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Module C - The Craft of Writing
In this module, students strengthen and extend their knowledge, skills and confidence as accomplished writers. Students
write for a range of audiences and purposes using language to convey ideas and emotions with power and precision.
Students appreciate, examine and analyse at least two short prescribed texts as well as texts from their own wide reading,
as models and stimulus for the development of their own complex ideas and written expression. They evaluate how writers
use language creatively and imaginatively for a range of purposes; to express insights, evoke emotion, describe the wonder
of the natural world, shape a perspective or to share an aesthetic vision.
Through the study of enduring, quality texts of the past as well as recognised contemporary works, students appreciate,
analyse and evaluate the versatility, power and aesthetics of language. Through considered appraisal and imaginative
engagement with texts, students reflect on the complex and recursive processes of writing to further develop their
self-expression and apply their knowledge of textual forms and features in their own sustained and cohesive compositions.
During the prewriting stage, students generate and explore various concepts through discussion and speculation.
Throughout the stages of drafting and revising students experiment with various figurative, rhetorical and linguistic devices,
for example allusion, imagery, narrative voice, characterisation, and tone. Students consider purpose, audience and context
to deliberately shape meaning. During the editing stages students apply the conventions of syntax, spelling, punctuation
and grammar appropriately and effectively for publication.
Students have opportunities to work independently and collaboratively to reflect, refine and strengthen their own skills in
producing highly crafted imaginative, discursive, persuasive and informative texts.
Authentic audiences and purposes
● Keep it real when thinking about how to best address your audience.
● Don’t write what you assume they will engage with, write what you know they will engage with.
● Similarly, be realistic in meeting your purpose too.
● Sometimes, you will need to read between the lines of the question to work out what this is – and that’s okay. It’s
even expected.
● Ensure you stick to one purpose and don’t branch off into another – that said, it’s not the end of the world if you
do… just make sure you can justify it in your reflective section.
Power and precision
● Use powerful language – that is, language that has an impact on your reader.
● Tug on their heart strings and get them thinking.
● To be precise in your use of language is to use language economically.
● Only use the words that you absolutely have to, and only use as many words as is necessary.
Stimulus
● A text or part of a text that acts as a starting point for my own writing.
● This doesn’t always mean I have to use the stimulus word for word, but rather that I should use it as a point of
inspiration.
● That said, check the wording of the question.
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Quality text
● A text that has been celebrated for its masterful use of language and/or its enduring plot and subject matter.
● These texts tend to resonate with people across different contexts.
The complex and recursive process of writing
● Writing is like a muscle – you have to exercise it regularly in order to see any growth.
● Get feedback on your writing and apply it.
● Rewrite, and get more feedback. Rinse and repeat.
Terminology:
● Aesthetic - relating to a sense of beaut or of artistic impression
● Allusion - a deliberate and implicit reference to a person, or event, or a work of art which draws on knowledge and
experiences shared by the composer and responder
● Appropriation: Taking an object or text from one context and using it in another context. The process can allow new
insights into the original text or object and emphasise contextual differences. Appropriation also gives extra insight
into the newly created or used text or object. Texts can be appropriated for a range of purposes, including satirical
criticism, consideration of existing ideas in a new context and exploration of cultural assumptions. The mass media
frequently appropriate words, images and icons from other cultural contexts. Films and novels are often
appropriations of earlier texts.
● Cohesion: That quality in a text determined by its parts being related and contributing to its overall unity. Cohesion
is achieved through shaping the form, creating a structure that the responder can recognise and use to navigate the
text, and using features of language that link the various parts of the text into a complete whole. These features can
include connectives such as ‘furthermore’ and ‘therefore’, cross-references to different parts of the text, and
reiteration of the title or terms of the topic or question being addressed in the text.
● Colloquial: Informal expression of language, characteristic of speech and often used in informal writing. The register
of everyday speech.
● Connotation: The nuances or shades of meaning attached to words, beyond that of their literal or dictionary
meanings. Connotations may be positive, negative or neutral.
● Context: The range of personal, social, historical, cultural and workplace conditions in which a text is responded to
and composed.
● Cultural Assumption: Beliefs or attitudes about such things as gender, religion, youth, age, disability, sexuality, social
class and work that are taken for granted as being part of the fabric of the social practices of a particular culture.
Cultural assumptions underlie cultural expressions in texts and may also be embedded in texts in various ways.
● Discursive Texts: Texts whose primary focus is to explore an idea or variety of topics. These texts involve the
discussion of an idea(s) or opinion(s) without the direct intention of persuading the reader, listener or viewer to
adopt any single point of view. Discursive texts can be humorous or serious in tone and can have a formal or
informal register. They include texts such as feature articles, creative nonfiction, blogs, personal essays,
documentaries and speeches.
● Emotive Language: Language that creates an emotional response.
● Evaluative Language: Positive or negative language that judges the worth of something. It includes language to
express feelings and opinions, to make judgments about aspects of people such as their behaviour, and to assess
the quality of objects such as literary works. It includes evaluative words. The language used by a speaker or writer
to give a text a particular perspective (for example judgemental, emotional, critical) in order to influence how the
audience will respond to the content of the text. [Often used extensively in persuasive texts. ]
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● Figurative Language: Words or phrases used in a way that differs from the expected or everyday usage. Figurative
language creates comparisons by linking the senses and the concrete to abstract ideas. Words or phrases are used
in a non-literal way for particular effect, for example simile, metaphor, personification. Figurative language may also
use elements of other senses, as in hearing with onomatopoeia, or in combination as in synaesthesia.
● Hybrid Texts: Composite texts resulting from mixing elements from different sources or genres (for example
infotainment). Email is an example of a hybrid text, combining the immediacy of talk and the expectation of a reply
with the permanence of print.
● Icon: An image or likeness that carries meaning beyond its literal interpretation. The cross is an icon that represents
Christianity, the Sydney Opera House is an icon that represents Sydney or Australia. The meaning of 'icon' has also
broadened to refer to an image or likeness that is admired and valued because of the qualities inherent in what it
represents. For example, leading figures in popular culture enjoy iconic status when they are seen as representing
admired qualities such as intelligence, creativity, leadership, courage, talent, physical strength, grace or endurance.
● Iconography: The visual images and symbols associated with a particular person, place, event, situation or concept.
i.e. religious iconography; Jewish iconography: Christian iconography; sporting iconography.
● Idiom: An expression peculiar to a language, that cannot be taken literally, for example 'I've got a frog in my throat’.
● Idiomatic expressions: Words or ways of speaking which are peculiar to a language or area. The users of the text
understand it to mean something other than its literal translation. Idiomatic expressions give a distinctive flavour to
speech or writing, for example ‘on thin ice’, ‘fed up to the back teeth’. They can be over-used, to the point of cliché.
● Imagery: The use of figurative language or illustrations to represent objects, actions or ideas.
● Inference: The process of drawing conclusions based on evidence from a text.
● Irony: A clash between what the words say and what they mean. Irony has three forms: rhetorical irony — saying
something contrary to what is meant, for example 'I had a great time’ (/was bored) + e dramatic irony — stating or
doing something unaware of its contrast with the real situation, for example where the reader or watcher knows
disaster is about to befall a character who says ‘I've never been happier' + situational irony where events are
opposite to expectations.
● Juxtaposition: The placement of two or more ideas, characters, actions, settings, phrases or words side-byside for a
particular purpose, for example to highlight contrast or for rhetorical effect.
● Language Features: The features of language that support meaning, for example sentence structure, vocabulary,
illustrations, diagrams, graphics, punctuation, figurative language. Choices in language features and text structures
together define a type of text and shape its meaning (see structures of texts). These choices vary according to the
purpose of a text, its subject matter, audience and mode or media of production.
● Language Forms and Features: The symbolic patterns and conventions that shape meaning in texts. These vary
according to the particular mode or media of production and can include written, spoken, non-verbal or visual
communication of meaning (see textual form).
● Language Modes: Listening, speaking, reading, writing, viewing and representing. These modes are often integrated
and interdependent activities used in responding to and composing texts in order to shape meaning. It is important
to realise that: any combination of the modes may be involved in responding to or composing print, sound, visual or
multimedia texts + the refinement of the skills in any one of the modes develops skills in the others. Students need
to build on their skills in all language modes.
● Literary Devices: Literary devices include textual elements such as structure, generic conventions, language forms
and features that are used to shape meaning in texts; for example figurative language or soliloquy.
● Metalanguage: Language (which can include technical terms, concepts, ideas or codes) used to describe and discuss
a language. The language of grammar and the language of literary criticism are two examples of metalanguage.
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● Metaphor; A resemblance between one thing and another is declared by suggesting that one thing is another, for
example 'My fingers are ice’. Metaphors are common in spoken and written language and visual metaphors are
common in still images and moving images.
● Metonymy;: The use of the name of one thing or attribute of something to represent something larger or related,
for example using the word ‘crown to represent a monarch of a country; referring to a place for an event as in
'Chernobyl' when referring to changed attitudes to nuclear power, or a time for an event as in '9/11' when referring
to changed global relations.
● Modality: Aspects of language that suggest a particular perspective on events, a speaker or writer's assessment of
possibility, probability, obligation, frequency and conditionality. Modality forms a continuum from high modality
(for example obliged to, always, must) to low modality (for example might, could, perhaps, rarely). Modality is
expressed linguistically in choices for modal verbs (for example can, may, must, should), modal adverbs (for
example possibly, probably, certainly, perhaps), modal nouns (for example possibility, probability, certainty) and
modal adjectives (for example likely, possible, certain).
● Mood: In literature, the emotive attitude or feeling carried by a particular text, for example happiness, excitement,
doom. It has much in common with tone (see tone). Grammatically, a verb form conveying the speaker's attitude
towards the subject. Traditionally classified as indicative (statements and questions), imperative (commands) or
subjunctive (hypothetical or conditional). The subjunctive involves use of auxiliaries, for example could, may,
should, might.
● Motif: Motif is an object or idea that repeats itself throughout a literary work. In a literary work, a motif can be
seen as an image, sound, action, or other figure that has a symbolic significance, and contributes toward the
development ofa theme. Motif and theme are linked in a literary work, but there is a difference between them. In a
literary piece, a motif is a recurrent image, idea, or symbol that develops or explains a theme, while a theme is a
central idea or message. For example, “death” could be a motif in a literary work and a symbolic representation of
death could be ‘the grim reaper’ or ‘night’ or ‘evening’ being symbolic of death.
● Motif and Symbol - Sometimes, examples of motif are mistakenly identified as examples of symbols. Symbols are
images, ideas, sounds, or words that represent something else, and help to understand an idea or a thing. Motifs,
on the other hand, are images, ideas, sounds, or words that help to explain the central idea of a literary work — the
theme. Moreover, a symbol may appear once or twice in a literary work, whereas a motif is a recurring element.
● Multimodal: Comprising more than one mode. A multimodal text uses a combination of two or more
communication modes, for example print, image and spoken text as in film or computer presentations.
● Parody: A work intended to ridicule or mock through imitating the ideas, tone, vocabulary and stylistic features of
another work.
● Person: The relationship between a subject and its verb showing whether the subject is speaking about itself (first
person —/ or we), being spoken to (second person — you), or being spoken about (third person — he, she, it or
they).
● Perspective: A way of regarding situations, facts and texts.
● Point of View: The particular perspective brought by a composer, responder or character within a text to the text
● or to matters within the text. Narrative point of view refers to the ways a narrator may be related to the story. The
narrator, for example, might take the role of first or third person, omniscient or restricted in knowledge of events,
reliable or unreliable in interpretation of what happens.
● Positioning: The composing technique of causing the responder to adopt a particular point of view and interpret a
text in a particular way. Composers position responders by selectively using detail or argument, by carefully shaping
focus and emphasis and by choosing language that promotes a particular interpretation and reaction.
● Pun: A figure of speech where there is a play on words. Puns are usually humorous and rely on more than one
meaning of a word to emphasise the point, which may be serious e.g. She had a photographic memory but never
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developed it. + The two pianists had a good Marriage. They always were in a chord. + I was struggling to figure out
how lightning works, but then it struck me.
● Register: The degree of formality or informality of language used for a particular purpose or in a particular social
setting.
● Reimagine: Reinterpret an event, work of art or a text imaginatively.
● Rhetorical Devices: Strategies used by writers and speakers to achieve particular effects, for example to stimulate
the audience's imagination or thought processes, to draw attention to a particular idea, or simply to display wit and
ingenuity in composition. Examples of rhetorical devices are irony, paradox, rhetorical question, contrast and
appropriation.
● Salience: A strategy of emphasis, highlighting what is important in a text. In images, salience is created through
strategies like placement of an item in the foreground, size, and contrast in tone or colour. In writing, salience can
occur through placing what is important at the beginning or at the end of a sentence. Or paragraph or through
devices for example underlining or italics.
● Satire: The use of one or more of exaggeration, humour, parody, irony, sarcasm or ridicule to expose, denounce and
deride folly or vice in human nature and institutions. The emphatic feature of these language devices draws
attention to what is being criticised.
● Simile: A figure of speech that compares two usually dissimilar things. The comparison start with like, as or as if.
● Stereotype: A circumstance where a person or thing is judged to be the same as all others of its type. Stereotypes
are usually formulaic and oversimplified. In literature, a stereotype is a character representing generalised racial or
social traits, with no individualisation.
● Stylistic Features: The ways aspects of texts, for example words, sentences and images, are arranged, and how they
affect meaning. Style can distinguish the work of individual authors (for example Jennings’ stories, Lawson's poems)
as well as the work of a particular period (for example Elizabethan drama, nineteenth century novels). Examples of
stylistic features are narrative viewpoint, structure of stanzas, juxtaposition, use of figurative language and tone.
● Subvert: To compose or respond to a text in ways that are different from the widely accepted reading or different
from the conventional genre. For example, Roald Dahl's Revolting Rhymes provides a subverted reading of
Cinderella. The purpose of producing a subverted reading of a text might be to entertain or to raise questions about
the meaning or inherent values in the original text.
● Symbol: An object, animate or inanimate, which represents something else through the use of association,
intentional analogy and convention.
● Symbolism: Use of a symbol that represents something else, particularly in relation to a quality or concept
developed and strengthened through repetition. For example, freedom can be symbolised by a bird in flight in both
verbal and visual texts.
● Syntax: The way in which sentences and clauses are structured. Syntax is often described in terms of such elements
as subject, verb and object, for example ‘Christine (subject) munched (verb) the apple (object)’.
● Tense: The element that determines when the action or condition of the verb form is located in time. In broad
terms the tense will be past, present or future, for example ‘Sarah laughed’, 'Sarah laughs’,
● ‘Sarah will laugh’. Participles (verbs ending in -ing) do not locate a verb in time and need a finite component to
indicate when the event happens. For example, the participle running needs the finite auxiliaries was running
(past), is running (present), will be running (future) to indicate when the running occurred.
● Text connectives: Often called conjunctions, these are words for signposting the development of a text and helping
it hold together. They can:sequence ideas, for example firstly, secondly, thirdly, finally add information, for example
in addition, furthermore, in the same way show causes and results, for example so, therefore, for that reason,
accordingly, asa consequence introduce conditions or concessions, for example on the other hand, however,
nevertheless, despite this.
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● Textual Form: The conventions specific to a particular type of text, often signalling content, purpose and audience,
for example letter form, drama script, blog.
● Textual Integrity: The unity of a text; its coherent use of form and language to produce an integrated whole in terms
of meaning and value.
● Theme: Refers to the central or one of the main underlying ideas or messages of a text.
● Tone: The voice adopted by a particular speaker to indicate emotion, feeling or attitude to subject matter. The
author's attitude towards the subject and audience, for example playful, serious, ironic, formal.
● Types of Texts: Classifications according to the particular purposes texts are designed to achieve. These purposes
influence the characteristic features the texts employ. In general, texts can be classified as belonging to one of three
types (imaginative, informative or persuasive), although it is acknowledged that these distinctions are neither static
nor watertight and particular texts can belong to more than one category.
○ Imaginative texts — texts that represent ideas, feelings and mental images in words or visual images. An
imaginative text might use metaphor to translate ideas and feelings into a form that can be communicated
effectively to an audience. Imaginative texts also make new connections between established ideas or
widely recognised experiences in order to create new ideas and images. Imaginative texts are characterised
by originality, freshness and insight. These texts include novels, traditional tales, poetry, stories, plays,
fiction for young adults and children, including picture books and multimodal texts, for example film.
○ Informative texts — texts whose primary purpose is to provide information through explanation,
description, argument, analysis, ordering and presentation of evidence and procedures. These texts include
reports, explanations and descriptions of natural phenomena, recounts of events, instructions and
directions, rules and laws, news bulletins and articles, websites and text analyses. They include texts which
are valued for their informative content, as a store of knowledge and for their value as part of everyday life.
○ Persuasive texts — texts whose primary purpose is to put forward a point of view and persuade a reader,
viewer or listener. They forma significant part of modern communication in both print and digital
environments. Persuasive texts seek to convince the responder of the strength of an argument or point of
view through information, judicious use of evidence, construction of argument, critical analysis and the use
of rhetorical, figurative and emotive language. They include student essays, debates, arguments,
discussions, polemics, advertising, propaganda, influential essays and articles, Persuasive texts may be
written, spoken, visual or multimodal.
● Voice: In reference to a text, voice means the composer's voice — the idea of a speaking consciousness, the
controlling presence or ‘authorial voice' behind the characters, narrators and personas in a text. It is also described
as the implied composer. The particular qualities of the composer's voice are manifested by such things as her or
his method of expression (for example an ironic narrator) and specific language. Grammatically, voice refers to the
way of indicating who is doing the action. Active voice is where the ‘doer' of the action comes before the verb, for
example ‘Ann broke the vase’. Passive voice is where the ‘receiver’ of the action is placed before the verb, for
example 'The vase was broken by Ann' (see theme). Stylistically, active voice is usually preferred in writing, as it
places the agent of the verb at the start of the sentence and has a sense of immediacy, whereas passive voice
creates a sense of detachment between subject and verb and is not so easily read and understood.
Imaginative
- Lots of freedom
- No analysing required
- Easy to write from own experiences + opportunity to explore another world
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- Motif
- Symbolism - utilise a particular colour
- Action - link an action to the picture and your story
Discursive
- Explores an issue, idea, situation or dilemma and may suggest a position or point of view
- Approaches a topic from different angles and explore themes and issues in a style that balances personal
observations with different perspectives
- Uses personal anecdotes
- Primarily uses first person language
- Draws upon real life experiences and/or draws from wide reading
- Uses engaging imagery + language features:
- Attitude / perspective that requires a rethink or reconsideration
- Begins with an event, an anecdote or relevant quote that is then used to explore an idea
- Resolution may be reflected or open ended
Beginning and ending discursive essays:
- Make reference to an unusual or striking idea/scene/situation
- Address the reader directly
- Start with a quotation or thought-provoking statement
- In the last paragraph - you should state your opinion and/or give a balanced consideration of the topic
- Finish with a quotation
- Ask a rhetorical question
- Give the reader something to consider
Persuasive
- An academic essay, personal essay, opinion piece, letter to the editor or speech
- Aims to convince the reader of the validity of one perspective
- Familiar with the language required for a persuasive response
- Not as subjective as other text types
- Require a convincing argument
Reflective
- Write a reflection based on the piece of writing you produce in Part A
- Introduce your piece
- Provide a brief summary of ideas, themes and the main purpose of your text
- Delve into analysis of language and structure
- Discuss setting and justify your stylistic choices
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- Discuss voices and perspective
- Discuss any unique forms you may have taken
- Consider characterisation and how that may relate to setting or assist in conveying underlying themes
- Comment on genre and the possible conventions you are adhering to or subverting and why
- Delve into analysis of ‘little’ language devices - metalanguage - at last 4-5 quotations
- Provide quotations for every element you discuss and justify - link back to purpose
You must incorporate some evidence from your own writing to show this. Identify the purpose + audience, find quotations
and analysis from the composed text, find techniques showcased.
Remember:
● Motif as a way of furthering plot, building character and ‘capturing figurative devices in a cohesive and effective
manner
● Varied sentence lengths and structures in order, writing is visually appealing and inviting, more important moments
are signposted and emphasised
● The environment as representational of the psyche of the individual
● The use of figurative language like metaphors, similes and personification
● The use of colour in a symbolic manner
Author’s POV
First Person
- A character within the story recounts/retells his or her own experiences or impressions
- Lets the reader know only what that character knows
- I, me, my, mine, we our, ours
Second Person
- The story or the piece of writing is from the perspective of ‘you’
- Uncommon
- Mainly used for instruction manuals, recipes, giving directions and poetry
- You, yours
Third Person Objective
- The narrator remains a detached observer, telling only the stories action and dialogue
- Lets the reader know only what is seen and heard, not what characters think or feel
- He, she, it, they
Third Person Limited Omniscient
- The narrator tells the story from the viewpoint of one character in the story
- Lets the reader know what one character thinks, sees, knows, hears and feels
- He, she, it, they
Third Person Omniscient
- The narrator has unlimited knowledge and can describe every character’s thoughts and interpret their
behaviours
- Lets the reader know unlimited information about the characters
- He, she, it they
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Spotty Handed Villainesses
● Margaret Atwood is known for her feminism, as well as scifi, mythological and dystopian themes
● Her feminist works underpinned the movement of the 1960’s due to the success of her writings
● It is not composed so much as a formal speech, but as an informal presentation to her audiences of some of her
concerns about the portrayal of women in contemporary literature
● The assumed audiences for this colloquial speech are university students/academic/publishing audiences who are
able to respond to the many literary allusions
● Her audiences were aware of contemporary movements in society, particularly the feminist view of the position of
women in life and in art
● Atwood was a part of the third wave of feminism which was a complex movement and embraced contradictions,
conflict and irrationality and attempts to accommodate diversity and change
● This movement aimed to show sexuality in a positive light and the depiction of women as a complex but equal part
of society
● This was displayed through altering the way women were viewed in popular culture and literature
● This movement sought to address the issues of derogatory language becoming part of everyday speech
● This movement was less focused on the equal rights for women and more on the equal perception of women in
society
● The third wave came about as a response to the second wave of feminism and sought to amend more philosophical
issues which lingered due to previous movements
Margaret Atwood’s speech ‘Spotty-Handed Villainesses’ connects to this module by the ways its form evokes emotion in the
audience. This is done by the use of speech structure such as pathos, ethos and logos. It is crucial to apply this knowledge
of pathos, ethos and logos to your own writing as they are key elements of speech structure and thus test your knowledge
of the speech in its entirety. Atwood furthers this through her use of intertextuality and allusions to well-known characters,
the elliptical nature of the speech and through an academic voice.
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Quotes:
“Life is short, art is long, motives are complex, and human nature is endlessly fascinating.
“Evil women are necessary in story traditions for two much more obvious reasons, of course. First, they exist in life, so why
shouldn’t they exist in literature? Second – which may be another way of saying the same thing – women have more to
them than virtue.”
“Women are tired of being good all the time”
“Art is what you can get away with” - Marshall McLuhan
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