English Extension 2 2019 HSC exam pack

Short fiction

Students should:

• read short fiction to develop an understanding of the nuances of the form
• ensure this form is appropriate to develop their concept.

In better short fiction, students were able to:

• demonstrate purposeful control of language and form
• establish and sustain contextually relevant setting(s) and narrative thread(s)
• transition between dialogue and prose, between narrative perspectives, and between voices with clear intentions to positively shape meaning.

Areas for students to improve include:

• ensuring that all textual elements contribute meaningfully to the work
• creating characters and voices that reflect the context of the work; particularly in works set in a specific historical period.

Critical responses

Students should:

• investigate the form to ensure their chosen concept is well suited to this form.

In better critical responses, students were able to:

• present substantial and sustained responses with a coherent and clearly elaborated thesis
• reflect the importance of independent investigation and integrate this with their own textual analysis
• focus on one text and analyse it deeply with an authentic voice and careful editing
• write appropriately in a fluent academic register
• use ficto-critical or intertextual elements with thoughtfulness and effectiveness
• offer a refreshing angle to add to the academic discussion of the given text
• develop a clear progression of argument with structural devices such as informative chapter headings and relevant epigraphs.  

Areas for students to improve include:

• developing appropriate thesis statements that are substantiated through the argument, rather than overstated or overly ambitious and lacking substantiation
• undertaking extensive investigation into theory and using this theory accurately and specifically to support the argument, rather than in a generalised way as was sometimes the case, particularly with feminism
• developing arguments that support holistic analysis, rather than relying heavily on explaining or rephrasing quotes
• adopting a sophisticated academic voice that avoids excessive nominalisation and complex, but inaccurate, diction
• using fictional elements to support the critical in a highly purposeful way in a ficto-critical response.

Poetry

Students should:

• make justified and rational decisions to write poetry
• ensure their work is original
• investigate the form and ideas comprehensively
• follow word limits
• edit and proofread carefully
• ensure experimentation is justified.

In better poetry, students were able to:

• integrate sophisticated concepts with mastery of form
• seamlessly integrate research into specific cultural, literary, philosophical and political contexts
• offer mature insights
• integrate eclectic forms of poetry purposefully
• synthesise relevant research in original poems
• balance concept and form
• effectively shape meaning with judiciously selected language
• evoke sensitive imagery
• establish authentic voices.

Areas for students to improve include:

• maintaining a cohesive voice
• sustaining effective poetic forms including appropriate prosody
• experimenting purposefully.

Script: Short film, television, drama

Students should:

• investigate the form by reading a variety of scripts and reflecting on how meaning is made
• consider how the elements of scripts, such as dialogue, action and setting, combine to create a unified experience for the audience
• explore how representation and symbolism operate in dramatic scripts
• purposefully apply selected dramatic styles
• create a plot that engages the audience through a strong narrative arc.

In better scripts, students were able to:

• demonstrate understanding of the nuanced ways in which theatre can provoke and stimulate audiences
• explore dramatic situations to convey thoughtful insights
• create a dramatic vision through precise and fitting stage directions
• use language appropriate to the contextual setting
• discerningly apply elements of metatheatre to create textual integrity.

Areas for students to improve include:

• understanding how the parameters affect the scope of the script, including number of characters and scenes
• sustaining delineated voices through convincing characterisation and purposeful dialogue
• displaying a highly developed understanding of audience
• avoiding clichés and stereotypes
• conducting a play reading in order to visualise the action and evaluate the script’s success.

Creative nonfiction

Students should:

• ensure their work is best placed in this category. Some Major Works were better suited to different categories. Hybridity in works is possible, but, if students are undertaking analysis of literary works, they should consider Critical Response as their form
• consider the NESA suggestions for the form, such as historical recreation, life writing, or investigative journalism. If students are undertaking a historical recreation, they should ensure they understand the distinction between historical fiction – with imagined characters in a real historical setting – and historical recreation, that imagines historical episodes from the perspective of a historical identity who actually existed. If students are considering investigative journalism, they should consider an ‘investigation’ that may involve interviews with real subjects
• adhere to word counts for the Major Work and Reflection Statement.

In better creative nonfiction, students were able to:

• demonstrate a nuanced and worked-through reflection on their subject, seeing it as a multifaceted, ambiguous or shifting topic that could not easily be reconciled into simple categories
• range between macro and micro detail, considering larger social implications for their topic as well as the personal, fine grain of detail. This was often true of life writing, where individual anecdotes were used to speak for larger concerns, or investigative journalism, where successive sources, interviews or scenes were used to critique overarching ideas or concepts
• create cohesion and provide clear insights
• use a literary voice to give perspective to social, political or cultural concerns
• use a strong voice with clear purpose and intention to create an engaging work that was credible and informative
• establish a context and a situation for their discussion, which acted as a trigger for the ideas or situation, to which they later returned, giving a more complete sense of the progress of the work. This worked particularly well for discursive pieces, where a clear and often personal context for what had led to the particular focus and discussion was created.
• use controlled expression
• shift between forms and styles credibly and with purpose
• use language from different contexts authentically, incorporating well-selected and well-observed figurative language
• demonstrate extensive research into form
• play and experiment with forms. When done well there were clear patterns and sophisticated links between the texts. Creative Nonfiction pieces were successful when there was clever interplay between the objective and the recorded in connection or contrast to the lived and personal experience outside that official record, or only on the margins of it. This created layered and complex compositions.
• harness genuine emotion and tenderness with an authentic voice in memoir or life writing works. This was often clearly connected to personal experience and the discursive mode being taught in Module C: Craft of Writing.

Areas for students to improve included:

• broaching ideas with a sense of purpose, moving from one point to another with a clear sense of what is being questioned or what answer is being sought. Works tended to struggle if they could not find a clear direction and felt as if they were listing new ideas as they emerged. This led to them often feeling forced or laboured, and thereby becoming repetitive
• ensuring that any shifts in form, context or perspective are justified by the intentions of the work and are reflected in comparable shifts in style and voice
• providing synthesised insights into subjects rather than relying on generalised observations and unresearched assertions
• moving away from single and linear perspectives. This often related to the layering of insights – when works were only couched in one person’s perspective, they tended to be more simplistic and felt repetitive, underusing the comparative freedom and experimental possibilities of the Creative Nonfiction form
• strengthening the sense of context. Less successful historical recreation works had a more limited, contemporary perspective, rather than a complex portrait of paradigms of the past
• improving the fluency of the writing
• improving page layout and design. Less successful investigative journalism pieces tended to be roughly crafted in design and layout. If elements such as photography, call-out boxes and graphs are used, these need to be acknowledged appropriately in the Reflection Statement and carefully attended to in page layout
• providing nuanced treatments of real-life subjects. Less successful life writing pieces often tended to provide a naive, hagiographic treatment of a beloved family member as wholly good without being attentive to shades of grey
• differentiating between historical recreation and historical fiction. Less successful historical recreations were limited by a lack of research into the context or historical figures and this limited the nonfiction elements
• maintaining focus rather than detouring, seemingly without purpose, under the guise of stream of consciousness
• avoiding simply listing sources in journalistic pieces
• showing evidence of research beyond family anecdotes and relics in historical pieces
• avoiding sentimentality
• showing insight into the chosen topic rather than dealing simplistically with subjects such as feminism or racism in ways that are too reductively binary and do not consider shades of grey and ambiguity
• justifying the choice of Creative Nonfiction, and demonstrating a depth of research into the possibilities of the form in the Reflection Statement.

Podcasts: Drama, storytelling, speeches, performance poetry

Students should:

• investigate the form thoroughly and have a strong sense of the audience for which it is intended
• make judicious choices in relation to the soundscape, including choice of voice(s) and sound effects
• practise vocal delivery before the final recording, considering variation of pace, intonation and modulation
• consider various ways to create cohesion in the work which may include effective transitions, motifs (linguistic or sound) or a framing voice.

In better podcasts, students were able to:

• engage the listener by contextualising the work in a clear yet original manner
• demonstrate a strong sense of audience
• use authentic and convincing voices
• manipulate the form skilfully, often making use of a variety of voices and forms within the podcast or successfully interrogating a more traditional form
• craft both language and sound to develop a layered and nuanced exploration of their concept
• experiment with the hybridity of the podcast form
• use effective and judicious audio editing.

Areas for students to improve include:

• considering the importance of a specific audience and ensuring the audience is contextualised within the work through language and sound, not just evident in the Reflection Statement
• avoiding voices that are monotonous, too fast, too slow or sound like they are simply reading aloud
• making effective choices for the chosen form, for example, in performance poetry half rhyme and rhyme can be effective, forced rhyme is not; an essay being read aloud is not a speech
• choosing sound effects and or music carefully to enhance meaning rather than relying on clichéd diegetic sounds
• paying attention to the power and purpose of voice(s) and creating a work that is more suitable for the sound medium than for a written form, for example, not all poetry is written to be performed
• demonstrating depth of research rather than relying on simplistic concepts.

Students should:

• ensure they adhere to the parameters of the form such as length; Multimedia Major Works need to be 7-8 minutes in length, not including credits
• use both visual elements and sound (other than narration) to construct meaning, for example, a range of film techniques, sound effects and motifs
• ensure that rehearsals are conducted if actors are used, and initial filming takes place early enough in the composition process to allow for refilming and judicious editing
• consider all elements of their form, structure and style. Multimedia submissions can take the form of short films, animations, short documentaries, multimodal performance poetry pieces, multimodal storytelling pieces, graphic novels and websites.

In better multimedia works, students were able to:

• use the multimodal aspects of the form to develop deep insights into a concept
• create a seamless integration of narrative and form so that the works told the whole story and avoided fragmentation
• demonstrate strong control of a defined and well-executed narrative arc
• consciously construct images, considering each shot and sequence and its relation to the piece as a whole
• demonstrate thoughtful and successful manipulation of techniques particular to the chosen form
• make effective use a range of features relevant to the form
• create a sustained, conceptual motif that connected elements of the multimedia piece
• control animations to effectively convey their purpose.

Areas for students to improve include:

• creating a strong literary foundation that is evident in the Major Work, not just referenced in the Reflection Statement
• integrating elements of the researched style/genre/auteur successfully in their work
• ensuring everything in the Major Work has a clear purpose and advances the narrative
• using a clear and authentic voice with appropriate variation in pace and tone, rather than relying on voiceover to convey the message
• ensuring website instructions are very clear
• using music/sound thoughtfully to shape meaning
• controlling the use of sound to ensure the quality is clear and there is appropriate variation, but the volume does not vary greatly without purpose
• developing cohesiveness and stylistic unity
• ensuring any variations in visual quality are deliberate and contribute to the work’s textual integrity. For example, using file/stock footage, home movies, and recently filmed work in the one piece can lead to a Major Work that is not unified stylistically, or raise questions about authenticity/integrity
• ensuring actors have rehearsed and are prepared to deliver polished performances
• ensuring works with a cultural focus demonstrate evidence of insight beyond the obvious.

Students should:

• ensure that they reflect on the processes they went through to complete the Major Work
• use their journal to document the process undertaken and then use this information to support the composition of their Reflection Statement.

In better reflection statements, students were able to:

• demonstrate understanding of the relationship between the chosen concept and the chosen form, and the impact that the extensive investigation had on developing this essential connection
• convey clear awareness and understanding of the relationship between the Major Work and the intended audience and the way this relationship is shaped through the process of composition and the construction of meaning
• make explicit the correlation between the process and product
• present clear and realistic links to the English Advanced and Extension 1 courses.

Areas for students to improve include:

• establishing extensive research into form, as this is an area that is lacking in many responses and often translates to the quality of the Major Work itself
• avoiding too many words addressing what the student did not do
• focusing on development of content and how the influence of research into the context/form shaped compositional choices and experience
• ensuring that the Reflection Statement is not narrative heavy and wordy, explaining how the characters or situations in the Major Work operate together
• ensuring all requirements are addressed in an authentic manner, avoiding superficial, contrived or trite observations/references to investigated texts.