The challenges of the first VCAA English Section B exam task

 


The challenges of the first VCAA English Section B exam task

November 27, 2024 by Doug McCurry

The puzzles of connection

Section B of VCE English is designed so that there is a content for students to prepare and write about in the exam and for teachers to teach.

The exam task is designed to mitigate preprepared and/or plagiarised responses. This task design poses many challenges to students and markers which I will examine on the basis of the first set of tasks presented in 2024.

I will consider the following issues about exam responses.

  • What is the relationship beteen the Framework, the title and the stimulus?
  • How close is the relationship between the Framework, title and stimulus supposed to be in a student’s response?
  • Can the title be taken to be the Framework?
  • Is the title more important than the stimulus or vice versa?
  • Can the title and stimulus be taken as the constraints without the content of the response relating to the Framework?
  • What happens if the connections of the writing to the constraints is not close enough?
  • How do you know if the connections to the constraints are not close enough?
  • What happens if students choose a word or phrase from the stimulus but do not deal with the propositional content of the stim?
  • What happens if links to the title and stimulus are merely gestural rather than the basis of the response?
  • What happens if a student makes no reference to (or ignores) the task constraints?

I pose these issues a questions because they are issues of uncertainty, and ones on which we must hope for clarification or direction from the VCAA in the future.

Analysis of the 2024 Section B exam tasks

The following analysis of these exam tasks shows that almost all titles and stimulus can be turned into:

  • propositions for exposition or argument; or
  • personal viewpoints or personal narratives.

There are great differences in the relationships between title and stimulus, to each other and to the Framework.
And great differences in the relationship of task constraints to likely prepared content.
The propositional content of some stimuli can be very high, and this propositional content can be more or less related to the Framework, the title and the stimuli.
Do students have to deal with all of a statement?
Can they deal with only a part?

 

Framework 1: Writing about country

  • Write a text that explores ideas about country.
  • You must use the title provided.
  • You must use at least one of the following stimuli.

Title: 'Connections'

What kind of connections are at issue?
Are country or countries to be seen as connections?

Stimulus 1

'How sweet the howling wind sounds in my own trees!'

This is a poetic expression of feeling. It is a paradox in being a sweet howling.

Does it suggest that owning trees is sweet, even when and if they seem to howl?

We could take this to suggest that there is a sweetness of connection to land even when it is sour.

Could we write something as general as:

our love of trees?

can one really own trees?

the howl of the wind?

Stimulus 2


A man and boy walking into the sunrise/sunset in a field if grain

 Is the stimulus about family connections and the land on which we live?

Could we write something as general as:

the father and son relationship (and toxic masculinity)?

mother and daughter in comparison with father and son?

Stimulus 3

'I am surrounded by a vastness that could easily overwhelm a lesser being.

But this is my home.

Each grain of sand, caught momentarily by the wind,

Ties me irrevocably to all who came before and all yet to come.'

This is a very mystical and poetic effusion. What do you do with hyperbole?

Does it suggest that

  • there is overwhelming vastness that is still a home?
  • there is overwhelming vastness and there is home?

It is suggested that the material surroundings tie the speaker to all who came before.

It is hard here to see a connection to the Country Framework in this task.

 

Framework 2: Writing about protest

Title: 'Resist and Persist'

This seems to be an exhortation.

Stimulus 1

'If you fell down yesterday, stand up today.'

This a direction or injunction advocating resistance, resilience and persistence.

Some possible topics

When I fell down and could not get up the next day

How I eventually managed to get up again after I fell.

These responses are directly related to the stimulus but not the title or the Framework.

Stimulus 2


An individual stops the dominoes falling

 Resisting the chaos

Does this allow you to write anything about Protest, resistance and persistence?

The time I resisted and persisted?

What I would be persistent in resisting?

Stimulus 3

'People should be discerning in their choice of when to protest,

Considering the significance of a cause,

Channelling energy towards issues they feel are meaningful,

Rather than engaging in activism for its own sake.'

This is a definite proposition that has a direct relationship to the Framework against activism for its own sake.

Is there such a thing as activism for its own sake? If so, how common is it?

(Sounds like a conservative put down: ‘Protesting for the sake of protesting’.

The significance of a cause must be considered

Protest must be significant and meaningful

What happens if I just write about the significance of a cause?

Present a preprepared version of what I would want to protest about?

 

Framework 3: Writing about personal journeys

Title: 'Finding My Way'

This is a very general statement and covers the whole Framework?

Can any life experience be seen as finding our way?

It can be seen as referring very directly to the idea of a personal journey. 

Stimulus 1

'... but it's no use going back to yesterday, because I was a different person then.'

Some possible issues

What is the relationship between the past, present and future selves?

How does what I was like then help me find my way now?

The statement seems to challenge to the Wordsworthian idea that the child is parent to the adult?

Stimulus 2


There are arrows pointing in all directions, but there is one big arrow pointing straight ahead.

 What different options do I have?

How do I deal with different options? 

Stimulus 3

'The caterpillar transforms without thought.

Its journey to a beautiful butterfly, inevitable.

Why must my own metamorphosis

Be shaped by so many choices?'

Do we change whether we choose to or not?

Was I just transformed or did I have to find my way?

Can a response to this topic be based no more than the word transformations?

Is it implied that change will happen and that we can/should accept it and let it be?

 

Framework 4: Writing about play

Title: ‘Time to Play'

This is not about play as such.

It is about whether there is an appropriate time to play and when it might be.

There is a time and a season for everything?

Stimulus 1

'I can think whatever I like to think, I can play whatever I like to play ... '

This is a claim that I can think and do what I want.

Play and thought are self-directed and a matter of choice.

Do you have this freedom of choice?

The statement is obviously open to challenge.

What is the relationship between playing and thinking?

Stimulus 2

A lightbulb moment is like a rocket ship

 How is this image related to the Framework?

Can I write about:

  • how ideas become actions?
  • the wonders of space flight?
  • Elon Musk and SpaceX?

Stimulus 3

"'You are old, Father William," the young man said,

"And your hair has become very white;

And yet you incessantly stand on your head­

Do you think, at your age, it is right?'"

Father William is doing it for fun?

Is there an implied issue about age appropriateness?

What is the attitude of the young to the old?

What is the attitude of the old?

Do the young want to tell the old what to do?

What is old age like?

What is appropriate behaviour for the old?

Are the young inclined morally instruct the old?

 

The puzzles of connection

We can see that almost all titles and stimulus can be turned into:

  • propositions for exposition or argument; or
  • personal viewpoints or personal narratives.

There are great differences in relationship of title and stimulus to each other and to the Framework.

And great differences in the relationship of task constraints to likely prepared content.

The propositional content of some stimuli can be very high, and this propositional content can be more or less related to the Framework, the title and the stimuli.

Do students have to deal with all of a statement?

Can they deal with only a part?

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