Essay Planning: Breaking Down the Question

Essay planning in an exam situation can be tricky. You need to ensure that your essay answers the whole question; however, you’re also pretty pressed for time. In the HSC, taking five minutes to plan is worth it and the first part of your planning time should be spent breaking down the question. Here are [...]

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Studying for the Trials: Summarising for the Area of Study

The HSC is an endurance event and the Trials are the last corner before the finish line. Most students probably have at least one internal assessment (my guess is for Module C) remaining but, for the other modules and the AoS, all that’s left is two exam responses: the Trials and the HSC. Studying at [...]

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Dichotomies in Dickinson’s What Mystery Pervades a Well!

‘What Mystery Pervade a Well!’ is one of the more difficult Emily Dickinson poems on the HSC Syllabus. The reductive nature of the Area of Study (where everything must be analysed in terms of what it says about the concept of “belonging”) makes it even more difficult. One way to approach this poem is to [...]

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Emily Dickinson Context

When first learning the superficial details of Emily Dickinson’s life, it is difficult to avoid developing a mental picture of her that looks something like this: If, however, we are going to discuss Dickinson’s poetry in the context of Area of Study Belonging, we need to explore a life that was much more complex than [...]

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Aspects of Belonging

The ETA has very helpfully put together a list of aspects of belonging. The list includes: belonging through place belonging through kinship belonging through shared experience belonging through shared culture belonging through global networks belonging through textual engagement To this list my students added belonging through shared purpose, as this helped them to include many [...]

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Tips for Writing the AoS Response

The Area of Study Response, also known as Section 3 of Paper 1, is a particularly strange type of essay. In it, you are asked to synthesise ideas from a range of texts with your own personal response, addressing a specific question or statement, under an umbrella concept: Belonging. It’s not an easy thing to [...]

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The Saddest Noise, The Sweetest Noise

‘The Saddest Noise, The Sweetest Noise’ by Emily Dickinson is a poem of contrast and paradox. The “noise” of the title is the birdsong that haunts the poet, reminding her that although the seasons continue, individual immortality does not exist. The beauty of nature is both intensified and undermined by the memory of lost friends [...]

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