Best Foot Forward: Writing a Good Introduction

A marker will spend around six minutes reading your essay. More than half of that time, and of the marker’s attention, will be spent on the first page. I’ve heard teachers say that they can just about predict the eventual mark from the introduction alone. So what are the ingredients of a good introduction? Establishing [...]

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Establish, Thesis, Topic, Conclude: Strong Essays

The ingredients of a strong essay are: An Establishing Statement. This allows you to demonstrate your personal understanding of the module, and because it focuses on the module rather than on the question (we’re getting to that) you can prepare it in advance. This gives you something to write so that you’re not staring at [...]

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Dear Year Eleven Part One

If you’re in Year 11, you can probably see the pre- and post-Trial HSC chaos around your school. If you’re in Year 11 and you’re smart, you might be thinking, “that’s going to be me in a year’s time.” If you’re in Year 11 and you’re really smart, you might be thinking, “what can I [...]

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New Year, New You: Part 2

Step Two: Write The only way to get better at writing is to write. Preparatory writing for HSC English falls into four main categories: notes, personal responses, analytical responses, creative responses. a. Notes. This includes annotations and notes on your texts (this should, ideally, be done during the second reading), summaries of chapters, poems, acts [...]

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New Year, New You: Part 1

Students of HSC 2011. You’ve already tackled one of the modules and probably completed at least one internal assessment. Not really happy with your result? I’m here with good news: don’t panic, it’s not too late to start transforming yourself into a top band English student. How did you spend the Summer break? Did you [...]

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