VCE English Premier Award - Free Resources - Creative Essay

[Julian_Ln]

hey julian,

for section B, i was wondering (because i’m also doing the same comparative) what you did for the introductions? and what was the best way to talk about changes in history.

for section c, would you mind sharing common ways you’d analyse images for the exam and specifically ways you analysed the authors intent for the audience? i’m pretty good at analysing authorial intent but not great at analysing in depth what the writers decisions would do to the reader

Hi, thanks for your questions.

1) For introductions I have sample intros (essays) attached in the description in the below link. And basically, it's just a brief one-sentence contextualising sentence about the historical context of the two texts e.g. "the colonies of Australia and the cottonfields of the American South" - there are other ways you can talk about it e.g. "transatlantic slave trade and colonisation of Australia" but I liked the alliteration. And to be honest, it is very flexible, different schools will teach it different ways so just go with a way that you find comfortable because its optimal to not spend too much time on the intro

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IymGo4NveDo&t=77s&ab_channel=JLTutoring

2) Here is my general structure (again here is a supporting video if you want to listen to this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zYgf0YewWvI&t=10s&ab_channel=JLTutoring)

But basically you usually have 3 sentences for a visual analysis - insert the blanks (again dependent on the article / how much room you have but as a general case). And so after you understand what the author's intent is, consider how this effects the reader i.e. how does this make the reader THINK, FEEL, RESPOND (or in other words, how does it make you think, feel, respond and then write this down as the effect, that is how the delve deeper in your analysis by considering the effect on audience)

Sentence 1: (fairly consistent) To visually highlight (something), A deliberately includes an image showcasing / of / revealing / conveying

Sentence 2: (varies) This (focal point) may symbolise + creating a sense that + evokes a sense of concern/ outrage/ sympathy/ alarm/ anger/ remorse

Sentence 3: As such, the cumulative power of author's visual and textual information seeks to reinforce the notion that...

In terms of what you need to talk about, it depends on the purpose of the author's article, but try and use the 'BS method' - yes it stands for what you think it stands for, so even for the tiny detail, you can exaggerate your analysis (so focus on color, magnifcation, text)

e.g. (Vcaa exam)

This powerful photograph features mountains upon mountains of garbage bags stacked high in the centre foreground as well as far off into the background, suggesting that this issue is vast in nature. The dark and oppressive smog, coupled with the monochromatic colour scheme, further accentuates the encompassed by a scene overwhelmed by filth engendering feelings of disgust in readers regarding the “devastating” impact non-biodegradable rubbish is having on the environment.

Hope this helps

[MATHSMETHODS_298]

Hi Julian
Sorry to be asking this question so late!
But I am also doing wordsworth and I am struggling a bit with some of the central ideas. Could you possibly explain your 'urban,natural and internal world' in a bit more depth?
And just out of curiosity- how many poems did you learn/use in your essay ?
Thanks in advance

[Julian_Ln]

Hi Julian
Sorry to be asking this question so late!
But I am also doing wordsworth and I am struggling a bit with some of the central ideas. Could you possibly explain your 'urban,natural and internal world' in a bit more depth?
And just out of curiosity- how many poems did you learn/use in your essay ?
Thanks in advance

Hi, thanks for your question. The urban, natural and internal world structure is based on the VCAA description of the text and I quite well breaks Wordsworth's poetry into 3 main 'scopes' that you can use to approach almost any topic - these 3 main 'scopes' aren't themes but I like to view them as 'super themes, so ideas that are almost always present in his poetry.

And just before I go further, here is a sample essay that uses this exact structure for your reference (it contains the actual analytical sentences that I used, so I will not include them in the discussion on this forum otherwise it will be too long:)) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tdvVG5F-3TA&t=302s&ab_channel=JLTutoring

Let's look at last year's VCAA 2020 Exam, Wordsworth Essay Topic: "What does Wordsworth's poetry teach us". I used 2 poems per paragraph, so 2 x 3 paragraphs = 6 poems in total (I learnt about 8-10 which I would interchange based off the topic)

The way I answered the prompt was:

P1: Wordsworth's teaches us to abstain from the meaningless pursuits of the urban world (here I am using the 'scope' of the urban world to answer this prompt by answering the prompt in relation to what he thinks about the urban world, so poems such as London 1802 or the World is Too much with us, are great examples. Bascically here, the urban world = big cities, they are all the evil in the world from Wordsworth's perspective, so the industrial revolution, the bustling cities where people only cared about wealth and were driven by greed etc.

P2: Wordsworth teaches us that true education and healing comes from nature (here, the natural world is the OPPOSITE of the urban world - and here you can talk about any poem that praises Nature e.g. Tables Turned, TIntern, I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud etc). So natural world = natural landscape (so very broad place, but anywhere in Nature counts as the natural world)

P3: Wordsworth teaches us that we need to combine our experiences with frequent reflection in order to live a meaningful life (the internal world = the MIND of the poet - so how does the poet develop individually as a person? e,g. In the Two-Part Prelude, the poet realises that Nature is extremely powerful, more powerful than humanity, and his reflection upon these experiences is what lead to his "fulfilled identity" (Heaney quote from the Introduction) - this is probably the hardest concept to grasp but its also the area that will make your essay stand out so if you find it helpful, you can use my sample essay (in the link) as a guide.

So basically these three worlds (urban, natural, internal) shape Wordsworth's poetry and that's why it's a good idea to at least explore a topic from these three perspectives. All the best with your exams!

[sgrace]

Hi Julian, how did you go about memorising quotes? I've probably left it a bit too late but if you have any tips that'd be great

[Julian_Ln]

Hi Julian, how did you go about memorising quotes? I've probably left it a bit too late but if you have any tips that'd be great

Hi, its definitely not too late haha, still time to improve your marks:) I tended not to memorise quotes in isolation (i.e. having a list of 100 quotes and memorise them starting from 1 to 100) and instead, I memorised quotes with analysis or context. This is effective for many reasons:

1) It makes memorising much easier because you have text around it to help you memorise and understand the quote.
2) It makes using these quotes much easier because you already have the analysis with it (now you don't have to memorise the analysis but it probably will be stuck in your head if you try and commit the quote to memory)

As for actually memorising here are a few tips:
- I used flashcards
- I tried to make the quotes as short as possible (see example below, the actual text is unimportant) - you can see how its only 2 words - that's right, most of my quotes were only a couple of words because the important thing is the idea. Let your ideas run through your essay NOT quotes - this should make it easier to memorise because if you already have the main idea for a theme down, then all you need are a few supporting quotes to analyse and that's a paragraph done.

e.g. [This shows a quote that I would memorise completely (the two words + the associated context that I would be familiar with]
Carrying the same racist ethos beneath their veneer of civility, the Virginian editorials erroneously equated slaves with “chattel” and “stock”, highlighting their callous prioritisation of profit over human dignity. Through commodifying slaves through cold economic rationale, plantation owners were able to have significant physical and psychological control of those that were treated like an investment.

[Julian_Ln]

Hi everyone,

Hope everyone is going well, I just released my 'Creative Text Response' Essay that achieved 30/30 - FREE of charge - to hopefully (fingers crossed:)) help those who have their Creative SAC coming up!

Find it here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wE_ZPgUd6jk&ab_channel=JLTutoring

All the best and Enjoy!