Your IA3 task is generally your first taste of writing under exam pressure for English before your final external exam. This means it’s important to prepare well and feel as comfortable as possible when you sit in an exam hall to write non-stop for a little over 2 hours.
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So what exactly is the Imaginative Written Response Task?
The QCAA breaks the English IA3 into three distinct points.
- Write an imaginative response to a literary text (most likely a poem or short story)
- Demonstrate your knowledge of the craft of writing.
- Prompt critical and emotional responses from the reader.
You will be given one week’s notice of the texts and will be required to write a response of 800-1000 words in 2 hours excluding 15 minutes of planning. Rather than analysing a literary text like you've done previously in the year, you are developing creatively an aspect of a text.
Choosing the Text
After receiving the list of texts, have a read-through of all the provided texts and decide which one you feel most connected to and/or understand the best. Choosing the text that you understand the best (instead of choosing a text cause your friends chose it or cause Google says it's the best) sets you up for early success in the writing process for success.
Once you’ve chosen your text, annotate and break down the themes and messages that flow through it. By annotating the text you will fully understand key aspects that may not have been apparent to you before, thus providing you with a deeper understanding of it.
Planning
So, you’ve chosen your text and annotated it vigorously and about now, ideas are starting to flow for your own story. Your ideas can be inspired by a variety of things:
- Personal Experiences (things that have changed your perspective)
- Ideas that resonate with you
- Your imagination!
- Observations about people, places, and events
- Remixing existing stories, legends or myths, and putting your twist on them.
Write down an initial plan using dot points for each section of your short story. To assist you in your planning, have a look at Freytag’s Pyramid diagram below. It details the different important structural aspects of a short story. I recommend planning each section shown in the diagram, this ensures your story follows a set structure for success.
If there are just too many ideas flowing, write multiple plans for different ideas, this enables you to see your ideas clearly and be able to make an informed decision on which one would be best for you (you and only you!) to write. Also, don’t be afraid to ask your peers and/or teachers for advice on your story idea. Getting a second opinion can help improve and/or reaffirm your ideas.
The Freytag's Pyramid
The exposition (orientation)
This is where you introduce the setting, and the main character and potentially foreshadow what is to come. I recommend starting with a ‘sizzling’ start. This can be in the form of a detailed description foreshadowing for later in the story or with an event to introduce to the readers your story straight away.
Inciting Incident Leading to Rising Action
Introduce obstacles or some kind of barriers that affect your main character (preferably between 1-3). They can be social (interpersonal), emotional (fear, trauma, limiting beliefs), moral dilemmas (forcing characters to wrestle with ethical decisions) or physical ones (locked area, physical fight, etc).
Climax/Conflict
Types of conflict:
- Internal – struggles with challenging decisions, moral dilemmas, or conflicting desires
- External – conflicts involving one's struggle against societal, cultural or situational forces
Whatever your conflict is, it should ideally transform your character and/or invite the reader to reflect on your ideas and concepts; as characters grapple with their core beliefs, the readers are invited to experience the same transformation in their thinking
The choices your character makes in the face of conflict reflect their inner struggles, desires and motivations, inviting readers to appreciate your narrative's perspective on the human condition
To convey conflict, I suggest breaking it down into three parts and utilising ‘show not tell’ throughout them.
- What is happening in the story towards the main character?
- What emotions are the characters feeling (frustration, jealousy etc)?
- Why/how are they feeling them (crying, tantrums etc)?
It’s simply the way you can convey meaning to your reader and is seen as the most important part of your story. Without conflict, there isn’t any point in a story.
Falling Action
This section connects the climax and resolution. The flow of your story needs to ensure that the climax is resolved in a manner that isn’t too fast or too slow and in a method the reader can enjoy. The flow of the narrative should naturally have its falling action however it should also be identifiable in your short story, as to how the climax is solved.
Resolution
Ensures that there are no loose ends (we aren’t writing a part 2) or any classic endings that will destroy our reader’s hearts (I woke up and it was all a dream or your main character dies). It is important to have a sound ending where your readers can be left satisfied with the story they have read. This section can also almost explicitly have the theme of the story shine through, making it clear on the progression that has been made.
What to remember whilst writing your short story.
I strongly recommend writing your story before walking into the exam. This enables you to have confidence that your story ‘works’ and can be written with an astute beginning, middle and end.
When writing your story, you can begin wherever you like. Most people like to begin writing from the orientation, however there is nothing wrong with beginning writing elsewhere and filling in the rest later. That’s purely personal preference. Below, I’ve broken down important aspects of a short story that you should consider while writing your assessment.
Character
Every character is important when writing a short story, be purposeful with all their actions. The mental, and moral qualities that these characters display is paramount to the story. The characters are the way that you can most easily display emotions that you would like to convey. I recommend having 1 main character and a maximum of 3 characters in your short story, this ensures that you stay within the short word count and the reader can stay connected to the main character and their journey.
There are two main aspects to creating a good main character.
1) Make them more than one-dimensional.
What this means is that a character should have depth. Does your character have emotional responses (i.e. are they a rock or are they emotionally vulnerable?)? To help a character display emotion, look back to how you or people in your lives have reacted when in different situations.
2) The relationships that the character builds. How does this character act towards others, how do they treat people above or below them?
- Think again towards past relationships in your life. Mother, father, sibling, somebody you are/were in any relationship with… How did you treat them? How did they treat you?
- For effect this could be used in your story, if somebody cries to your protagonist/antagonist, how do they react? Do they console them, or do they use 'tough love'? Do they start crying as well?
Concept
There are multiple different ways that a concept can be found and used in your story. Themes are the basis of what makes your reader feel. That is the overall goal of a short story, you want to elicit some emotion from your reader. The journey that your character takes is incredibly important, and in a short story where you only have a maximum of 1000 words you should capitalise on every single moment.
The theme is the concept you want your story to focus on. Is it identity? Is it family relationships? Is it the overall feeling of loss or accomplishment? It truly doesn't matter what the story is focussed on, as long as there is a general theme that your readers can follow and understand.
Imagery and Foreshadowing
There are many ways you can utilise these two handy techniques to your advantage.
Foreshadowing allows the writer to hint at what happens later in a story. Some tips to utilise foreshadowing are:
- Using subtle clues: You can sprinkle some context clues throughout your story.
- Scene Description: The use of scene description can do wonders. A very common device is using darkness and light to portray your character's mood (feeling happy/sad).
- Timing and Balance: The timing and balance for imagery and foreshadowing is quite tough to master at times, you need to know where and when to use it. A common place for these devices is the beginning and the climax.
Final Tips and Tricks:
In the end, this task involves being creative with a short story as your tool, so try to genuinely have fun with it. Many people look to memorise their story before going into exam conditions which is a good idea for the most part. However, it is also important that you digest your story and understand the different cruxes of it and where you can identify it’s time for certain aspects such as foreshadowing, imagery, character development, conflict, etc. I recommend learning and digesting your story as best as possible before the exam. This is because it creates a calm confident environment for you to write your story and share your creativity.
Also, always look to improve on your story breaking down each paragraph, each sentence and even each word. These minute improvements can be the difference between one band to another on the marking guide. This may also mean giving your story to someone else to read with a set of fresh eyes, they could be a peer, sibling and/or a parent.
Ultimately, two quotes that have stayed with me from my English teacher that set me up in my English exam are “Great writing starts with great editing”
and “The best writing has the best word in every single place”.
FAQs
How much is the IA3 worth towards my English grade?
It goes towards 25% of your overall English mark.
What are some tips on memorizing my English IA3 for the exam?
When trying to memorise start small, instead of straight away looking to learn your entire response off by heart. Begin with your first sentence, then your first two sentences, and progress to a paragraph. Solidify your memory of that paragraph and move on to the next paragraph. Build a memory of your response in a consistent method like layering concrete and it will be much easier to learn.
Where can I find an example of an IA3 English Imaginative written response?
There’s an annotated IA3 example on the QCAA website. This helps to understand the ISMG and what your marker is looking for.
Want more personalised tips to drastically improve your English mark? A private tutor can make the biggest difference!
Written by KIS Academics Tutor for QCE Physics, Specialist Mathematics and Mathematical Methods, Ragulan Gnanavel. Ragulan is currently pursuing a Bachelor of Actuarial Studies and Commerce at UNSW. He has outstanding credentials as a tutor, and you can view Ragulan’s profile here and request him as a tutor.
