Memo on Part B of the Exam

It probably doesn’t make a big difference to students doing Year 12 this year, but teachers might be interested in a slight change in the VCAA instructions for Part B (Context) of the exam this year.  Below are the new instructions for this part of the exam. There are more details on the VCAA site.
Instructions [...]

2008 Examiners Report

The report from the examiners who marked last  year’s paper went online yesterday and should be considered essential reading for VCE students.  It’s particularly interesting this year because last year was the first of the new course and just how the context, for example, would exactly look, was a bit unknown.
The examiner’s report goes through [...]

Encountering Conflict Practice Prompts

Through the year if we find any interesting prompts or essay questions we’ll post them year for you to use as practice writing. Here’s two on the ‘Encountering Conflict’ context that one school recently used for its Unit 3 SAC.
Choose ONE of the following two prompts to write a Creating and Presenting essay. You may [...]

Crucible Resource (from Shmoop)

Here at the EnglishBook we don’t really tend to highly endorse the study guides that are available on single texts, especially those of the generic USA variety designed to help college kids with their SATs or something.
But, they play a part, and can be useful at times, when you’re checking your knowledge, refreshing your understanding [...]

Sample Context Writing

VCAA have just put up a collection of sample context writing in a variety of styles on their website.The English section of their website is HERE
You can get to the document directly from this LINK Definitely worth a look.

Getting into the heads and hearts of characters

“Above all, I wanted to know the individuals, to get into their heads and their hearts. In all their variety of personalities, they must have been like [...]

In the Context (of the kiddie pool …)

In case you can’t remember being in it, this is a kiddies’ pool. One of. It was a lot of fun. When you were a kid.
Now (hopefully!) … it takes more to amuse you. Deeper water. Bigger pools. More sophisticated toys, maybe. Perhaps the company matters more. Or location. Or the weather. Or [...]