ATAR Notes: Forum
HSC Stuff => HSC Subjects + Help => HSC Marking and Feedback => Topic started by: owidjaja on February 15, 2018, 11:22:26 pm
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Hey there,
I just finished writing my creative piece and it would be great if you guys were to give me feedback! Please (kindly) roast my creative piece- got a relative good mark in my Year 11 creative but I really want to bump up my mark (idk if that makes sense lol).
Thanks in advance!
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Hey there,
I just finished writing my creative piece and it would be great if you guys were to give me feedback! Please (kindly) roast my creative piece- got a relative good mark in my Year 11 creative but I really want to bump up my mark (idk if that makes sense lol).
Thanks in advance!
Hey! I'll try look at it in detail tomorrow but it was definitely a very interesting read! The main criticism I would have is that it is a tad overly descriptive at parts where it is not necessary. In terms of discovery, the first one I obviously noticed was the discovery of her grandfather which was good. Was the grandfather just in the army or was he a prisoner of war (I got this impression from the way you described him as skinny etc)? The other discovery I found was the ability of emotion to transcend language barriers re she understands her grandmothers pain and suffering despite not being able to communicate through language. As I said hopefully I can look at this in more detail some time tomorrow :)
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Hey! I'll try look at it in detail tomorrow but it was definitely a very interesting read! The main criticism I would have is that it is a tad overly descriptive at parts where it is not necessary. In terms of discovery, the first one I obviously noticed was the discovery of her grandfather which was good. Was the grandfather just in the army or was he a prisoner of war (I got this impression from the way you described him as skinny etc)? The other discovery I found was the ability of emotion to transcend language barriers re she understands her grandmothers pain and suffering despite not being able to communicate through language. As I said hopefully I can look at this in more detail some time tomorrow :)
Ahaha I over-describing was one of the biggest comments I got from last year. If you can include some tips on avoiding this in your feedback (for tomorrow) would be greatly appreciated :)
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Ahaha I over-describing was one of the biggest comments I got from last year. If you can include some tips on avoiding this in your feedback (for tomorrow) would be greatly appreciated :)
Beads of sweat trickled down my thighs. I wasn’t sure if it was because of the humid weather or the fact that my frail grandmother had placed herself in front of me, her wrinkles bunching up near the corners of her eyes as she squinted. I would potentially get rid of these two sentences as I feel like they aren't that important and without them there is more of a sense of mystery to the story. Her bony fingers tightened around the wooden cane, the thumping sound of the wood echoing with the tiled floor. Her steel grey hair had been parted on both sides, as if it were a curtain revealing the secrets that hid within her wrinkles. Every wrinkle seemed like ato tell a different story. Yet I never bothered to ask. Great last two lines - short and tells a lot!
I shifted in my leather seat, uncomfortable that I was under the scrutiny of the frail old woman - my Grandmother (this is if you delete the first two sentences as I have suggested as finally you would reveal to the reader who the old lady is) .The tick-tock sound of the clock echoed, filling the deafening silence between us. The room was consumed by a deafening silence.I wasn’t sure how to communicate to her with my broken Indonesian.
A loud clatter filled my ears.
My grandmother pushed a large album aside, placing her mug down next to the kettle and the empty cup. Curiosity gnawed inside me, so I leaned over, pulling the album closer. Dust blanketed the soft material of the photo album, the gold lace of the material fraying. The album sunk into the gap between my legs, the corners of the album digging into my skin.An example of where I think the description is a tad unnecessary
The old musty smell filled my lungs, revealing a sun-bleached photograph as I opened the album. Creases cut through the faded expressions. Nevertheless, I could clearly see the bright expressions on everyone’s faces. The young woman, whose veil was pushed behind her, revealed the crinkles that bunched near her misted eyes. The bride stood tall and proud, a bouquet of crimson roses resting against the crook of her elbow. Her other arm was linked with a young man- an upright position, gloved hands; despite his stiff posture, warmness emanated from his eyes. My eyes flicked between the two content figures- my grandmother in her youthful self, and the unfamiliar young man.
I glanced back at my grandmother, who was now interested in the object in my lap. The corners of her lip quirked, nostalgic at the sight of the photograph. Her glassy eyes shifted from the photograph to my own eyes. I glanced back to the photo, curious who this man was, then back to my grandmother’s eyes, the harshness slowly disappearing.
I pointed at the man. “Who is he?” I blurted out, momentarily forgetting my grandmother’s limited understanding in English.
She fiddled with her cane, tapping the wood against the tiles rhythmically with the ticking of the clock. “He… your akong.” She croaked with her broken English. The rolling of her r’s and the sharp vowels revealed her strong Indonesian accent.
My grandfather. I flipped to the next page, displaying another photo of the young, happy couple. This time, pride emanated from the young man- starched collars and a creaseless uniform. His puffed chest displayed a row of medals placed on the left-hand side of his uniform- no medal was out of line. A great subtle way to display that he was a courageous and honourable man without simply saying soDespite his lean figure- most likely from training- his cheeks were hollow; bony arms, thin wrists- it was as if he hadn’t had a proper meal in a while.
A small box was pushed towards me. My grandmother gestured towards the navy-blue box. Carefully placing the album next to me, I reached for the box, stroking the velvety material. Inside revealed the silver medals- ones that matched my grandfather’s medals. The metal surface gleamed under the dull lights, despite the coppery rust that has begun to eat away the edges of the medal.
“What happened?” I questioned her. She sipped on the now-lukewarm green tea, grimacing at the bitter taste. Her eyes wandered to the crumbling plaster on the magnolia wall. I followed her gaze, finding pellet-size craters with plaster clumped inside the crater. Absentmindedly, she traced the rim of the mug with her finger, her gaze transfixed in the craters.
A sharp inhale. A sip of her tea.
Her gaze returned to me. “He gone.” Her eyes drifted back into the photo album. “With Batavia.”
The rumbling sound of transport seeped through the walls. I frozehad no words. I wanted to move next to her; comfort her with my broken Indonesian. I wasn’t sure what to say. I wasn’t sure what to do.
The silence was killing me.A bit cliched but still works.
The sun suddenly shifted, hiding behind the fluffy clouds as the harshness of their beams faded. The gentle warmth of the December weather hugged comfortedher weary body. The faint vertical lines on the skin between my grandmother’s forehead slowly faded, the tension from her taut muscles slowly being released. “Good man… your akong.”
I flipped back to their wedding photograph, her wrinkles now bunching up near the corners of her lips. “Good man,” she continued to mumble, her eyes focusing on tiled floors. Behind her blotchy skin, I could almost see the roses that dusted on her cheeks- it was almost as if she never talked about my akong.
Slowly, my grandmother lifted the mug to her lips, sipping the now-cold green tea. I hauled the album back onto my lap. No words needed to be exchanged.
All we heard was the sound of silence.
It is great that you are able to write a great story taking place in just a conversation. My only thought other than those expressed in my marking in the story is - 1) I don't entirely understand the correlation between the sun fading and the grandmother's change of heart.Just clarity there and your story, with some tweaking stylistically is ready to go! :) In terms of how to avoid over describing all I would say is - when using description make sure it has a purpose which will get your marks, so the description has to strengthen the discovery. For instance, if you went into detail describing the grandmother's wrinkles as you have and the discovery was hypothetically of the hardships she went through that is absolutely fine as the wrinkles are symbolic of her struggles and pain (which would be the main discovery made in this instance). Hope that helped :)
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It is great that you are able to write a great story taking place in just a conversation. My only thought other than those expressed in my marking in the story is - 1) I don't entirely understand the correlation between the sun fading and the grandmother's change of heart.Just clarity there and your story, with some tweaking stylistically is ready to go! :) In terms of how to avoid over describing all I would say is - when using description make sure it has a purpose which will get your marks, so the description has to strengthen the discovery. For instance, if you went into detail describing the grandmother's wrinkles as you have and the discovery was hypothetically of the hardships she went through that is absolutely fine as the wrinkles are symbolic of her struggles and pain (which would be the main discovery made in this instance). Hope that helped :)
Hey there!
Thanks for the feedback. I also asked my teacher to mark my creative and he suggested to play around with the structure since HSC markers prefer non-linear stories. I'm trying to play around with the tenses when I'm describing the photos but at the moment... it just doesn't feel right. Any suggestions on this?
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Hey there!
Thanks for the feedback. I also asked my teacher to mark my creative and he suggested to play around with the structure since HSC markers prefer non-linear stories. I'm trying to play around with the tenses when I'm describing the photos but at the moment... it just doesn't feel right. Any suggestions on this?
Hey! I say the same for integrated essay structures for the Modules - if you do not feel comfortable doing it, don't! You will lose more marks trying to do a non-linear creative if you don't know exactly what you are doing as the story could become confusing. You, however, can certainly still get full marks with a linear story structure. :)
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Hey there,
This is an updated version of my draft. I used the feedback given from here and my teacher and tweaked it a bit so more feedback will be greatly appreciated (wasn't sure if I was supposed to start a new thread or just continue this thread).
Thanks in advance!
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Hey there,
This is an updated version of my draft. I used the feedback given from here and my teacher and tweaked it a bit so more feedback will be greatly appreciated (wasn't sure if I was supposed to start a new thread or just continue this thread).
Thanks in advance!
I'll get to looking at this soon :)
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Hey! Would you mind giving me some feedback on how to improve this creative writing piece? Or if I should scrap it and start over? Thank you! :)
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Hey there,
This is an updated version of my draft. I used the feedback given from here and my teacher and tweaked it a bit so more feedback will be greatly appreciated (wasn't sure if I was supposed to start a new thread or just continue this thread).
Thanks in advance!
Hey, looking back at it I only have two VERY small comments!
A young man that stands next to her links his arm with hers, gripping her arm with his gloved hands before straightening his posture to an upright position- despite his stiff posture, his eyes were radiating with warmness. Too long a sentence.
I glanced back at my grandmother, who was now interested in the object in my lap. The corners of her lip quirked, nostalgic at the sight of the photograph. Her glassy eyes shifted from the photograph to my own eyes. I glanced back to the photo, curious who this man was, then back to my grandmother’s eyes. Try use another word other than glanced.
Other than that it's fine :)
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Hey, looking back at it I only have two VERY small comments!
A young man that stands next to her links his arm with hers, gripping her arm with his gloved hands before straightening his posture to an upright position- despite his stiff posture, his eyes were radiating with warmness. Too long a sentence.
I glanced back at my grandmother, who was now interested in the object in my lap. The corners of her lip quirked, nostalgic at the sight of the photograph. Her glassy eyes shifted from the photograph to my own eyes. I glanced back to the photo, curious who this man was, then back to my grandmother’s eyes. Try use another word other than glanced.
Other than that it's fine :)
Hey there!
Thanks again for the feedback. To be honest, I'm not feeling very satisfied with my creative.
1. Considering how my creative is approximately 800 words, is that enough for a creative?
2. Did I really show the ramifications of the persona's discovery well? Does my creative fit under all or most of the aspects of discovery in the rubric?
3. My teacher still isn't satisfied with my creative and how I wrote the scenes in present tense (haven't gotten his feedback yet but he spoke to me about it today)- the fact that he's a retired HSC marker makes me paranoid about my creative.
Any tips on these issues (sorry, I feel like the refining part will be a long process of constant spamming of questions and drafts).
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Hey there!
Thanks again for the feedback. To be honest, I'm not feeling very satisfied with my creative.
1. Considering how my creative is approximately 800 words, is that enough for a creative?
2. Did I really show the ramifications of the persona's discovery well? Does my creative fit under all or most of the aspects of discovery in the rubric?
3. My teacher still isn't satisfied with my creative and how I wrote the scenes in present tense (haven't gotten his feedback yet but he spoke to me about it today)- the fact that he's a retired HSC marker makes me paranoid about my creative.
Any tips on these issues (sorry, I feel like the refining part will be a long process of constant spamming of questions and drafts).
Hey I'm heading out to the city now so I don't have time to really go over it now but just quickly -
800 is fine as you need time to adapt to the stimulus as well :) my teacher always said a tight well written story packs more punch!
And also I got more of a sense of the impact on the discovery on the grandmother rather than the persona so you could improve there?
Otherwise I'll look at it in more detail tomorrow although I'm pretty much busy from 10am-10pm so it'll be pretty late if that's alright :)
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Hey there!
Thanks again for the feedback. To be honest, I'm not feeling very satisfied with my creative.
1. Considering how my creative is approximately 800 words, is that enough for a creative?
2. Did I really show the ramifications of the persona's discovery well? Does my creative fit under all or most of the aspects of discovery in the rubric?
3. My teacher still isn't satisfied with my creative and how I wrote the scenes in present tense (haven't gotten his feedback yet but he spoke to me about it today)- the fact that he's a retired HSC marker makes me paranoid about my creative.
Any tips on these issues (sorry, I feel like the refining part will be a long process of constant spamming of questions and drafts).
Hey so yeah your story definitely is not too short for the reasons I stated above. I also maintain that the main aspect of discovery missing from your creative is the impact on the narrator rather than grandmother - how does the discovery of her grandfather impact the persona? Perhaps it allows the persona to connect with her grandmother on a deeper level?
My creative was pretty much all written in past tense so I don't see much of a problem with your creative being all in one tense but I understand your desire to please your teacher if they are marking it in the exams. In terms of possible ideas - all I can think of is possibly doing a flashback of the persona talking about the first time the grandmother and grandfather met - I would say to do this from the grandmothers perspective but obviously that's hard because she doesn't speak much English. Anyway hope that somewhat helped :)
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Hey there,
I finally had the chance to refine my creative so it would be greatly appreciated if someone were to take another look at my creative.
Thanks in advance!
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Bump^ Almost been a month and I still haven't received feedback :)
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Hey there,
I finally had the chance to refine my creative so it would be greatly appreciated if someone were to take another look at my creative.
Thanks in advance!
I can ;D I'll stick some comments in the Word Document and attach it below.
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Right! So I didn't add a heap of comments throughout, the ones I did were nitpicks. A few spots where expression isn't quite right (read it out loud to a friend, guaranteed way to catch 90% of errors like that).
Overall, I love the idea of the Creative and particularly like the element of the Indonesian language you bring to what is (being honest) a fairly cliched scenario for Discovery creatives. You give it enough difference to make it stand out, excellent stuff. Make sure your Creative can meaningfully represent different types of Discovery - I think you could focus a bit more on how the Discovery benefits the relationship between the character and the grandmother, or perhaps link it more to Indonesian culture, to name a few ideas.
My biggest point of improvement for you would probably be over-description. I think you need to go through, ditch some adjectives, use it as an excuse to get the word count down into the 800's to give yourself more breathing room under pressure. I mention it in a comment, if you describe everything, it's almost like describing nothing. Imagery and description is just as much a technique as a metaphor, and it should be used for impact in specific ways, to emphasise specific things.
Overall, it's about efficiency. When you throw a 50-word segment out there, even if it is great use of imagery, if it doesn't further the concept or the story then it is wasted words ;D
Hope this roasting is helpful - I saw that DP only had small comments last time, and I thought, "Well, challenge accepted." ;)
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Hope this roasting is helpful - I saw that DP only had small comments last time, and I thought, "Well, challenge accepted." ;)
Haha any roasting is helpful ;)
But yeah, thanks for that :)
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Hello,
Just wanted to say your creative reminded me a lot of my own discovery one. I have a persona visiting her grandfather and a discovery occurs because my persona finds a photograph. It was a great read.
Hope you find my feedback helpful.
From theyam :)
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Hello,
Just wanted to say your creative reminded me a lot of my own discovery one. I have a persona visiting her grandfather and a discovery occurs because my persona finds a photograph. It was a great read.
Hope you find my feedback helpful.
From theyam :)
Hey there,
Thanks for the feedback :) Will definitely take it on board!
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Hey guys,
I finally fixed up my creative (after a few months lmao) so it would be great if I could get some feedback on it.
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Hey guys,
So here's my updated creative so any feedback would be great :)
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Hey guys,
So here's my updated creative so any feedback would be great :)
Hey! Feedback attached, it is mostly mechanics and nitpicks in the comments, you could probably ignore most of them ;) I think you should play up the barrier between the two more at the start, make it super clear that there is a disconnect. Maybe the character reflects a bit on being forced to stay there (for whatever reason), or something. Do what you can to symbolise that at the start, and that will add emphasis to the ending :)
Great stuff Olivia ;D
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Hey! Feedback attached, it is mostly mechanics and nitpicks in the comments, you could probably ignore most of them ;) I think you should play up the barrier between the two more at the start, make it super clear that there is a disconnect. Maybe the character reflects a bit on being forced to stay there (for whatever reason), or something. Do what you can to symbolise that at the start, and that will add emphasis to the ending :)
Great stuff Olivia ;D
Hey there,
Thanks for the feedback! Would you say my creative is malleable enough? (My teacher suggested to prepare two creative pieces just in case...)
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Hey there,
Thanks for the feedback! Would you say my creative is malleable enough? (My teacher suggested to prepare two creative pieces just in case...)
Have you tried writing it in response to Trial exams? If so, how did it go? That's the best way to judge ;D
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Have you tried writing it in response to Trial exams? If so, how did it go? That's the best way to judge ;D
I've flicked through some and they seem to work fine. I'm just worried that the discovery aspect isn't explicit enough, but saying something like "I was so shocked about my discovery" becomes obviously jarring.
Like 'complex discoveries'- the term 'complex' is quite vague so what exactly is the criteria of having a 'complex' discovery??
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I've flicked through some and they seem to work fine. I'm just worried that the discovery aspect isn't explicit enough, but saying something like "I was so shocked about my discovery" becomes obviously jarring.
Like 'complex discoveries'- the term 'complex' is quite vague so what exactly is the criteria of having a 'complex' discovery??
(kinda) following from the above quote, at what point does a discovery become too implicit or too explicit?
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I've flicked through some and they seem to work fine. I'm just worried that the discovery aspect isn't explicit enough, but saying something like "I was so shocked about my discovery" becomes obviously jarring.
Like 'complex discoveries'- the term 'complex' is quite vague so what exactly is the criteria of having a 'complex' discovery??
Your Discovery is definitely explicit enough in the creative above! :)
Complex is purposely vague, but it just means something with more nuance than a simple, "I discovered I love this person." Your discovery definitely has nuance :)
(kinda) following from the above quote, at what point does a discovery become too implicit or too explicit?
Too implicit - A marker who knows they are reading a Discovery text struggles to find a Discovery
Too explicit - A student who doesn't know they are reading a Discovery text goes, "Oh, this is a Discovery text."
The Discovery should come naturally from the story, but you shouldn't have to spell it out for the reader ;D
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Hey guys,
I was looking at last year's CSSA Trial Paper and the creative section says to compose a creative on childhood discovery in the perspective of an adult. My creative doesn't really establish how old the character is so how do I show that the character is reflecting on the childhood discovery?
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Hey guys,
I was looking at last year's CSSA Trial Paper and the creative section says to compose a creative on childhood discovery in the perspective of an adult. My creative doesn't really establish how old the character is so how do I show that the character is reflecting on the childhood discovery?
I wouldn't worry about it! If it was in last year's paper I highly doubt it'll be there again! Just get some rest and you'll be fine :)