VCE English Section B: How to do well in Creative Writing

Creative writing is known for its lack of boundaries - which can intimidate some students, but it does (and should!) delight many! The structure of the VCE Exam Section B has changed since the 2024 VCE English exam, moving away from a comparative piece with prescribed texts, to offering students an opportunity to demonstrate their creative writing skills. Unlike Sections A and C, it is not focused on a specific text, and is a way to showcase your originality. It consists of a “Framework of Ideas” that will allow students to engage with abstract ideas and craft an original piece of writing, along with a few guidelines to direct this creative endeavor. 

For many VCE English students, Section B might seem unfamiliar - a bit too vague, or elusive. But I believe that this really just gives students the upper hand in impressing their examiners! And if you read on, this guide may help you learn how to wield this weapon…

Table of Content

• An Overview of Section B: VCE Creative Writing
• What is the ‘Framework of Ideas’?
• How should students prepare for VCE English Creative Writing?
• How to generate original ideas and responses?
• What does a strong VCE English Creative Writing response look like?

An Overview of Section B: VCE Creative Writing

In Section B, students must create an original piece of writing with these guidelines:

• The piece must be focused around one of the four Frameworks of Ideas:
  • Writing about Protest
  • Writing about Country
  • Writing about Play
  • Writing about Personal Journeys
• It must use the prescribed title
• It must respond to at least one of the 3 given stimuli (usually 1 image and 2 quotes). Note that each Framework of Ideas has their own 3 prompts!
• It must be written with a clear purpose, which is at least one of the following 4: to express, to reflect, to argue and to explain

This response can be in the form of a short story, memoir, journal, or whichever form you see fit, but VCAA wants you to strictly avoid song, poetry or verse. And when they say, use “at least one” of the stimuli or purposes, it is best to use more than one to show your examiner how relevant your response is to the prompt.

What is the ‘Framework of Ideas’?

Ahh yes, the big, scary words! The concept of the ‘Framework of Ideas’ is not there to make things more complicated, but rather it is VCAA’s attempt to streamline the exam by giving students specific lenses or themes to explore, as it allows them to then assess students more fairly based on their chosen Framework. 

Your school will have already chosen a Framework for the Crafting Texts Area of Study, and throughout the school year you will be looking at mentor texts exploring the ideas within that Framework, and creating pieces of your own. In the exam, however, you are free to choose whichever of the 4 Frameworks you’d like, but keep in mind that your best bet is probably to choose the one that you have been studying the entire year! There isn’t any clear advantage that one Framework gives you over the other.

You can find a list of the mentor texts your school may use for each of the Frameworks of Ideas in List 2 of the Text List document here.

Or if they don’t use some of these, feel free to check them out yourself!

So what are the four ‘Frameworks’?

Writing about Protest

• Explore ideas of conflict and change, public opinion, reasons for protest and outcomes of protest. Challenge norms: is protest always good? What does it mean to struggle? 

Writing about Country

• Explore themes of belonging and home. What are the effects of displacement? How important is connection to Country in shaping one’s identity and culture? Does this theme vary between different groups of people? What about climate change, and immigration?

Writing about Play

• This doesn’t just refer to games you played as a kid or during breaktime. What do imagination and creativity mean? How has the idea of “play” changed across history? How important is this concept to humanity? How do we value risk-taking versus following the safer route?

Writing about Personal Journeys

• This can be based on your own individual experiences and world view, or you can focus on the journeys of others, how their experiences have changed and shaped them, and how events can affect your life trajectory. How do we tell stories? Why are stories important? How do we learn?

You might be tempted to write a completely abstract, maybe even poetic piece about these Frameworks because you feel like you have to explore these ideas individually, but Section B is not as strict as you think! For example, you can express your ideas by following a student throughout a day in their life and focusing on the different decisions they make, or give examiners a glimpse of a diary that an old ER nurse has tucked away in the bottom drawer of her dresser. Experiment a little throughout the year, and find your own style. The “Framework of Ideas” ultimately gives you a way to make your writing piece focused on dealing with relevant, specific parts of society.

How should students prepare for VCE English Creative Writing?

Try to make the most of the opportunities your school gives you. During Unit 3, you will be going over the Creating Texts Area of Study, where you will engage with multiple mentor texts. 

But generally speaking, here are a few tips to direct your preparations:

• Analyse your mentor texts, and see what about them makes you click with the text. What parts of society do they question? What mode of text are they writing in? Do their perspectives resonate with you? Are those perspectives and beliefs commonplace in our society?
• Create a journal: I cannot recommend this highly enough. Write things you notice every day, things about society you would like to explore. When something interests you just a little, don’t just ignore it and continue scrolling on your phone! Sit with your thoughts, and see how it may relate to your Framework. Things like: Why is having a timetable for public transport so important to us? Why don’t we play with the world around us and explore it like we used to as kids? What expectations are put on adults now that we’re older? What habits are we told to leave in our childhood? You can also write down conversations you’ve had with people, or the different perspectives of people in your family. These ideas may just help you out with writing your piece.
• Specific tips for during your exam, and during practice tests with different stimuli: try to keep an open mind about prompts and do not limit your brain to a specific idea too early. Look at the many different ways that you can interpret and engage with the stimuli. I will talk about this in a bit more detail later.
• Practice writing with the different purposes - to explain, to express, to reflect, to argue
• Learn about topics you aren’t familiar with, be it from reading the news, books, social media, or just by talking to people.

How to generate original ideas and responses?

A simple low effort trick is read every day, just for 5 minutes! This was mentioned before but news from around the world usually gets your brain ticking, thinking of different issues, different problems to tackle, and then you start questioning norms and bringing up new ideas. VCAA loves to see fresh ideas, so this is a great activity to try. A good idea is to study the mentor texts and see how they present the different perspectives they have, or where they might have adopted those perspectives from, so that you can try to emulate that individuality in your own writing.

In terms of dealing with stimuli: it can be hard to find the balance between letting your creative mind take the examiner far from the prompts you were supposed to respond to, versus strictly abiding by it and mentioning it in your writing just for the sake of doing so. Consider the stimuli as prompts to generate fresh ideas, and use it as an opportunity to chat with the examiner about your perspective of an issue - use your voice!

Importantly, try to be pre-emptive in thinking about ideas or world views. I would warn against memorising full scripts to write in your exam as this runs the risk of your piece not being able to respond to the relevant prompts, but it can help a lot if you understand yourself and your views very well before coming into the exam, so that your piece can come off as being focused and having a central message. Again, having an English journal would help a lot with this!

What does a strong VCE English Creative Writing response look like?

Simply put, an essay with a sense of individuality is a strong response. That doesn’t mean writing every piece in second-person, or creating a piece that is overly embellished with grandiose vocabulary. It comes from confidence. And that’s not a huge thing to accomplish - each and every one of us already sees the world differently, and we’ve all had our own different experiences. 

Here is what VCE English Assessment Criteria says: VCE Past Examinations and Reports

According to VCAA a high scoring response (9/10 or 10/10) in Section B:

• Demonstrates insightful consideration of the ideas raised by the title and stimulus in connection with a Framework of Ideas
• Creates a cohesive text with an explicit purpose(s) and an appropriate voice
• Demonstrates sophisticated control of language and text structure(s), that makes rich use of vocabulary and language features

Basically, relevance to the stimuli, and appropriate engagement with one Framework really matters to the examiners. But don’t forget to focus on the basics - language, vocabulary, and the clarity of a message. 

As you can see, Section B encourages students to broaden their view of society and present pieces that reflect independent thinking and insight. Or a better way to put it - your opportunity to let your individuality shine!

For more study resources, take a look at these guides:

Want more personalised study guidance to help drastically improve your marks? A private tutor from KIS Academics can make the biggest difference!

Written by KIS Academics Tutor for VCE English, Deepshika Adhinarayanan. Deepshika is currently pursuing a Bachelor of Medical Studies/Doctor of Medicine at Adelaide University. She also tutors VCE Biology, and high school mathematics and english. You can view Deepshika's profile here and request her as a tutor.