Guide to VCE English Units 1 & 2: Key Skills & Examples (Part 1)

Key Skill

Explanation

• Approach texts systematically with a checklist (not just instinct).
• Start with formal/structural choices (e.g. type of text, story organisation).
• Then examine details: author techniques and their effects on the reader.

• ideas, concerns and tensions presented in a text
• characters, settings and plot, and point of view and voice
• how vocabulary, text structures and language

• Recognise that everything in a text is a deliberate choice by the author.
• Ask “why these characters, these ideas, this setting?”
• Analyse how language choices shape the reader’s response.

• The key word here is “productively”. Your group discussion needs to produce something
• i.e. you need to collaborate well to generate ideas as a group which go beyond what you were capable of generating on your own.

• Be proactive in class discussion. This involves raising your hand and ‘having a go’ when your teacher asks questions.
• If you don’t get it right first time, develop the confidence to ask questions and figure out where you went wrong.
• In debates, be confident when advancing your own arguments, and receptive to the arguments of others. Take what they say seriously and respond respectfully, even if you disagree.

• “Metalanguage” means “technical language used to discuss language itself”.
• Examples of metalanguage include technical terms like “form”, “metaphor”, “narrator” and “metre”.

• Get in the habit of always supporting claims you make about a text with direct quotations from that text that illustrate the point you are making.
• Effective quotations are short, clearly relevant and contain examples of literary techniques that you can analyse.

• Learn how to apply your teachers’ feedback to ensure your work improves in quality over time.
• Avoid repeating the same mistakes over and again.

• Your writing should be technically accurate, precise and clear.
• You should also use an appropriate register (level of formality) – i.e. essays should avoid contractions (“can’t”, “don’t”) and colloquialisms.

Key Skill

Explanation

• Your creative writing should demonstrate a wide range of imaginative choices.
• Don’t just stick to the obvious ways of structuring and expressing your ideas – experiment and vary your approach.

• Decide before you start writing who you are writing for and what you want them to do as a consequence of reading your work.
• If the reader cannot infer your purpose and target audience then you have not succeeded in your task.

• Be systematic: plan your work before you begin, know who you are writing for and why.
• Use appropriate structures and registers which reflect the context in which you are writing (i.e. an essay should read like an essay, not like a short story).

• Having an original idea is necessary but not sufficient.
• Markers want to see you develop that idea and play around with it.

• Think carefully about how you address your reader.
• Adopt a style and register that you can sustain across the whole piece of writing.
• Before you begin, ensure you have a clear rationale for why you are writing in a particular person (first, second or third) and tense (past, present or future).

• Avoid cliches by finding new and innovative ways to express yourself.

• Think of creative writing as the result of a process, not a single moment of inspiration.
• Be prepared to revisit earlier drafts of your work, take account of feedback, and revise what you have written to better achieve your purpose and address your audience.

• Be open to feedback and get into the habit of asking questions of your classmates and teachers to ensure you (a) understand the feedback and (b) have a sense of how you can respond to it effectively.

• In order to develop your own creative writing, carefully analyse creative texts by other writers.

• Develop the ability to identify and analyse techniques used in your own work and the work of other writers.
• For each technique you identify, consider its effect on the reader and how the impact of the text would be changed if that technique had not been used.

• Standard Australian English involves ‘correct’ spelling, punctuation and grammar.
• Non-standard forms might include dialect, sociolect and some forms of poetic expression (e.g. the omission of punctuation marks in certain instances).