Advanced Studies in English

Personal response: The Hunger Games

Posted by on July 18, 2012 at 9:03 am

For a word document version of much better presentation and formatting than what is shown here email me at [email protected]. I wasn’t happy before reading this. My friend had informed me, “It wasn’t as violent as the film was.” A student told me, “It wasn’t as violent as I thought it would be.” Such descriptions […]

Personal response: Maximum Security

Posted by on March 26, 2012 at 9:40 pm

MAXIMUM SECURITY by Robert Muchamore – Personal Response Right, I hated it. No really, I hated this book. There are very few novels that raise my ire. I hate how everyone misinterprets Girl with a Pearl Earring, and takes the position of the narrator when she’s clearly a vicious lying manipulative self-obsessed snake. I hate […]

Creative Writing: Response to a novel

Posted by on March 26, 2012 at 9:32 pm

The following is a redraft of a scene from a Goosebumps story written for a young audience. The challenge for students to rewrite short excerpts of scenes from stories they are reading (and enjoying!) allows them to match their writing skills to a high standard, to engage with generic elements, and also to realise the […]

Personal Response: Focus Feb 2012 – The Science of Deduction

Posted by on March 8, 2012 at 7:53 am

This is a writing piece that achieves the analytical and evaluative form, content and purpose to genuinely challenge and engage gifted students in their studies. For a word document version of much better presentation and formatting than what is shown here email me at [email protected]. To be frank, I was immediately most dismayed to consider […]

Scholarship Test Writing

Posted by on March 8, 2012 at 7:35 am

I’ve written before about the desire and method for achieving an original response to a prompt. In this example, I took the image of a robber/thief and composed the following creative response. . INTRUDER Like a thief in the dead of night I came. Silent and dangerous; deadly and burning with malice. I stole into […]

Scholarship Test Writing

Posted by on March 8, 2012 at 7:34 am

In the tests they might give you an image to write creatively about. Sometimes it’s good to consider how the image can be considered metaphorically or symbolically. I looked at the image of a mouse, and wrote the short narrative below: I deliberately tried to give it an interesting title and to use dialogue. What […]

VCE English Outcome 1: On the Waterfront

Posted by on October 17, 2011 at 10:37 am

Terry says to Charley: “I coulda been a contender. I coulda been somebody, instead of a bum. Which is what I am”. Does the film support Terry’s judgment of himself? Poor Terry Malloy: stuck between a rock and a hard place, or conversely between the hard men of the mob and struggling to find the […]

VCE Outcome 3: Language Analysis Essay

Posted by on October 14, 2011 at 12:30 pm

Mobile Concerns by David James Call me a cynic (you’re a cynic Gus!), but I must suspect the purposes of the article published in Driver magazine. The writer is apparently responding to a call by the Accident Prevention Group (APG) to ban all forms of phone use by drivers in all vehicles. Although I think […]

VCE Outcome 3: Language Analysis Essay

Posted by on September 28, 2011 at 11:12 am

I’m not convinced by the facts (or lack thereof) of Mr/Mrs “Name and School withheld” argument in “The Case Against a National Curriculum”. It seems rather silly to assume that the National Department of Education would ignore entirely the “differing needs” of Australia’s 3.3 million students. Instead, the article appears to be an obvious attack […]

VCE Outcome 3: Language Analysis Essay

Posted by on September 28, 2011 at 11:03 am

In the editorial “Turning the muck filter on”, the writer intends to present a “no-nonsense” argument for a new Government policy to police the internet. Yet despite their strong ridiculing bias, their clever distinctions, their efforts at alliteration and their illuminative analogies, I for one do not need a filter to see the gaps in […]