This is an educational resource for Mainstream English Year 12 students who are studying Unit 3: Reading and Creating Texts: Analytical Text Response.

This resource material assumes year 12 students have read their Analytical Text or in some cases watched the movie related to this unit.

Most English classes discuss either the Creative Task or Analytical Task in their year 11 ‘Transition Classes’ to year 12 English (some schools call this ‘Head-start’) before the end of Term 4 in 2019.

If you have not read your texts for either the Creative or Analytical Tasks or watched the movie, then please do this over the school holidays so you are ready for Term 1 in January 2020.

What are the Task Requirements for Unit 3 Analytical Text Response?

1. The Analytical Task is worth 30 marks for Unit 3.
2. The analytical text response must be in written form (an essay that responds to a prompt).
3. Approximately 800-1000 words in length, completed under SAC conditions, set by your respective school.
4. In this area of study students identify, discuss and analyse how the features of selected texts create meaning using textual evidence to support their responses and how they influence interpretation.
5. Students identify and analyse explicit and implied ideas and values in texts.

What does a High-level Analytical Response Include?

1. Students must show a detailed knowledge and understanding of the world of the text.
2. Look carefully at characters, events, settings, narrative, language and other textual features.
3. Support their interpretation of arguments and statements about the texts with evidence, including quotations that are integrated into the discussion.
4. Be able to discuss and analyse the values expressed by the text, especially the ‘Message of the Author’ in a text or the ‘Message of the Director’ in a film.
5. Clearly show that your response links to the text and essay topic given.
6. Structure the response logically using TEEL, with an Introduction / Body Paragraphs / Conclusion that develop your ideas and reasons why you support your interpretation of the essay prompt.
7. Use high-level metalanguage appropriately to discuss textual features which should include narrative voice, imagery, stage directions (if text is a play), cinematography (if text is a film) and explain their significance.

See below an Example Introduction Analytical Text Response for a prompt on After Darkness by Christine Piper.  The Introduction has its Main Contention and Message of Author Colour Coded.

Prompt: “What else, through my misguided loyalty had I failed to see?”  After Darkness shows that loyalty is not always a virtue. Discuss.

Introduction / Main Contention / Message of Author

The historical novel After Darkness, by author Christine Piper, explores how the limits of loyalty and discretion are tested by a protagonist who is motivated by a sense of duty, subsequently, his beliefs and misconceptions about what this entails provides the moral tension at the heart of the novel and proves that loyalty is not always a virtue.  As a result of his misguided loyalty Ibaraki chose to be guided by spurious notions of traditional duty instead of loyalty to his own conscience and as a result love, connections with people, empathy and his personal relationships suffered.  Piper highlights that Ibaraki failed to see or realise the greatest importance of his betrayal of self and that his true loyalty was not to maintain silence but to speak out against evil, which in turn informs his decision 50 years later to write to the press publicly revealing what he knows of Unit 731.  Ultimately, by expressing the truth of the heinous crimes performed in Unit 731, Ibaraki redeems himself and acknowledges the past sins of Japan as well as his own darkness that he carried within him.