How to approach Section 1 of Literary Worlds PDF

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Literary Worlds...

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Extract from “An intro to English Extension 1: Common Module – Literary Worlds” Preparing for Section 1 of the HSC Extension 1 examination Section 1 of the Extension 1 examination may require an imaginative OR critical composition OR both forms of writing, based on unseen texts and question. The following is an example of one way of approaching Section 1: 1. Students read the extract(s) and in one sentence, explain the purpose of the extract(s). 2. If the examination instructions are directed towards a creative response, then students should identify what their purpose is going to be and write this down in one sentence. This is to ensure the piece has cohesion and that they know how their literary world functions. 3. Once they know their purpose, they choose a sentence that resonates from each extract, and could be used to inform their own critical or creative response. They highlight this sentence, so it is distinguishable. 4. Deconstruct the extract to find a technique, character, style, motif, description, setting — something from the extract — that can be implemented in their critical or creative response. Other examples could include: figurative language, a character law, a setting, an object in the extract, a situation or moment that leads into something else. 5. When writing creatively, students could consider using tropes of a specific genre (fantasy, sci-fi, crime) or using stylistic features associated with a literary movement (Romanticism & the sublime, Modernism and fragmentation, Postmodernism and intertextuality) or a hybrid or experimental form. Creative experimentation could include adding: epistolary sections, an epigraph, third person omniscient, parallel narratives, antiheroes, unreliable narrators, jumps in narrative time, circular structure, symbolism etc.

Writing Reflections 1. While reflection is not a mandated form of composition it is important that students reflect on their practices to understand their approach to writing. Before the exam. To this end, students ask themselves about the type of world they have created: Have you crafted a world that is public, where all character’s experience something in the text? Is it a private world whereby an individual character experiences it themselves? Or is it an imaginary world where characters escape to? 2. Consider what makes your writing of this literary world distinctive to both the composer AND the reader? What does your writing achieve for the reader?

Your answers might include a consideration of how literary worlds provide:     

A safe escape to unravel controversial, atypical and provocative ideas. An exploration and experimentation of conventions of the imagination. The chance to appreciate the beauty of art as a form of expression for the human soul. An exploration of a more personal focus from an experience, memory, behaviour, trauma, emotion etc. A universal commentary for readers, to learn from the past, adapt the present, speculate a new future, a hidden truth or revelation....