] for you in a heartbeat” causes Starr immense anguish. The use of such simple wording and phrasing makes it clear to readers the type of person Khalil would’ve been had he not been killed. Thomas reveals through this sentence that Starr is feeling conflicted, as she doesn’t want to speak out but knows that it is the right thing she should do. Furthermore, the fear of the King Lords in Garden Heights is presented as a factor which silences the voices of residents of the community. After Mr Lewis challenges King, and he gets assaulted by the drug lords, Thomas produces the idea that “snitches get stitches doesn’t apply to King Lords. More like snitches get graves”. The play on the common idiom of “snitches get stitches” is used to resonate with the readers, as well as encompass how Starr must have had this fear from a young age. Furthermore, the use of a monosyllabic, negatively connotated “graves” – which ends in a harsh, blunt sound – provides a dark and ominous end to the sentence. Thomas reveals through this the reason Starr is so scared to speak out, in complement to the imagery of Mr Lewis’s bloody face. Fear, anguish and other negative emotions are shown to have a significant influence on silencing the voices of those within the community of Garden Heights.
VCE · Text Response
Text Response: ‘In The Hate U Give, silenced voices…
VCE Text Response essay scoring 80%: In Angie Thomas’s young adult fiction, ‘The Hate U Give’ (2017), she explores the impact of a silenced voice to…
In Angie Thomas’s young adult fiction, ‘The Hate U Give’ (2017), she explores the impact of a silenced voice to prove the necessity of speaking out. She emphasises the impacts personal emotions can have in influencing decisions to stay silent, as well as how community unification of minorities can lead to large groups combining to ensure their voice has been heard. However, she also highlights how sometimes the voice isn’t enough to receive justice.
Thomas effectively explores the way a silenced voice can be the result of negative emotions. Initially, Starr seems to be unwilling to speak out about Khalil’s shooting, as she is fearful of her life and of the backlash she would receive. Kenya's simple assertion that Khalil “would’ve [spoken out] for you in a heartbeat” causes Starr immense anguish. The use of such simple wording and phrasing makes it clear to readers the type of person Khalil would’ve been had he not been killed. Thomas reveals through this sentence that Starr is feeling conflicted, as she doesn’t want to speak out but knows that it is the right thing she should do. Furthermore, the fear of the King Lords in Garden Heights is presented as a factor which silences the voices of residents of the community. After Mr Lewis challenges King, and he gets assaulted by the drug lords, Thomas produces the idea that “snitches get stitches doesn’t apply to King Lords. More like snitches get graves”. The play on the common idiom of “snitches get stitches” is used to resonate with the readers, as well as encompass how Starr must have had this fear from a young age. Furthermore, the use of a monosyllabic, negatively connotated “graves” – which ends in a harsh, blunt sound – provides a dark and ominous end to the sentence. Thomas reveals through this the reason Starr is so scared to speak out, in complement to the imagery of Mr Lewis’s bloody face. Fear, anguish and other negative emotions are shown to have a significant influence on silencing the voices of those within the community of Garden Heights.
VCE · Text Response
Text Response: ‘In The Hate U Give, silenced voices…
VCE Text Response essay scoring 77.5%: In Angie Thomas’s young adult fiction, ‘The Hate U Give’ (2017), she explores the impact of a silenced voice to…
In Angie Thomas’s young adult fiction, ‘The Hate U Give’ (2017), she explores the impact of a silenced voice to prove the necessity of speaking out. She emphasises the impacts personal emotions can have in influencing decisions to stay silent, as well as how community unification of minorities can lead to large groups combining to ensure their voice has been heard. However, she also highlights how sometimes the voice isn’t enough to receive justice.
Thomas effectively explores the way a silenced voice can be the result of negative emotions. Initially, Starr seems to be unwilling to speak out about Khalil’s shooting, as she is fearful of her life and of the backlash she would receive. Kenya's simple assertion that Khalil “would’ve [spoken out] for you in a heartbeat” causes Starr immense anguish. The use of such simple wording and phrasing makes it clear to readers the type of person Khalil would’ve been had he not been killed. Thomas reveals through this sentence that Starr is feeling conflicted, as she doesn’t want to speak out but knows that it is the right thing she should do. Furthermore, the fear of the King Lords in Garden Heights is presented as a factor which silences the voices of residents of the community. After Mr Lewis challenges King, and he gets assaulted by the drug lords, Thomas produces the idea that “snitches get stitches doesn’t apply to King Lords. More like snitches get graves”. The play on the common idiom of “snitches get stitches” is used to resonate with the readers, as well as encompass how Starr must have had this fear from a young age. Furthermore, the use of a monosyllabic, negatively connotated “graves” – which ends in a harsh, blunt sound – provides a dark and ominous end to the sentence. Thomas reveals through this the reason Starr is so scared to speak out, in complement to the imagery of Mr Lewis’s bloody face. Fear, anguish and other negative emotions are shown to have a significant influence on silencing the voices of those within the community of Garden Heights.
VCE · Text Response
Text Response: ‘In The Hate U Give, silenced voices…
VCE Text Response essay scoring 72.5%: In Angie Thomas’s young adult fiction, ‘The Hate U Give’ (2017), she explores the impact of a silenced voice to…
In Angie Thomas’s young adult fiction, ‘The Hate U Give’ (2017), she explores the impact of a silenced voice to prove the necessity of speaking out. She emphasises the impacts personal emotions can have in influencing decisions to stay silent, as well as how community unification of minorities can lead to large groups combining to ensure their voice has been heard. However, she also highlights how sometimes the voice isn’t enough to receive justice.
Thomas effectively explores the way a silenced voice can be the result of negative emotions. Initially, Starr seems to be unwilling to speak out about Khalil’s shooting, as she is fearful of her life and of the backlash she would receive. Thomas then reveals how “Khalil would’ve [spoken out] for you in a heartbeat”, which is simple sentence said by Kenya to Starr provides her with much anguish. The use of such simple wording and phrasing makes it clear to readers the type of person Khalil would’ve been had he not been killed. Thomas reveals through this sentence that Starr is feeling conflicted, as she doesn’t want to speak out but knows that it is the right thing she should do. Furthermore, the fear of the King Lords in Garden Heights is presented as a factor which silences the voices of residents of the community. After Mr Lewis challenges King, and he gets assaulted by the drug lords, Thomas produces the idea that “snitches get stitches doesn’t apply to King Lords. More like snitches get graves”. The play on the common idiom of “snitches get stitches” is used to resonate with the readers, as well as encompass how Starr must have had this fear from a young age. Furthermore, the use of a monosyllabic, negatively connotated “graves” – which ends in a harsh, blunt sound – provides a dark and ominous end to the sentence. Thomas reveals through this the reason Starr is so scared to speak out, in complement to the imagery of Mr Lewis’s bloody face. Fear, anguish and other negative emotions are shown to have a large impact on silencing the voices of those within the community of Garden Heights.
VCE · Text Response
Text Response: ‘In The Hate U Give, silenced voices…
VCE Text Response essay scoring 87.5%: In Angie Thomas’s young adult fiction, ‘The Hate U Give’ (2017), she explores the impact of a silenced voice to…
In Angie Thomas’s young adult fiction, ‘The Hate U Give’ (2017), she explores the impact of a silenced voice to prove the necessity of speaking out. She emphasises the impacts personal emotions can have in influencing decisions to stay silent, as well as how community unification of minorities can lead to large groups combining to ensure their voice has been heard. However, she also highlights how sometimes the voice isn’t enough to receive justice.
Thomas effectively explores the way a silenced voice can be the result of negative emotions. Initially, Starr seems to be unwilling to speak out about Khalil’s shooting, as she is fearful of her life and of the backlash she would receive. Thomas then reveals how “Khalil would’ve [spoken out] for you in a heartbeat”. This simple sentence said by Kenya to Starr provides her with much anguish. The use of such simple wording and phrasing makes it plain obvious to readers the type of person Khalil would’ve been had he not been killed. Thomas reveals through this sentence that Starr is feeling conflicted, as she doesn’t want to speak out but knows that it is the right thing she should do. Furthermore, the fear of the King Lords in Garden Heights is presented as a factor which silences the voices of residents of the community. After Mr Lewis challenges King, and he gets assaulted by the drug lords, Thomas produces the idea that “snitches get stitches doesn’t apply to King Lords. More like snitches get graves”. The play on the common idiom of “snitches get stitches” is used to reconcile with the readers, as well as encompass how Starr must have had this fear from a young age. Furthermore, the use of a monosyllabic, negatively connotated “graves” – which ends in a harsh, blunt sound – provides a dark and gloomy end to the sentence. Thomas reveals through this the reason Starr is so scared to speak out, in complement to the imagery of Mr Lewis’s bloody face. Fear, anguish and other negative emotions are shown to have a big impact on silencing the voices of those within the community of Garden Heights.
VCE · Creative Response
Creative Response: Title: “Becoming” Stimulus: “You are…
VCE Creative Response essay scoring 85%: For my personal creative response within the Framework of Personal Journeys, I chose to write a persuasive…
For my personal creative response within the Framework of Personal Journeys, I chose to write a persuasive essay exploring “becoming”, and the stimulus being “you are shaped by every choice you refuse to surrender”. The title and stimulus helped establish my contention that becoming isn’t a result of one’s own belief but of their choices, habits and decisions which they refused to surrender.
Exploring the complex web of the formation of "becoming" someone, I drew particularly on Helen Keller, who had experienced great struggles throughout her life. Yet through her daily habit of learning from her teacher, she became a prominent figure in women's rights and became the first deaf-blind person to receive a bachelor's degree.
VCE · Creative Response
Creative Response: Transformation
VCE Creative Response essay scoring 87.5%: Every Friday night, we end up at Tillie’s house. It used to feel unbreakable. Like nothing about it could…
Every Friday night, we end up at Tillie’s house.
It used to feel unbreakable. Like nothing about it could shift. Her mum’s pasta is always on the stove, the smell of it wrapping through the house. The couch is always too full, bodies pressed together without thinking twice about it. Laughter always spilling over itself. It wasn’t something we questioned. It just existed.
Now I walk there like I’m stepping into something I’ve already started to lose.
The door is open when I arrive. Music and laughter leak out into the night air before I even step inside.
“Hey,” I say, trying to sound like I still belong in the same rhythm.
There’s a pause. Small. Easy to miss. Hard to ignore.
“Hey, Jaz,” Tillie says without really looking up.
I sit anyway. Same place. Same instinct. Like staying still enough might hold things in place.
The TV flicks on. Scream 2.
My stomach tightens before anything even happens. They know I hate horror movies. They’ve always known. It used to be the kind of thing that meant something.
Ava looks back with a grin already formed. “Jaz is gonna lose it, watch.”
Laughter comes fast.
I laugh too. Because it’s easier than being the only one not matching the room.
But I start shrinking without noticing. I get talked over and don’t repeat myself. I stop adjusting my body when space closes in. My voice starts arriving late, like it’s no longer sure it’s wanted.
It doesn’t happen loudly. Just quietly, until I barely recognise the shape I’m taking up.
Later, I go into Tillie’s room for my charger.
Her phone is face down on the bed. The screen lights up anyway.
A group chat.
All of them.
My name isn’t there.
It doesn’t feel dramatic. It feels precise. Like something that was always true just finally surfaced.
I stand still for too long.
No one comes in. No one calls for me.
When I walk out, nothing shifts.
“Where are you going?” Ava asks, casual.
“Home,” I say.
VCE · Text Response
Text Response: In 'The Hunger Games' individuals need to…
VCE Text Response essay scoring 65%: In order to survive, people must overcome challenges. In ‘The Hunger Games’, written by Suzanne Collins, it follows…
In order to survive, people must overcome challenges. In ‘The Hunger Games’, written by Suzanne Collins, it follows the story of a girl who - in trying to protect the innocence of her younger sister - is forced into partcipating in a round of televised brutality. In order to overcome the hurdles that she is faced with - determination, family, and love keeps her alive. Exploring themes of inequality, love and sacrifice, and survival.
Throughout ‘The Hunger Games’, Suzanne Collins demostrates how determination, resilience, and rebellion will overcome the challenges that tie in with poverty. Katniss chooses to hunt to ensure that her family doesn’t starve. Despite the fact that “trespassing in the woods is illegal and poaching carries the severest of penalties.” Through this quote, Katniss demostrates themes of rebellion, poverty, and survival. She denies the rules enforced by the Capitol, instead choosing to survive in a world filled of opression. She claims that Distract Twelve is a place “where you can starve in safety.” This portrays the seriousness of poverty filling District Twelve. Katniss acts as a subversive protagonist by denying the law, in order to protect her family. Her determination and resilience drives her to rebel against the Capitol’s rules so that she may endure the struggles of poverty.
VCE · Text Response
Text Response: “Texts mediate our understanding of human…
VCE Text Response essay scoring 77.5%: Storytelling reveals the innate complexities of the human experience by exploring the transformative processes…
Storytelling reveals the innate complexities of the human experience by exploring the transformative processes that shape how we view identity and the world. Thus, through their mimetic representation of introspection, texts temper our understanding of the human desire to seek solace, revealing that surrendering expectations is not defeat but a means of reconnecting to shared spirituality. Tim Winton’s provocative use of lyrical prose in his vignettes Barefoot in the Temple of Art (Barefoot) and The Wait and The Flow (The Wait) from his memoir The Boy Behind The Curtain (2016) convey the experiences through which we abandon expectations to find peace. Likewise, Noah Kahan’s alternative-folk song The View Between Villages (2023) (View) emerges from the aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic, intertwining swelling crescendo and silence to represent the turbulent experience of dissolving social appearance to gain holistic freedom. This dismissal transcends the gap between our spiritual and tangible bodies, reveals the beauty in losing control, and reconnects us to the divinity that is lost in adulthood. Hence, by shaping memory into narrative, composers create spaces where responders can explore the lengths we undergo to reach spiritual satisfaction.
Literature that transforms lived experience has the ability to reshape our understanding of losing control, underscoring how life’s beauty emerges from the surrender of certainty. In The Wait, Winton mediates experience by reimagining memory into stylised prose that destabilises the human fear of losing control, “I responded to the prospect of something wilder, broader, softer, more fluid and emotional … I suspect surfing unlocked the artist in me.” Winton’s intentional use of romantic language negotiates responders' understanding of the human condition, revealing that the subtleties of the world’s artistic beauty can emerge from the absence of structure and engaging with life’s flow. In Barefoot, Winton’s recollections reinterpret the divide between art and reality he perceived at a young age, foregrounding a matured perspective of the journey to peace. His viewing of Rembrandt’s Two Old Men Disputing gave Winton immense wonder in a hostile space, “You could look at it for the rest of your life and forever wonder what the story was.” The memoir form reframes the meaning of this art piece from an enigmatic artwork to a vessel for facilitating spiritual renewal and escapism from the exclusivity of the art world. This impressionistic snapshot of memory interrupts reader’s perceptions of the interplay between art and divinity, inviting them to consider how surrendering control for artistic musing cultivates raw spiritual beauty. Similarly to Winton, the sonic decrescendo of Kahan's song aids his representation of surrendering life’s certainty as a catalyst for mental peace. As Kahan recounts leaving his hometown, the harmonic swell of the instrumental reduces to silence, inviting audience members to immerse themselves within his experience of reaching peace by abandoning control over the past. Through this, responders’ understanding of our complex spiritual journeys is negotiated, highlighting the ability of texts to reveal the nuances of the human condition. Winton and Kahan utilise their respective forms to convey meaning, underscoring how life’s beauty emerges from the loss of control.
VCE · Creative Response
Creative Response: "The eternity of the pause" Shattered…
VCE Creative Response essay scoring 72.5%: Final Piece The Eternity of the Pause Monday, 6:23pm The red string from Chinese New Year two weeks ago still…
Final Piece
The Eternity of the Pause
Monday, 6:23pm
The red string from Chinese New Year two weeks ago still hung from the doorknob. The ‘lucky’ red threads began to untwine, as incense permeated the air, settling beneath my skin.
As I walked into the corridor, I noticed the bathroom door was slightly open. Through it, I saw a mirror.
In front of the buddha statue, my mother’s hands were raised in front of her head, knees on the ground—praying.
In the same mirror, my father slouched on our second-hand couch, sinking, drowning into that endless abyss of “I’m tired, but I can’t sleep”. His eyes screamed “I’m done with this shit”, anytime that same red appeared before him.
And yet, in between them in the mirror, she stood. Red string tied around her wrists, the face of my parents’ marriage—me.
Tuesday, 10:45pm
The block letters “VOTE FOR LILA” were plastered across the school. Every corner, every pivot, it appeared.
It was weird being Lila Chan.
She stood on stage. Her hands commanded the atmosphere with great enthusiasm, heads lifting where she pointed, fashioning a perfect, pearly white smile to really “lock in” the votes. The class loved her—-the golden retriever, the “yes you can count on me!” friend.
But who was she?
The wind gently brushed the red string tied around the doorknob as she walked in. No greetings, no halfway smiles—nothing. Her mother walked by with a basket of laundry, her gaze drifting towards the “School Vice-Captain” application in her hand. At that moment, something danced through the air. It wasn’t awkwardness, nor annoyance—just disapproval that echoed through the stillness of her pupils. Her father, on the other hand, saw her on the way to the bathroom. No congratulations, but just a small, “Keep it up” sort of nod. That was it. She walked towards the bathroom mirror, looking at that shiny badge plated on her chest.
6:54PM the clock read.
Curiously, there was a silver crack on the bottom side of the mirror. The glossy surface was suddenly interrupted by a singular split, slowly gliding up the mirror. There was something so casually odd about it. She stood there, eyes locked onto this line, as if it were crevassing the mirror into two. The boundary between the reflection and bathroom slowly smudged, blended, and eventually blurred into one.
VCE · Creative Response
Creative Response: "beauty is found in places people…
VCE Creative Response essay scoring 85%: Where You May not find it It's the start of a brand new day, Clarissa moves the bedsheet and gets up from bed,…
Where You May not find it
It's the start of a brand new day, Clarissa moves the bedsheet and gets up from bed, opening the window, making way for the rays of light to hit every corner of the room. Sam, her husband who's in deep sleep, wakes up from hearing the angelic, soft voice of his wife. "It's time to get up babe".
Sam and Clarissa have been married for a year living happily together, even though their financial status which right now is not great but they do not give up and fight it together and that's the beauty of it. Sam has always been the adventurous type of guy, living in a small cottage house in a village outside the city, where they can explore nature deeply.
They decide on going out exploring today. Clarissa packs food and essential items and Sam goes looking for a map to plan their trip. He swings stuff of the desk, searching every inch of the room for the map, he accidently bumps into the leg of desk, with random piles of paper just spawning out of, but he doesn't notice. Picking up the paper angrily, he finds a map, but not the usual map he takes it was different in a beautiful way, like it was calling for him to take it. So he took it.
"Babe, I found the map let's head out now."
"Coming Sam!"
VCE · Text Response
Text Response: "To what extent does Robert Frost explore…
VCE Text Response essay scoring 97.5%: Isolation — the actual or perceived state of separation from others — is a phenomenon that extends well beyond…
Isolation — the actual or perceived state of separation from others — is a phenomenon that extends well beyond simple physical distance, encompassing the emotional and psychological dimensions of the human condition. Robert Frost, the celebrated twentieth-century American poet, explores this complexity with remarkable depth and nuance. To a profound extent, Frost demonstrates across "Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening," "Desert Places," "The Road Not Taken," and "Mending Wall" that isolation is not a single, uniform experience but a multidimensional one: it can manifest as physical solitude that invites calm reflection, as psychological emptiness that cannot be escaped, as the alienating consequence of personal choice, and as socially constructed division upheld by unexamined tradition. Frost's poetry insists that far from being a rare or peripheral condition, isolation is an inevitable and defining feature of human existence — one whose complexity lies precisely in the way its physical, emotional, and psychological dimensions are inseparably intertwined.
In "Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening," Frost presents physical isolation as a catalyst for psychological reflection, suggesting that withdrawal from society can create a rare and necessary space for self-examination — yet one that simultaneously intensifies inner conflict. The speaker pauses in solitude to watch as "the woods fill up with snow," and the silence that gathers within this snowy landscape functions not merely as a setting but as a symbol: the clearing away of noise and obligation that ordinarily suppresses introspection. This physical removal from the social world allows a psychological opening, enabling the speaker to confront emotions he cannot access in ordinary life. Yet Frost complicates this apparent serenity by revealing that the speaker carries "promises to keep" — a phrase that exposes the emotional weight of duty and social obligation that even the most isolated landscape cannot dissolve. The speaker's lingering contemplation of the woods as "lovely, dark and deep" further captures this psychological ambivalence: the darkness is simultaneously beautiful and unsettling, appealing precisely because it represents a complete, unreachable escape. The closing repetition of "miles to go before I sleep" reinforces that physical isolation, however restorative, cannot sever the speaker from his emotional and social responsibilities. Frost thus argues that the experience of physical solitude is never purely external; it triggers a complex psychological reckoning with the tension between the desire for escape and the inescapability of obligation — revealing isolation as an experience that operates across multiple human dimensions at once.
VCE · Language Analysis
Language Analysis: Jeff Kennett: The charges against Ben…
VCE Language Analysis essay scoring 80%: Following the arrest of highly decorated soldier Ben Roberts-Smith on war crimes charges, fierce debate has…
Following the arrest of highly decorated soldier Ben Roberts-Smith on war crimes charges, fierce debate has erupted as to their validity. In an opinion article for the Herald Sun, Jeff Kennett (Jeff Kennett: The charges against brave Ben Roverts-Smith should be withdrawn) argues that civilians are unable to make effective judgements on wartime decisions and therefore criticises the charges laid against the former soldier. He writes to the Herald Sun’s conservative audience, who are likely supportive of Australian soldiers, with a purpose of discouraging civilian criticism of Roberts-Smith and encouraging the charges against Roberts-Smith to be dropped.
In his first substantive, Kennett affirms the admirability of Ben Roberts-Smith as a highly effective and duty-bound soldier. By qualifying him as ‘one of the most highly decorated soldiers the nation has ever produced’, Kennett immediately establishes Roberts-Smith as a man of high achievement. Kennett shifts to emphasise his gallantry, in ‘putting his life on the line time and time again’. Its sequencing immediately succeeding the emphasis on Roberts-Smith’s achievement subtly positions the audience to view Roberts-Smith as both effective and prepared to make the ultimate sacrifice. This is aided through a visual medium depicting Roberts-Smith on tour. Roberts-Smith’s downward gaze and eyes obscured by sunglasses symbolise an apparent ignorance to the camera, feeding the audience the impression of focus. This is reinforced through Roberts-Smith’s headset, implying his senses are consumed by the task and enhancing the appearance of focus. The Australian flag depicted on the armband frames Roberts-Smith’s actions within the microcosm of duty, presenting the soldier’s positioning in war as a desire to serve the interests of Herald Sun’s Australian reader. For the reader, the visual medium enhances the perception of both Roberts-Smith’s eliteness and sacrifice established by Kennett. Through describing Roberts-Smith’s sacrifice as a deed ‘most Australians will never comprehend’, Kennett establishes the disqualification of the reader in making a judgement on the disgraced soldier, implicitly conditioning an internal stifling of questions about his conduct. This disqualification’s emergence as a pattern is utilised by Kennett to continually reinforce this idea, and consolidate said stifling within the mind of the reader. In concluding the substantive, Kennett shifts to criticising the process of Roberts-Smith’s arrest. Kennett’s appeal to pathos through describing the arrest as ‘in front of his children’ and ‘absolute disgrace’ elicits anger within the audience at the process, encouraging their perception of Roberts-Smith as a victim of an unfair system. Within his first substantive, Kennett establishes the admirability of Ben Roberts-Smith, positioning the audience to a more favourable position on the former soldier.
VCE · Text Response
Text Response: How does Wang explore the theme of lies in…
VCE Text Response essay scoring 70%: Perhaps nothing exemplifies the power of deception more than the protagonist, Billi’s family decision to conceal…
Perhaps nothing exemplifies the power of deception more than the protagonist, Billi’s family decision to conceal their grandmother’s devastating cancer diagnosis in Lulu Wang’s “The Farewell”. Many of her characters exhibit sorrow and responsibility to carry emotional burdens that requires each other’s support. The farewell is Lulu Wang’s 2019 comedy-drama film, set between New York and Changchun in the 2010’s, is based on her own Chinese family’s experience with illness, deception and grief. She initially presents an unorthodox view of ‘lies’, challenging the assumption that lies are always malignant, instead portraying it as an act of care. However, contrary to this portrayal, the film simultaneously explores the inharmonious psychological and moral depravity from anticipatory grief experienced by Billi, revealing that pursuing the greater good through deception still comes at an emotional cost. Ultimately, more than merely a frivolous and poignant comedy drama, Wang’s The Farewell unveils the didactic aspect of the film that benevolent deception facilitates the negotiation of interpersonal tensions to uphold family cohesion-a sentiment that reflects “Chinese cultural values of collectivism and the moral responsibility to ease the suffering of loved ones”.
VCE · Text Response
Text Response: Explore the significance of the passage…
VCE Text Response essay scoring 92.5%: Question 1: The passage for the Sporting Spirit involves Orwell evaluating the serious and violent nature of…
Question 1:
The passage for the Sporting Spirit involves Orwell evaluating the serious and violent nature of sport in modern times, as in earlier nations, sport was trivial. Orwell compares earlier centuries where sport was not dependent on competition with the later century of his time. He connects the "games cult" with the overarching growth in nationalism, where sport is watched and followed with mindlessness similarly to a cult. The passage is situated towards the conclusion of the text. It precedes the connection to sport and nationalism, marking the change of the sporting environment stemming from later communities.
VCE · Creative Response
Creative Response: The power of ambition
VCE Creative Response essay scoring 62.5%: I used to say ambition was the only currency I had until I hit it big in the market. My world was my parents'…
I used to say ambition was the only currency I had until I hit it big in the market. My world was my parents' basement and an old macbook. Today, looking at the city from my Penthouse. I remember when I was walking on those streets wondering whether my ambition was a blessing, curse, or something in between.
I remember the nights when I would stay awake on a couple cans of Red Bull and a sliver of hope, studying whitepapers and keeping track of the market and its variability. At first, I was chasing possibility. Some day I believed in me and I needed to find a way to prove them wrong with success. Expecting my will to achieve success. One successful trade led to ten, and ten led to a fortune. And the fortune turned me into something I never would be able to become.