Hey Lauren! (btw I like how all these start off with "hey/hi Lauren" haha)
For The War Poems, we were basically given the compilation of poems, and frankly I have no idea what to do with them, because it's different to a normal novel in that its an anthology 
. What would you recommend reading all the poems one by one and attempt to analyse them over the school holidays? Or is there a recommended select few that would cater more to the VCE prompts? Honestly I have no idea how to tackle these poems at all haha.
Going over the ones Paulrus has outlined should be your main concern. If I'm not mistaken VCAA doesn't actually specify
which Selected Poems you're studying, just that they're from the anthology, but you'll get a good sense throughout the year of which ones have a lot of good discussion fodder in them, and which aren't so dense.
The Wilfred Owen Association is a great little site that has a discussion about all of his major poems and a couple of minor ones, so that might make for good holiday reading too. Otherwise, simply googling a poem title with 'resources' or 'analysis' will take you to a few other good points of reference.
Something I found helpful when studying poetry, especially since you're expected to make connection between poems as well as analysing them, print out a copy, pin them up on a wall in your house somewhere and make a mindmap of sorts. You could wait until you've read a few synopses and just do this exercise with the titles and key points in each poem, but in general this will help you think about the text holistically and not just as ~20 separate poems.
Also, what is the difference between an introduction and a conclusion in text response? I always seem to just restate my introduction with different words, and although atm it seems to help me score ok, some higher responses manage to come up with really thought provoking conclusions and I was wondering if there was any tips on doing this!
Introductions are for saying: these are some points I'll discuss later. The conclusion is for hammering home the message in a bigger way, which ideally would involve the "thought provoking" aspect, but can just be a more abstract statement based on the prompt. Best advice would be to
consider the implication of the prompt.
For example: '
Wilfred Owen's War Poems show how war changes people's priorities.'
I guarantee at least 3/4 of the state will look at this and structure an essay like so:
-Intro
-Para on war
-Para on change
-Para on people's priorities
-Conclusion
Not only is this an exemplary format for limiting your approach, but it also risks avoiding the prompt, even though each key area is being unpacked. By separating each idea and deconstructing it, yes you might get some great analysis, but you still need to be commenting on what the
entire prompt is saying, not just each keyword. Assuming you can get this done in the Intro and Concl. alone is risky, it's better to integrate it into your body paragraphs to take the strain off.
A better breakdown might be:
-Intro
-Para on why war has the capacity to change people in good and bad ways
-Para on how this change occurs, what it means for those involved, and those indirectly affected
-Para on what people's priorities are/ should be, whether these are always subject to change
-Concl.
There's still a slightly segmented focus, but going into a paragraph thinking in sentences rather than key words is a lot more helpful. Essentially you'll already have a contention, and your essay will flow a lot better.
(Even though the issue of intro vs. concl. breakdowns hasn't been brought up before, there are some previous examples in T.R. and Context of 'questioning/dissecting prompts' if you need clarification on this.)
But you might notice something similar in the starts and ends of your body paragraphs (ie. restating your sub-contention) in which case try and split it up between the T.S. (eg. The idea of humility is central to the text, in particular the development of character X) and the conclusory/ zoomy-outy sentence (Therefore the author purports humility to be a necessity for understanding oneself and one's environment.)
Basically intros are just saying 'here's something important' and the conclusions are saying 'this is why it's important.' Then the body of the essay is just expanding upon what the author is saying about this importance.
In terms of coming up with these grandiose interpretations, it definitely comes with practice, and it'll depend on the text as well. For War Poems, some comment about Owen's pacifism might come in handy, or perhaps even his role as a poet. Above all else though, it depends on the prompt. If you're being asked to discuss the use of narrative voice and perspective in the anthology, and you end with a gorgeous, but irrelevant statement about the brutality of war and man's penchant for destruction, then you might earn a sympathy mark from an easily impressed assessor, but nothing more.
Always, always, always ensure your writing is relevant. It's okay to move away from your core discussion occasionally provided you have a reason for doing so, but your conclusions will be where the mark is decided, so you want to be solidifying your score, not giving the marker a chance to dock a point for irrelevance.
Going through other people's essays might help with this too. It's probably easy enough for you to look at a conclusion and either go 'this is good, this kid deserves full marks' or 'wtf even, are you trying to fail at school??' but what
makes them good or bad? Are they structurally sound but poorly written? Is it just redundantly restating the contention, or worse, is it arguing a totally different point to the rest of the essay? Have they ended with a tacky quote
like "it is not in the stars to hold our fate, but in ourselves. -William Shakespeare" which I totally didn't do for all my essays in Years 8-11 of English 
oh silly Lauren, you had no idea how amusing you'd be to your future self
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