📝 How to Craft a Band 6 Mod A Textual Conversations Essay

🔍 What Are HSC Markers Looking For in Module A?

In Module A, HSC English markers are looking for your considered personal perspective. This means your essay needs to demonstrate:

• Resonances: Shared themes, values, and motifs between the paired texts.
• Dissonances: Differences where the newer ("child") text reframes, critiques, or diverges from the older ("parent") text.

Use these to analyse the textual conversation—how the two texts interact with each other—and explain how this shapes meaning, reflects context, and informs your personal interpretation.

But where should you start?

🎯 Step 1: Develop a Strong, Adaptable Thesis

A great essay starts with a strong thesis. This thesis should:

• Directly engage with the essay question
• Be conceptual and flexible
• Address both texts in a comparative framework

Start by brainstorming your own unique take on your paired texts. Then, craft a succinct thesis that can be tailored to different essay questions without becoming too general. Avoid memorising one full essay—this limits adaptability.

To prepare:

• Brainstorm different thesis angles using key terms from the Module A rubric
• Practice creating 5-minute essay plans in response to past HSC questions
• Focus on answering the question, not just showing off knowledge

🧠 Step 2: Embed Contextual Analysis into Every Argument

Context is everything in Module A. Strong analysis is always grounded in:

• The context of composition: What influenced the author’s choices?
• Your context as a responder: How does your perspective shape your reading?

Example:

"The two perspectives thus resonate in a Postmodernist dissection of self to reveal that Plath could only be liberated from her father and other patriarchal forces through the purging of her physical body, ultimately seen in her death."

This sentence clearly integrates theme, context, and personal insight—all in one analysis.

Tips:

• Group quotes by theme, value, or perspective
• Choose quotes with clear techniques (e.g. motifs, allusions, intertextuality)
• Always connect evidence to form, context, and personal interpretation

🧱 Step 3: Structure Your Essay for Clarity and Comparison

There are two effective ways to structure your Mod A essay: Divided and Integrated. Each can earn a Band 6 if executed well.

🧩 Divided Structure

• Use four paragraphs to explore two main themes
• Discuss one text per paragraph (e.g. A then B, A then B)
• Easier for depth but may require more explicit comparative linking

Divided Structure Example:

• Para 1: Theme A in Text 1
• Para 2: Theme A in Text 2 (+ comparative link)
• Para 3: Theme B in Text 1
• Para 4: Theme B in Text 2 (+ comparative link)

🔗 Integrated Structure

• Use three paragraphs, each analysing both texts together
• Easier to emphasise comparison but harder to analyse in depth

Integrated Structure Example:

• Para 1: Theme A in Text 1 & 2 (comparative)
• Para 2: Theme B in Text 1 & 2 (comparative)
• Para 3: Theme C in Text 1 & 2 (comparative)

The second is an integrated structure. This uses three themes to create three paragraphs that include equally weighted evidence from both texts. For most students, this makes framing the directly comparative nature of Module A easier and allows for a more seamless textual conversation to emerge in support of your thesis. This means you can avoid restating prior arguments, but tackling two texts can still make paragraphs chunky, leading to shallow analysis for the sake of brevity. If you stick to a clear structure like the one below, this won’t be an issue.

Both structures have band six potential, so long as they are packed with quality analysis that is embedded in context, filled with consistent links and interacts with the question.

✏️ Step 4: Edit, Edit, Edit

Editing is key to crafting a polished Band 6 essay. Good essays aren’t written—they’re rewritten.

Tips for effective editing:

• Step away from the draft for at least 8 hours before editing
• Read your essay aloud to catch awkward phrasing
• Highlight and cut filler phrases or repeated ideas
• Signpost your argument with linking and concluding phrases
• Use the rubric’s keywords in your topic and concluding sentences
• Get feedback from a teacher, tutor, or friend

FAQs: Module A Textual Conversations Essay