2015 Notes from the Marking Centre – English Extension 2
Introduction
This document has been produced for the teachers and candidates of the Stage 6 English Extension 2 course. It contains comments on candidate responses to the 2015 Higher School Certificate examination, highlighting their strengths in particular parts of the examination and indicating where candidates need to improve.
This document should be read along with:
- the English Stage 6 Syllabus
- English Extension 2 – Major Work Frequently Asked Questions
- English Extension 2 Major Work Fact Sheets
- Advice for HSC students about examinations
- other support documents developed by the Board of Studies, Teaching and Educational Standards NSW to assist in the teaching and learning of English in Stage 6.
Print medium
Short Stories
Candidates showed strength in these areas:
- creating highly conceptual narratives that were thought provoking and often quite profound
- creating authentic voices, characters, settings and ideas
- manipulating language features consciously to engage an audience
- creating purposefully constructed narratives where every element contributes to a cohesive whole
- providing evidence of independent investigation that is seamlessly integrated and highly conceptual
- demonstrating highly skilled telling of simple evocative stories that may be emotionally engaging, sometimes intense, deliberately playful or subversive, and intellectually engaging.
Candidates need to improve in these areas:
- being critically aware of the distinctions between homage, originality and derivation
- researching concept, genre and form and ensuring choices are valid and effective
- effectively and carefully selecting alternate text types
- controlling language features such as dialogue, figurative imagery and characterisation
- sustaining the ideas throughout the story without the need for unnecessary details that do not contribute to meaning
- avoiding cliché, stereotypes, overuse of dialogue, or an over-reliance upon recount
- not creating overly didactic stories, using heavy-handed descriptions and obvious intertextual references that do little to enhance the narrative.
Critical Responses
Candidates showed strength in these areas:
- developing and substantiating conceptually mature and sophisticated insights
- integrating theory seamlessly rather than attaching it arbitrarily
- demonstrating wide and judicious independent investigation, linking form with concept as a natural evolution of research
- referencing footnotes appropriately
- showing awareness of the audience in the way meaning is shaped, and articulating this within the Reflection Statement
- having consistent cohesive arguments that are logically structured with an authentic voice that demonstrates purposeful control
- deliberate manipulation of form that is justified in the Reflection Statement
- judicious selection and combination of texts.
Candidates need to improve in these areas:
- footnoting that is not indiscriminate, inappropriate and unnecessary
- using terminology which does not come at the expense of the clarity of meaning
- research and investigation not using derivative, simplistic, generalised, erroneous arguments
- avoiding superficiality by attempting to analyse too many texts
- providing relevant information in the Reflection Statement evaluating the shaping of meaning and not listing techniques.
Poems
Candidates showed strengths in these areas:
- experimenting ambitiously and successfully with well-researched forms (sonnets, prose poetry) grounded in a genuine feel for poetry and close consideration of metre, voice, lineation
- carefully selecting and justifying form, especially when experimenting across genres (for example, ficto-criticism/prose poetry/kinaesthetic)
- articulating an original, well-developed concept with a clear sense of purpose that matches the chosen form or style
- having an authentic voice and a strong sense of knowledge, passion and insight into the concept
- manipulating poetic language such as motifs, figurative imagery, rhetorical devices and word choice to engage the reader.
Candidates need to improve in these areas:
- ensuring the authenticity and originality of their writing by avoiding the literal, mere description, cliché, stereotypes or overt didacticism
- avoiding writing that is predictable, pedestrian, repetitive or overly long and lacks focus, insight and structure
- researching and investigating poetic form and accounting fully for poetic choices
- understanding the crucial difference between poetry, including prose poetry, and expression that is merely prosaic and lacks metre and voice
- ensuring the work reflects extensive investigation of the concept and is not merely based on personal experience
- shaping meaning and sustained use of language, form and structure.
Scripts
Candidates showed strengths in these areas:
- choosing concepts that were well realised in the form and that led to authentic and engaging works
- showing restraint and control in language and form
- using dialogue that served the narrative purpose and successfully created distinct voices
- mastering intertextual inclusion, parody, satire or appropriation that is clearly understood in the Reflection Statement and purposeful in the work
- considering audience
- manipulating the conventions of drama, film, radio drama or television scripts.
Candidates need to improve in these areas:
- developing character through controlled use of dialogue
- creating distinct voices for each character
- experimenting with character types
- keeping scripts within given parameters
- experimenting with the conventions of staging for effect (including lighting, directions, set)
- integrating action with dialogue
- controlling the structure of an individual scene through creating and maintaining tension
- moving beyond a superficial investigation into form
- integrating intertextuality not focusing on HSC texts from other Stage 6 subjects in the independent investigation
- performing a reading of the script before submission to ensure fluency of action and dialogue.
Sound medium
Speeches
Candidates showed strength in these areas:
- delivering a polished piece that had been rehearsed before it was recorded to refine the pace, expression, tone, modulation and other aural qualities that enhance the work
- creating speeches of technical quality, often incorporating relevant and appropriate sound effects
- showing conceptual depth, with a clear correlation between research into form, concepts and ideas, and both the Advanced and Extension 1 English courses
- experimenting with form by including interviews, journal entries, a little poetry; however, ensuring that these other forms were not included at the expense of the qualities of the speech
- adopting a ‘creative’ persona who connected with the intended audience
- manipulating voice to create an alternate persona.
Candidates need to improve in these areas:
- focusing on form and not delivering a spoken essay
- understanding the intended audience
- improving structure
- avoiding clichéd topics
- listing sources of research in the Reflection Statement
- researching form as well as concepts and ideas
- ensuring the principal voice in the speech is the candidate’s own which must be clear and distinct
- ensuring the clarity of the audio.
Performance Poetry
Candidates showed strength in these areas:
- working in a particular style of performance poetry including bush balladry, beat and slam
- showing evidence of careful planning and construction using the resources of the form; particularly employing poetic features such as alliteration, assonance, rhythm, rhyme, consonance, dissonance, repetition and other devices, demonstrating a polished piece that had been rehearsed before it was recorded
- developing concepts and subject matter relevant to the form, and not just using the medium for expressions of angst
- delivering one poem, as there is a broader scope to deliver a ‘narrative quality’ to the poem
- demonstrating awareness of the implied audience of the performance poem(s).
Candidates need to improve in these areas:
- understanding the possibilities of the form of performance poetry and exploiting the performance aspects linking the Major Work to relevant research for example, exploring performance poetry, not just poetry
- examining the intended purpose of the Major Work in the Reflection Statement and ensuring they analyse their research and development of concepts
- using sound effects carefully and judiciously so as to avoid them dominating the work
- composing the Major Work with the performance in mind.
Radio Drama
Candidates showed strengths in these areas:
- originality in concept and structure, with engaging characters and a clear evocation of context and setting
- manipulating the sound medium – including voice, a range of accents, music and SFX to create mood and tension and, importantly, a visual image in the listener’s mind
- developing an engaging dramatic narrative which built to some form of conflict and revelation
- constructing diverse and distinct characters through voice and tone, choice of language (imagery, syntax, diction), pitch and pacing
- extensive investigation into the form of radio drama
- experimentation with the form.
Candidates need to improve in these areas:
- establishing a clear context and purpose for the Radio Drama at the outset
- using multiple voices that are clear, expressive and varied in tone, pitch and pace
- using language and voice to paint a picture in the audience’s mind
- increasing the investigation into the possibilities of the form.
Visual medium
Video
Candidates showed strengths in these areas:
- communicating a concept, idea or story
- demonstrating awareness of the importance of audience and best ways of manipulating the form in order to engage that audience
- developing an idea or an insight
- purposefully selecting the video form over other forms for a reason, and manipulating features deliberately to shape meaning
- making use of the multi-sensory experience embodied by the audio-visual medium – composition, colour, framing, shots, music, voice, SFX and editing techniques to create tone and, importantly, a story for the viewer to engage with
- editing as the key to constructing pace and making disparate elements cohere and resolve into a whole
- conscious and purposeful selecting location and actors to best represent the intentions of the work
- controlled the use of dialogue to shape meaning
- demonstrating creativity within the medium.
Candidates need to improve in these areas:
- choosing shots, takes or scenes for their aesthetic appeal or technical qualities at the expense of advancing the meaning of the text
- managing the editing of sound and ensuring that sufficient time for postproduction is allocated to affect a quality auditory experience. Some videos could be characterised by muffled, inaudible, or unbalanced sounds which did not seem intentional, and often displayed poorly controlled ‘popping’ or ‘clicking’ as artefacts of the postproduction editing process that were not accounted for in the Reflection Statement
- discernment in the use of musical overlays. Candidates often relied on a single piece of music which rendered their Major Work more a loose music video than a short film appropriate to English Extension 2
- developing a sense of structure and pace by building and developing towards a fitting conclusion
- investigating thoroughly the aesthetic possibilities of the form, specifically the short film form, rather than concentrating on big-budget feature films
- using original and fresh imagery to convey meaning and avoiding clichéd images or teenage love stories.
Digital Media
Candidates showed strengths in these areas:
- accessible and purposeful navigation
- understanding the potential of this multi-modal form to communicate concepts in varied, intriguing, often unpredictable ways
- awareness of the audience by creating playful multi-track and multi-sensory, exploratory audience experiences
- purposeful or logical and seamless transitions between screens
- making the purpose of the project evident throughout the work
- exhibiting a strong sense of independent investigation into the possibilities and variety of approaches open to this form, such as voice, SFX, music, animation, video, links, technical variety.
Candidates need to improve in these areas:
- ensuring that the digital media is not a short story with some pictures
- enhancing interactivity and audio/visual variety.
NSW Government