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117 In Cold Blood Essay Topic Ideas & Examples

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In Cold Blood by Truman Capote is a groundbreaking work of non-fiction that tells the story of the brutal murders of the Clutter family in rural Kansas in 1959. The book delves into the minds of the killers, Richard Hickock and Perry Smith, as well as the impact the murders had on the small town of Holcomb. With its vivid descriptions and detailed character portraits, In Cold Blood has captivated readers for decades.

If you're looking for essay topic ideas on In Cold Blood, you've come to the right place. Below, we've compiled a list of 117 essay topics and examples to inspire your writing:

• Analyze the theme of violence in In Cold Blood.
• Compare and contrast the characters of Dick Hickock and Perry Smith.
• Discuss the role of the small town of Holcomb in the narrative.
• Explore the use of foreshadowing in the book.
• Examine Truman Capote's writing style in In Cold Blood.
• Discuss the moral ambiguity of the characters in the book.
• Analyze the relationship between Dick Hickock and Perry Smith.
• Discuss the impact of the murders on the Clutter family.
• Explore the theme of justice in In Cold Blood.
• Discuss the significance of the title In Cold Blood.
• Analyze the portrayal of masculinity in the book.
• Compare and contrast the Clutter family with Dick and Perry.
• Discuss the role of the media in the aftermath of the murders.
• Explore the theme of isolation in In Cold Blood.
• Analyze the psychological motivations of Dick and Perry.
• Discuss the significance of the epigraph in the book.
• Compare and contrast the narrative style of In Cold Blood with other true crime books.
• Explore the theme of truth and fiction in the book.
• Discuss the impact of the murders on the town of Holcomb.
• Analyze the portrayal of the American Dream in In Cold Blood.
• Discuss the role of religion in the book.
• Explore the theme of fate and destiny in In Cold Blood.
• Analyze the portrayal of law enforcement in the narrative.
• Discuss the role of the narrator in the book.
• Compare and contrast the film adaptation of In Cold Blood with the book.
• Explore the theme of memory in the narrative.
• Discuss the use of symbolism in In Cold Blood.
• Analyze the significance of the setting in the book.
• Discuss the impact of the murders on Truman Capote.
• Compare and contrast the aftermath of the murders with other true crime cases.
• Explore the theme of empathy in In Cold Blood.
• Analyze the portrayal of the criminal justice system in the book.
• Discuss the impact of the murders on the genre of true crime.
• Compare and contrast the narrative structure of In Cold Blood with other non-fiction books.
• Explore the theme of redemption in the book.
• Analyze the portrayal of trauma in the narrative.
• Discuss the role of race and class in In Cold Blood.
• Compare and contrast the reactions of the townspeople to the murders.
• Explore the theme of guilt and innocence in the book.
• Analyze the portrayal of the Clutter family in the narrative.
• Discuss the impact of the book on the true crime genre.
• Compare and contrast the narrative voice in In Cold Blood with other non-fiction works.
• Explore the theme of memory and trauma in the book.
• Analyze the portrayal of gender in the narrative.
• Discuss the impact of the murders on the American psyche.
• Compare and contrast the narrative techniques of In Cold Blood with other non-fiction books.
• Explore the theme of friendship in the narrative.
• Analyze the portrayal of violence in the book.
• Discuss the impact of the murders on the genre of literary journalism.
• Compare and contrast the motives of Dick and Perry.
• Explore the theme of revenge in In Cold Blood.
• Analyze the portrayal of the criminal mind in the narrative.
• Discuss the impact of the murders on the Clutter family's legacy.
• Compare and contrast the narrative structure of In Cold Blood with other true crime books.
• Explore the theme of justice and injustice in the book.
• Analyze the portrayal of grief in the narrative.
• Discuss the impact of the murders on the town of Holcomb's reputation.
• Compare and contrast the themes of In Cold Blood with other non-fiction works.
• Analyze the portrayal of the media in the narrative.
• Discuss the impact of the murders on the true crime genre.
• Compare and contrast the narrative voice in In Cold Blood with other non-fiction books.
• Explore the theme of redemption and forgiveness in the narrative.
• Discuss the impact of the murders on the town of Holcomb's economy.
• Compare and contrast the narrative techniques of In Cold Blood with other true crime books.
• Explore the theme of empathy and compassion in the book.
• Discuss the impact of the murders on the American Dream.
• Compare and contrast the motives of Dick and Perry with other famous criminals.
• Explore the theme of morality and ethics in In Cold Blood.
• Analyze the portrayal of the American Midwest in the book.
• Discuss the impact of the murders on Truman Capote's career.
• Compare and contrast the narrative structure of In Cold Blood with other non-fiction works.
• Explore the theme of identity and self in the narrative.
• Analyze the portrayal of the criminal mind in the book.
• Discuss the impact of the murders on the genre of true crime writing.
• Compare and contrast the reactions of the townspeople to the events.
• Explore the theme of justice and revenge in In Cold Blood.
• Analyze the portrayal of violence and trauma in the narrative.
• Compare and contrast the narrative voice in In Cold Blood with other true crime books.
• Explore the theme of memory and forgiveness in the book.
• Analyze the portrayal of the criminal justice system in the narrative.
• Compare and contrast the narrative techniques of In Cold Blood with other non-fiction works.
• Explore the theme of empathy and compassion in the narrative.
• Analyze the portrayal of the Clutter family in the book.
• Analyze the portrayal of the American Midwest in the narrative.
• Explore the theme of identity and self in the book.

In Cold Blood is a rich and complex work that offers a wealth of material for analysis and discussion. Whether you're interested in exploring the themes of violence and justice, the portrayal of the criminal mind, or the impact of the murders on the American psyche, there's plenty to unpack in Capote's masterpiece. So pick a topic that interests you, dive into the text, and start writing your own In Cold Blood essay today.

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In Cold Blood

Truman capote, ask litcharts ai: the answer to your questions.

Welcome to the LitCharts study guide on Truman Capote's In Cold Blood . Created by the original team behind SparkNotes, LitCharts are the world's best literature guides.

In Cold Blood: Introduction

In cold blood: plot summary, in cold blood: detailed summary & analysis, in cold blood: themes, in cold blood: quotes, in cold blood: characters, in cold blood: symbols, in cold blood: theme wheel, brief biography of truman capote.

Historical Context of In Cold Blood

Other books related to in cold blood.

• Full Title: In Cold Blood
• When Written: 1959-1964
• Where Written: USA
• When Published: 1966
• Literary Period: Postmodern
• Genre: Novel/True Crime
• Setting: Holcomb, Kansas
• Climax: Dick Hickok and Perry Smith are captured in Las Vegas
• Point of View: Third person omniscient

Extra Credit for In Cold Blood

Party Animal: In November 1966, Capote threw The Black and White Ball, which became one of the most infamous parties of the sixties.

Picture This: Much of the uproar over Capote’s 1948 debut Other Voices, Other Rooms had less to do with the contents of the book and more to do with his author photograph. Taken by Harold Halma, the photograph depicts a young Capote on a chaise lounge, shooting the camera an outrageous come-hither stare.

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Introduction and Narration ‍

• Although its structure and cinematic plot development resemble that of crime fiction, Truman Capote’s In Cold Blood is a ‘nonfiction novel’ detailing the 1959 murders of four members of the Clutter family in Holcomb, Kansas. Put simply, the book was conceived of journalism and born of a novelist. 

• The novel is a product of years of extensive research by Capote and his friend and fellow author Harper Lee, who followed the trails of the Kansas criminals across numerous US states. In Cold Blood revolutionised the American ideals of journalism and literature, blurring the lines between these labels.

• A notable technique Capote employed in order to access classified information was becoming personally acquainted with the criminals of the case. For example, Capote became extremely close to Perry Smith, one of the main murderers in the case, which gave him exclusive information on the personal motives of the killers. 

• In Cold Blood reflects this relationship with the murderer through Capote’s narration of the book as an objective bystander. On page 23, we see the almost endearing way that Capote describes Perry; “his voice was both gentle and prim– a voice that, though soft, manufactured each word exactly, ejected it like a smoke ring issuing from a parson’s mouth.” As such, Capote’s friendship with Perry allows him to present the killer to the audience with a certain humanity and empathy, showcasing a broader picture of criminals than just a merciless murderer.

True facts of the Case

• On the 15th of November, 1959, all four members of the small farming Clutter family were brutally murdered, including Herbert Clutter, his wife Bonnie Clutter and their two teenage children, Nancy and Kenyon.

• The family was discovered bound and shot in the head. Herb’s throat had also been slashed. After ransacking the entire house, the criminals had left without finding any cash, carrying with them no more than fifty dollars, a pair of binoculars and a transistor radio.

• Perry Edward Smith and Richard Eugene ‘Dick’ Hickock were convicted of the crime. The two men had become acquainted during serving time at the Kansas State Penitentiary, and soon confessed to the crime, claiming that that they had heard from another prisoner that Herb Clutter was extremely wealthy, and kept his money in an easy-to-reach safe in his house.

• After the confession, the two murderers were flown from Nevada to Garden City, where they stood trial for their crimes. On 29 March, 1960, they received a guilty verdict, and were sentenced to the death penalty. For the following five years, Smith and Hickock lived on death row in Leavenworth, Kansas and were executed by hanging on the 14th of April, 1965.

Character Analysis

Perry edward smith.

One of the two murderers of the Clutter case, Smith is portrayed as a sensitive and artistic man haunted by his turbulent and lonely childhood. Described by Capote as a man of ‘actorish’ good looks, he disfigured both of his legs due to a motorcycle accident, which gave him chronic pain and an addiction to aspirin. His criminal actions are often directly linked to his childhood, described as ‘no bed of roses but pitiful, an ugly and lonely progress toward one mirage and then another’. Smith’s father was extremely abusive towards his wife, Flo Buckskin, and his four children, and so Buckskin later divorced him, taking the children with her. However, on her own she became an alcoholic and died by choking on her own vomit when Smith was only thirteen years old. He was then transferred to a Catholic orphanage, where he suffered from psychological, sexual and physical abuse from the nuns, one of whom attempted to drown him. Smith’s father and two of his siblings committed suicide during his time on death row. Smith eventually befriended Capote through their extensive interviews, and is believed to have shared personal information with him, believing him to be a true friend.

Richard Eugene ‘Dick’ Hickock

The second murderer of the Clutter case. Having grown up in Kansas, Hickock was a popular football player before turning to a life of crime after realising that he could not afford to go to college. During the course of the Clutter murder investigations, Hickock persistently blamed all of the murders on his partner in crime, Smith, claiming that ‘Perry Smith killed the Clutters…. It was Perry. I couldn’t stop him. He killed them all.’ Capote later states that during the murder, Smith was the one who stopped Hickock from raping the 16-year-old Nancy Clutter, as Hickock harboured pedophilic tendencies.

Herbert Clutter

A well-liked and kind-hearted wheat farmer in Holcomb, Kansas. Proprietor of the large River Valley Farm, Herb is described as a hardworking and valued citizen before his murder, who lead a relatively quiet life other than a troubled marriage with his wife due to her chronic depression.

Bonnie Clutter

Described as an ‘anxious woman’, it is revealed that Bonnie has a history of numerous mental illnesses, one of which is postpartum depression. Capote states that she and Herb had not slept in the same bed for many years.

Nancy Clutter

Described as the ‘darling of the town’ - the class president and future prom queen Nancy was the 16 year old daughter of the Clutters.

Kenyon Clutter

Athletic but introverted, Kenyon was the 15 year old son of Herbert and Bonnie Clutter.

Alvin Dewey

A personal friend of the Clutters, Dewey was the primary investigator in the Clutter murder case and worked for the Kansas Bureau of Investigation.

Themes and Motifs

The american dream.

The novel is Capote’s reflection upon the American Dream, as he portrays both the lives of those who epitomise it and those who are tragically out of its reach. Herb Clutter’s position as an upstanding American citizen with a prosperous farm elicits the reader’s interpretation of his character as the rags-to-riches ideal. In stark contrast with this, the rootless and criminal Dick Hancock and Perry Smith are presented as individuals for whom the Dream is perpetually unattainable. Their attempt to finally become ‘rich’ materialises through their attempt to rob the Clutters’ home, the failure of which ironically results in their brutal murders of the people who successfully represented the American Dream.

In accordance with the American Dream, In Cold Blood also explores the concept of what is considered ‘normal’ in America, and what can be revealed as the darker underbelly of its white picket fence ideal. Dick asserts throughout the novel that he is ‘normal’, but from an external, objective perspective, he is clearly far from such; he has distorted physical features and has committed a terrible, vicious murder. Capote also explores the idea of normal mental health, as Bonnie Clutter seems to have the perfect marriage and life with Herb, and yet suffers from extreme bouts of ‘nervousness’ and chronic depression which result in her hospitalisation.

What is evil is primarily explored through the character of Perry, who has conflicting ideals about what can be considered truly ‘evil’. The more feminine and gentler of the two murderers, Perry possesses conflicting morals, as despite being a ruthless murderer, he does feel remorse and is affected by what he has done. He even thinks to himself that Herb Clutter is a ‘very nice gentleman’ even in the midst of slitting his throat. Capote in the novel reveals that there are numerous facets to the meaning of true ‘evil’, and the blurred borders that exist between each of these.

Masculinity

Symbolising the idea of dominance and power, Dick and Perry, who have a complementary and polarised gender relationship, feed off each other in order to boost their own masculinity. Described as ‘aggressively heterosexual’, Dick is evidently the more stereotypically masculine counterpart, having had numerous relations with women. Perry, on the other hand, is more feminine and submissive, as Dick often calls him names such as ‘sugar’ and ‘honey’. Both men in the novel utilise the other in order to make themselves feel more masculine in their highly restrictive and conservative society — while Dick emphasises Perry’s feminine qualities, Perry admires Dick and craves his words of affirmation that he, too, is masculine.

Essay Writing for In Cold Blood

Below are some possible prompts for In Cold Blood , and possible ideas to begin writing an essay.

Theme-based Essay Prompt

"I think it is a hell of a thing that a life has to be taken in this manner. I say this especially because there's a great deal I could have offered society. I certainly think capital punishment is legally and morally wrong.”

Is In Cold Blood merely a novelistic argument against the death penalty? Discuss.

To learn more about LSG’s Five Types of essay prompts, I’d highly recommend checking out this blog post . It’s a super unique strategy developed by the founder of LSG, Lisa Tran. The Five Types method, outlined in the top-rated How To Write A Killer Text Response eBook , takes the stress of students and gives them easy to follow rules and tips so that they know how to approach every essay topic, every time.

• The best way to approach any essay prompt is to recognise the limiting and/or important words of the essay question. In this thematic prompt these words are: ‘legally and morally’, and ‘merely’.

• Secondly, for prompts which incorporate a quote, it is helpful to understand the context of the quote. In this case, the quote was said by Perry as his last words before his execution by hanging. Consider the importance of this; these words are especially more meaningful as they symbolise the last direct influence he leaves upon society. They are remorseful words of a murderer reproaching the justice system, which begs the question - does Capote position the reader to agree with the murderer’s view?

• Planning this essay can be structured along three arguments...

1. Capote argues against capital punishment through eliciting pathos for the murderers and portraying them as more than mere monsters.

• Evidence for this argument could be based mostly on the descriptive elements of Capote’s writing, or his emotional attachment to the murderers, particularly Perry.

• Capote paints Perry particularly sympathetically, highlighting his sensitivity as well as his broken and abusive childhood. Quotations from the novel make it clear that his character is romanticised to an extent, such as “It was a changeling's face, and mirror-guided experiments had taught him how to ring the changes, how to look now ominous, now impish, now soulful; a tilt of the head, a twist of the lips, and the corrupt gypsy became the gentle romantic.”

2. In Cold Blood supports the anti-death penalty argument through its structure and organisation.

• The epigraph of the novel is a verse of the poem, ‘Ballade des pendus’ by Francois Villon, that he composed whilst on death row in 1463. Villon’s criminal circumstances were strikingly similar with Dick and Perry’s, as he murdered a priest and stole from his strongbox before being arrested and sentenced to death. Despite this, Villon was ultimately charged with a 10 year banishment from Paris, whereas the Clutter family murderers are hanged - a strikingly different outcome. Thus, Capote employs this poetic epigraph to strengthen his argument against the unjust executions of Perry and Dick.

• In addition to this, the structure of the novel is also used to argue against capital punishment. Although Part One focuses on the lives of both the Clutter family members and Dick and Perry preceding the murder, Part Two skips over the actual murders themselves and recounts the aftermath of its events. This allows Capote to further develop Dick and Perry into real, complex people rather than merely cold blooded murderers; people who do not deserve such a cruel fate.  

3. However, Capote does ostensibly condemn the cruelty of the murders and presents the opposing argument that capital punishment is not, in fact, ‘legally and morally wrong’.

• The brutality of the Clutter murders are emphasised through the novel, as Larry Hendricks, who discovers the bodies along with the police, provides the gruesome details of the bodies - ‘each tied up and shot in the head, one with a slit throat’.

• As Perry later admits to the murder in his extended confession, Dewey highlights the fact that the Clutters ‘had suffered’ due to the ‘prolonged terror' inflicted by the murderers, and orders them, as such, to be ‘hanged back to back’.

• The argument for capital punishment in In Cold Blood is also supported by religious beliefs. As a small and predominantly Christian town, Kansas and its residents can be perceived interpreting the words of the Bible literally; at the end Dick and Perry’s trial, the prosecuting attorney Logan Green reads an excerpt from Genesis in the Holy Bible: ‘Whoso sheddeth man's blood, by man shall his blood be shed.’ Rejecting the notion that Christianity preaches forgiveness, Green strives to punish the killers for failing to abide by the laws and prophecies of the Old Testament.

Character essay prompt

Perry Smith, despite Capote’s authorial sympathy towards him, is really a cold and merciless monster. Discuss.

When approaching character-based prompts, you must depart slightly from examining the holistic messages of the author, as you would in a theme-based prompt, but rather analyse how the specific character develops this authorial message. The above essay question could be brainstormed in the following way:

1. Capote’s description of Perry shows that he is far from a ‘monster’, but a human being of great sensitivity and emotion.

• During his confession of the Clutter murders, Perry’s comment, ‘There's got to be something wrong with somebody who'd do a thing like that,’ shows that he, to some extent, understands the gravity of his actions and regrets them.

• Perry is also described by his sister as ‘gentle’, and someone who ‘used to cry because he thought the sunset was so beautiful’. Likewise, even in moments of cruelty, he often shows mercy and a wide moral compass, even stopping Dick from raping Nancy Clutter during their murder spree.

2. Perry is also depicted as someone ‘weakened’ by the tragic events of his past and his own insecurities, rather than an inherently ‘cold and merciless’ person.

• Capote often links Perry’s violent tendencies with his childhood, described as ‘no bed of roses but pitiful, an ugly and lonely progress toward one mirage and then another’, as he was raised ‘with no rule or discipline, or anyone to show [him] right from wrong’.

• In addition to this, Perry can be perceived to be the more insecure and submissive of the two killers, as while Dick often calls him stereotypically feminine names such as ‘sugar’ and honey’, Perry admires his ‘aggressive’ masculinity and craves his words of affirmation in order to feel as masculine and strong as his counterpart.

3. Despite this, Capote does not entirely erase the murderous aspects of Perry’s character.

• Due to the prompt and seemingly nonchalant way in which he kills the clutters, Dick becomes convinced that Perry is that rarity of a person,"a natural killer.”

• Thus, Capote, despite his empathetic portrayal of Perry, never allows the reader to forget the  extent of his criminality, and how easily he was able to fire those ‘four shotgun blasts that, all told, ended six human lives.’

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It’s time your conclusions got the attention they deserve! So grab a massive piece of chocolate, a glass of water and prepare to be taught about the beginning of the end (of your essay, that is).

Having a rushed conclusion is like forgetting to lock your car after an awesome road trip- that one rushed decision could jeopardise the whole experience for your assessor. A mediocre conclusion is the same as powering through a 500 metre race then carelessly slowing down seconds before the finish line! Dramatic comparisons aside, the way you choose to end your text response either leaves the marker with a bad taste in their mouths or increases your chance of hitting a home run. On the other hand, if you’re feeling discouraged by how your essay has shaped up to be, having a killer conclusion could set you up for a pleasant surprise.

5 Tips for a mic-drop worthy conclusion

1. make a plan for the conclusion.

It has been said many times, “If you fail to plan, you plan to fail” and it could not be more true when it comes to crafting a killer conclusion. By setting a few minutes aside before even beginning your essay to plan everything out, you get to see the necessary elements which you will want to address in your conclusion. In simpler terms, an essay plan reminds you of your contention and your main points, so that you are able to start gathering all of your arguments and create the perfect concluding paragraph. Planning for each paragraph sets you up for a win as you begin to refine key ideas and explore the many ways of expressing them, which is crucial for a conclusion.

2. Don't tell the reader you are concluding!

Time and time again I have seen people fall into the trap of using phrases such as “in conclusion” or “in closing”. The person marking your work may be blown away by the majority of your response, then reach those rotten words and will reconsider this thought. Being this ‘obvious’ with opening a conclusion does not earn any points. In fact it’s simply not sophisticated. The main reason many students are tempted to begin in such a clumsy way is that they don’t know how to begin their conclusion. If you are having difficulty to start and experiencing a bit of writer's block, simply go back to your essay plan and start to unpack the contention - it’s that easy! Rephrase your answer to the actual essay question.  In most cases, you can just cut out those nasty little words and the opening line of your conclusion will still make perfect sense.

3. Rephrase, not repeat

The definition of a conclusion is literally to “sum up an argument”, thus your last paragraph should focus on gathering all of the loose ends and rewording your thesis and all of your arguments. It’s great to reinstate what you have said throughout the body of your response but repeating the same phrases and modes of expression becomes bland and bores the reader. Instead, aim to give them a fresh outlook on the key ideas you have been trying to communicate in the previous paragraphs. All it takes is a little time to change the way you are saying key points so that the conclusion does not become tedious to read. Conclusions are there to unite all of your points and to draw a meaningful link in relation to the question initially asked.

4. Keep things short and sharp

Your closing paragraph is NOT for squeezing in one or more ‘cool’ points you have- no new points should be brought into the conclusion. You should focus on working with the arguments and ideas that have ALREADY been brought up throughout your response. Introducing new arguments in that last paragraph will cause a lack of clarity and may cause the paragraph to become lengthy. A long conclusion will slow down the momentum of your piece and the reader will begin to lose interest and become impatient. Having a clear aim before writing your conclusion will help avoid a lengthy paragraph as your final thoughts will be more concise and refined.

5. The last line is where you get to really shine

Your closing sentence is the ultimate make or break for the entire essay so it is a shame to see many responses ending awkwardly due to students running out of time or becoming lazy with that final sentence. Last words are so important but don’t spend too much time on it! One awesome way to finish is with a very well thought-out phrase which summarises your contention one last time. Imagine dropping the mic after the final sentence of your essay, your conclusion needs to be stronger.

If you need further help on Text Response (including essay structure), check out our Ultimate Guide to VCE Text Response .

• Historical Context
• Cinematography
• Key Symbols
• Sample Essay Topics

Essay Topic Breakdown

Rear Window is usually studied in the Australian curriculum under Area of Study 1 - Text Response. For a detailed guide on Text Response, check out our Ultimate Guide to VCE Text Response .

When most people think of Hitchcock, it’s the screeching violins from  Psycho  that first come to mind. Whilst he is indeed known for his hair-curling thrillers,  Rear Window  is a slightly subtler film which focuses not on a murderer at large, but rather a crippled photographer who never even leaves his apartment.

Our protagonist L.B. ‘Jeff’ Jefferies is portrayed by James Stewart, who was known at the time for portraying cowboys in various Western films as well as starring in an earlier Hitchcock film  Rope . After breaking his leg after a racing accident, Jeff begins to spy on his neighbours, one of whom he suspects of having committed a murder.

Despite some initial misgivings, his insurance nurse Stella (Thelma Ritter) and lover Lisa (Grace Kelly) also come to share his suspicions and participate in his spying. Their contributions ultimately allow the mystery to be solved.

Intertwined with this mystery is also the rather complex story of Jeff and Lisa’s relationship. Jeff on one hand resembles the ‘macho’ men of action whom Stewart is very accustomed to playing. On the other hand, Kelly portrays a character much like herself, a refined and elegant urbanite whose lifestyle inherently clashes with that of an action photographer.

Hitchcock ultimately resolves both of these storylines in the film’s denouement.

2. Historial Context

Before getting into the nitty-gritty of the film, it is crucial to understand a bit about its historical context. As with any other text, the social conditions at the time of  Rear Window ’s release in 1954 inform and shape the interactions and events of the film.

Released in the  post-war period , the film is undoubtedly characterised by the interpersonal suspicion which defined the era. In particular, there was a real fear in America of Communist influences and Soviet espionage - so much so that a tribunal was established, supposedly to weed out Communists despite a general lack of evidence. This practice of making accusations without such evidence is now known as the McCarthyism, named after the senator behind the tribunal.

The film undoubtedly carries undertones of this, particularly in Jeff’s disregard for his neighbours’ privacy and his unparalleled ability to jump to conclusions about them. During this era, people really did fear one another, since the threat of Communism felt so widespread. Jeff’s exaggerated interpretations of his neighbours’ actions lead him to an irrational sense of suspicion, which is in many way the basis of the entire film.

At the same time, the 1950s saw a  boom in photojournalism  as a legitimate profession. To some extent, this was fuelled by the heyday of  Life  magazine (an American weekly, as well-known then as  Time  magazine is today). This publication was almost entirely photojournalistic, and one of their war photojournalists, Robert Capa, is actually the basis of Jeff’s character. This explains the prevalence of cameras in his life, as well as his ability to emotionally distance himself from those whom he observes through the lens.

Another crucial historical element is  the institution of marriage , and how important it was to people during the 1950s. It was an aspiration which everyone was expected to have, and this is reflected statistically - only 9.3% of homes then had single occupants (as opposed to around 25% today). People also tended to marry at a younger age, generally in their early 20s.

Conversely, divorce was highly frowned upon, and once you were married, you would in general remain married for the rest of your life. In particular, divorced women suffered massive financial difficulties, since men, as breadwinners, held higher-paying jobs, and women were only employed in traditionally female roles (e.g. secretaries, nurses, teachers, librarians). Seen in this light, we can understand Lisa’s overwhelming desire to marry and settle down with Jeff. The importance of marriage is also evident in the lives of Jeff’s neighbours; Miss Torso’s 'juggling [of the] wolves', and Miss Lonelyheart’s depression both reflect this idea.

Combining a basic understanding of the film’s plot, as well as our knowledge of its history, we can begin to analyse some of the themes that emerge.

Possibly the central tenet of the film is the big question of  privacy . Even in today’s society, the sanctity of privacy is an important concept; every individual has a right to make their own choices without having to disclose, explain or justify all of them. The character of Doyle says almost these exact words: 

'That’s a secret and private world you’re looking into out there. People do a lot of things in private that they couldn’t possibly explain in public'

The tension that Hitchcock draws upon is this other idea of public responsibility, or civic duty - that is, the need to uphold the peace and protect one’s fellow citizens from harm. These ideas clash in  Rear Window , as fulfilling this civic responsibility (which for Jeff means privately investigating Thorwald) means that Thorwald’s right to privacy gets totally thrown out the window. So to speak.

Evidently, this is a major  moral dilemma . If you suspect that someone has committed murder, does this give you the right to disregard their privacy and surveil them in this way? While the film doesn’t give a definite answer (and you won’t be required to give a definite answer), Hitchcock undoubtedly explores the complexity of this question. Even Jeff has misgivings about what he’s seeing: 

 'Do you suppose it’s ethical to watch a man with binoculars, and a long-focus lens—until you can see the freckles on the back of his neck, and almost read his mail? Do you suppose it’s ethical even if you prove he didn’t commit a crime?'

In some ways, the audience is also positioned to reflect on this question, and in particular, reflect on the paranoia that characterised and defined the McCarthy era.

Somewhat separate to these questions is the  romance  between Jeff and Lisa, since Hitchcock seems to keep the thriller storyline and the romance storyline separate for a large part of the film. Their contrasting lifestyles and world views present a major obstacle in the fulfilment of their romance, and the murder mystery both distracts and unites them. Hitchcock further alludes to the question of whether marriage will be able to settle those differences after all - a major example is the following scene, in which Lisa not only reveals her discovery of Mrs Thorwald’s ring, but also expresses a desire for Jeff to ‘put a ring on it’ as well:

4. Cinematography

It’s impossible to study a Hitchcock film without considering how he impacted and manipulated its storytelling. The cinematographic techniques employed in  Rear Window  are important ways of shaping our understanding of the film, and Hitchcock uses a wide array of visual cues to communicate certain messages.

Lighting  is one such cue that he uses a lot - it is said that at certain points in filming, he had used every single light owned by the studio in which this film was shot. In this film, lighting is used to reveal things: when the lights are on in any given apartment, Jeff is able to peer inside and watch through the window (almost resembling a little TV screen; Jeff is also able to channel surf through the various apartments - Hitchcock uses panning to show this).

On the contrary, a lack of lighting is also used to hide things, and we see Thorwald utilise this at many stages in the film. Jeff also takes advantage of this, as he often sits in a position where he is very close to being in the shadows himself; if he feels the need, he is able to retreat such that he is fully enshrouded. Low-key lighting in these scenes also contributes to an overall sense of drama and tension.

Another handy visual cue is the  cross-cut , which is an example of the  Kuleshov effect . The Kuleshov effect is an editing technique whereby a sequence of two shots is used to convey information more effectively than just a single shot. Specifically, the cross-cut shifts from a shot of a person to a second shot of something that this person is watching.

We see this often, particularly when Jeff is responding to events in the courtyard; Hitchcock uses this cross-cut to immediately show us what has caused Jeff’s response. This visual cue indicates to viewers that we are seeing what Jeff is seeing, and is one of the few ways that Hitchcock helps audiences assume Jeff’s point-of-view in key moments.

Similarly, Hitchcock also uses  photographic vignetting  to merge our perspectives with Jeff’s - in certain shots, we see a fade in clarity and colour towards the sides of a frame, and this can look like a circular shadow, indicating to us that we are seeing something through a telescope or a long-focus lens.

Interestingly, a vignette is also a short, descriptive scene that focuses on a certain character and/or idea to provide us with insights about them - in this sense, it’s also possible to say that Jeff watches vignettes of his neighbours. Since this word has two meanings, you must be careful about which meaning you’re referring to.

By the way, to download a PDF version of this blog for printing or offline use, click here !

5. Key Symbols

As with any other text, it’s important to consider some of the key symbols that Hitchcock draws upon in order to tell his story. That being said, one of the benefits of studying a film is that these symbols tend to be quite visual - you are able to see these recurring images and this may make them easier to spot. We’ll be going through some of these key images in the final part of this guide.

One of the first symbols we see is  Jeff’s broken leg , which is propped up and completely covered by a cast, useless for the time being. Because he has been rendered immobile by his leg, readers can infer from this symbol that he is also incapable of working or even leaving his apartment, let alone solving a murder mystery. The broken leg is in this sense a symbol of his powerlessness and the source of much of his discontent.

Another interpretation of the broken leg however, is that it represents his impotence which on one hand is synonymous for powerlessness or helplessness, but is on the other hand an allusion to his apparent inability to feel sexual desire. Being constantly distracted from Lisa by other goings-on in the courtyard definitely supports this theory. All in all, Jeff’s broken leg represents some compromise of his manhood, both in the sense that he cannot work in the way that a man would have been expected to, but also in the sense that he is unable to feel any attraction towards Lisa, even as she tries her best to seduce him.

Conversely, Jeff’s  long-focus camera lens  is a symbol of his passive male gaze, which is more or less the only thing he can do in his condition. It is the main means through which he observes other people, and thus, it also symbolises his voyeuristic tendencies - just as his broken leg traps and inhibits him, his camera lens transports him out of his own apartment and allows him to project his own fears and insecurities into the apartments of his neighbours, watching them for entertainment, for visual pleasure.

In this latter sense, the camera lens can also be understood as a phallic symbol, an erection of sorts. It highlights Jeff’s perverted nature, and the pleasure he derives from the act of observing others. Yikes.

On the other hand,  Lisa’s dresses  underscore the more positive parts of her character. Her initial wardrobe represents her elegance and refinery whilst also communicating a degree of incompatibility with Jeff. However, as she changes and compromises throughout the film, her wardrobe also becomes much more practical and much less ostentatious as the film wears on, until she is finally wearing a smart blouse, jeans and a pair of loafers. The change in her wardrobe reflects changes in her character as well.

Finally,  the wedding ring of Mrs Thorwald  is hugely significant; wedding rings in general represent marriage and commitment, and are still very important symbols that people still wear today. Specifically, Mrs Thorwald’s ring means a couple of things in the context of the film - it is firstly a crucial piece of evidence (because if Mrs Thorwald was still alive, she would probably still be wearing it) and it is also a symbol through which Lisa can express a desire for stability, commitment and for herself to be married.

There’s definitely plenty to talk about with Hitchcock’s  Rear Window , and I hope these points of consideration help you tackle this film!

Test your film technique knowledge with the video below:

Ready to start writing on Rear Window ? Watch the Rear Window Essay Topic Breakdown:

6. Sample Essay Topics

• In Rear Window , Hitchcock suggests that everybody can be guilty of voyeurism. Do you agree?
• Jeff’s attempts to pursue justice are entirely without honour. To what extent is this true?
• In the society presented in Rear Window , Jeff has more power and agency than Lisa in spite of his injury. Do you agree?
• Discuss how the opening sequence sets up later themes and events in Rear Window .
• 'Of course, they can do the same thing to me, watch me like a bug under glass if they want to.' Hitchcock’s Rear Window argues that it is human nature to be suspicious. To what extent do you agree?
• Explore the role of Jeff’s courtyard neighbours in the narrative of Rear Window .
• Jeff and Lisa’s roles in Rear Window , as well as that which they witness, reflect the broader societal tensions between the sexes of the time. Discuss.
• 'I’m not much on rear window ethics.' The sanctity of domestic privacy supersedes the importance of public responsibility. Is this the message of Rear Window ?
• Marriage lies at the heart of Alfred Hitchcock’s Rear Window . Discuss.
• Hitchcock’s Rear Window explores and ultimately condemns the spectacle made of human suffering. Is this an accurate reflection of the film?
• Rear Window argues that it is more important to be right than to be ethical. Do you agree?
• 'To see you is to love you.' What warnings and messages regarding attraction are offered by Hitchcock’s Rear Window ?
• In Rear Window , women are merely objects of a sexist male gaze. To what extent do you agree?
• In what ways do Hitchcock’s cinematic techniques enhance his storytelling in Rear Window ?
• 'When they’re in trouble, it’s always their Girl Friday that gets them out of it.' Is Lisa the true heroine of Rear Window ?

Now it's your turn to give these essay topics a go! In our ebook A Killer Text Guide: Rear Window , we've take 5 of these essay topics and show you our analysis, brainstorm and plan for each individual topic. We then write up full A+ essays - all annotated - so that you know exactly what you need to do to replicate a 50 study scorer's success!.

7. Essay Topic Breakdown

Whenever you get a new essay topic, you can use LSG’s THINK and EXECUTE strategy - a technique to help you write better VCE essays. This essay topic breakdown will focus on the THINK part of the strategy. If you’re unfamiliar with this strategy, then check it out in How To Write A Killer Text Response because it’ll dramatically enhance how much you can take away from the following essays and more importantly, your ability to apply this strategy in your own writing.

Within the THINK strategy, we have 3 steps, or ABC. These ABC components are:

Step 1: A nalyse

Step 2: B rainstorm

Step 3: C reate a Plan

Film technique-based prompt:

Hitchcock’s use of film techniques offers an unnerving viewing experience . Discuss.

Step 1: Analyse

While we should use film techniques as part of our evidence repertoire in each essay, this particular type of essay prompt literally begs for it. As such, I’d ensure that my essay has a greater focus on film techniques (without concerning myself too much over inclusion of quotes; the film techniques will act as a replacement for the quotes).

Step 2: Brainstorm

Since the essay prompt is rather open-ended, it is up to us to decide which central themes and ideas we’d like to focus on. By narrowing down the discussion possibilities ourselves, we’ll 1) make our lives easier by removing the pressure to write about everything , and 2) offer teachers and examiners a more linear and straightforward approach that will make it easier for them to follow (and give you better marks!).

The ‘unnerving viewing experience’ is present throughout the entire film, so my approach will be to divide up each paragraph into start of the film, middle of the film and end of the film discussions. This will help with my essay’s coherence (how well the ideas come together), and flow (how well the ideas logically progress from one to another).

Step 3: Create a Plan

Contention: Through a diverse range of film techniques, Hitchcock instils fear and apprehension into the audience of Rear Window .

P1: The opening sequence of Rear Window employs various film techniques to immediately establish underlying tension in its setting.

P2: Through employing the Kuleshov effect in the strategically cut scene of Miss Lonelyhearts’ attempted suicide, Hitchcock adds to the suspenseful tone of the film by developing a guilty voyeur within each viewer.

P3: In tandem with this, Hitchcock ultimately adds to the anxiety of the audience by employing lighting and cross-cutting techniques in the climax scene of the plot, in which an infuriated Thorwald attempts to enter Jeff’s apartment.

If you find this helpful, then you might want to check out our A Killer Text Guide: Rear Window ebook, which has all the information and resources you need to succeed in your exam, with detailed summaries and background information, as well as a detailed analysis of all five essay prompts!

8. Resources

Download a PDF version of this blog for printing or offline use

How To Write a Rear Window Film Analysis

Rear Window: How Does Its Message Remain Relevant Today?

The Ultimate Guide to VCE Text Response

How To Write A Killer Text Response (ebook)

How To Embed Quotes in Your Essay Like a Boss

How To Turn Text Response Essays From Average to A+

5 Tips for a Mic-Drop Worthy Essay Conclusion

False Claims of Colonial Thieves is usually studied in the Australian curriculum under Area of Study 1 - Text Response. For a detailed guide on Text Response, check out our Ultimate Guide to VCE Text Response .

Why Is Context Important?

When studying a text, it is very important to comprehend its context. Context will help you to understand what the text is about and what the author’s point of view is - key components of doing well in VCE English! Context is especially important for False Claims of Colonial Thieves because the authors frequently reference Australia’s history. Even the title is a nod to its context - it is all about the ‘false claims’ made by Australia’s ‘colonial thieves’, or in other words, Australia’s colonial settlers. Understanding what these false claims are will help you better understand the context and therefore, do significantly better in your English essays and assessments.

Treat this blog as a starting point only . There is so much to learn about these topics, and I recommend you do your own research in addition to reading this blog. To help you do so, I have provided a reliable external source for each topic, so you can start exploring these claims in more depth.

Terra Nullius

One of the biggest ‘false claims’ that Papertalk Green and Kinsella refer to throughout their collaboration is the colonisers’ claim of Australia being terra nullius . When the British came to Australia, they claimed that the country was ‘no man’s land’, denying that the Indigenous Australians had actually lived here for thousands of years. By pretending that no one lived in Australia, this supposedly gave the British ‘legitimacy’ to assume control over the land and those already living on it - i.e. Australia’s First Nations Peoples.

Terra Nullius was used against the Indigenous peoples for many years to justify their horrific treatment. The principle was only overturned in 1992 when an Indigenous man, Eddie Mabo, challenged this claim in the High Court of Australia. Nowadays, we recognise that the Indigenous people were here significantly earlier than the colonisers and that their sovereignty (i.e. their power over the land) was never ceded.

External source for further reading: https://australian.museum/learn/first-nations/unsettled/recognising-invasions/terra-nullius/  

The Stolen Generation

Another false claim was that the Indigenous people were inferior to white people. This claim led to the forcible removal of Indigenous children from their families, so they could be raised by ‘superior’ white people and taught white cultures/languages - these children are referred to as the ‘Stolen Generation’ because they were taken away from their families without their consent.

It was thought that placing Aboriginal children (especially mixed-race Aboriginal children) with white families would make it easier to teach Aboriginal children the ‘proper’ (British) way of living. They were either placed in institutions or adopted by white families, and often faced terrible treatment, including violence, neglect and assault. Neither the children who were removed nor their families have fully recovered from this appalling policy that continued until the 1970s.

Indeed, the effects of the Stolen Generation can still be felt today. One of the major consequences discussed by Papertalk Green and Kinsella is that a lot of Indigenous culture was lost. Many of the children who were taken away were forbidden from practising their cultural traditions or from speaking their Indigenous languages. This ban led to many traditions going extinct and is a tragic effect of this heinous false claim.

External source for further reading: https://aiatsis.gov.au/explore/stolen-generations  

Missions and Reserves 

Another claim explored in the text is the idea that Indigenous peoples could not look after themselves and would be better off with white people ‘protecting’ them. This led to the government forcing Aboriginal people to leave their ancestral lands and relocate to newer, smaller areas - a process known as land alienation. There were two types of this land - missions and reserves - and Aboriginal people faced poor treatment on both.

Missions were usually run by Christian groups so they could convert the Indigenous people to their religion. There was a strong degree of control exercised over these Indigenous people, who were expected to learn the skills required for menial jobs (such as cooking and cleaning). Contrastingly, those living on reserves were not typically subject to as much control. These people were sometimes provided with rations from the government, but there were not usually officials to oversee them.

Both missions and reserves are referred to in False Claims of Colonial Thieves , so it is important to understand the difference between the two.

External source for further reading: https://aiatsis.gov.au/explore/missions-stations-and-reserves  

Now that we’ve examined some of the more historical context , let’s take a closer look at the contemporary and modern background that Kinsella and Papertalk Green write about.

Close the Gap Campaign and Black Deaths in Custody

A key section of the text (particularly the latter third) explores current issues which Indigenous peoples face today. Two of these major concerns lie within the health and justice systems, so it is important to understand why Kinsella and Papertalk Green focus so heavily on these matters.

The Close the Gap Campaign (launched in 2007) aims to reduce the inequality in health and education that many Indigenous peoples face. It was created because the life expectancy is much lower for Indigenous than non-Indigenous peoples, and there is a significant difference between their expected levels of education. Unfortunately, many of these concerns have not been addressed today, and Papertalk Green discusses how her family is constantly dealing with death - a key theme in False Claims of Colonial Thieves that can be explained by this contextual understanding.

External source for further reading: https://www.pmc.gov.au/sites/default/files/reports/closing-the-gap-2018/executive-summary.html  

Similarly, there are a lot of concerns with the number of Aboriginal people in prison, and how many of them die while in police custody. There was even a Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody (i.e. a governmental inquiry) handed down in 1987, however, many of its recommendations have not been implemented to this day. This idea of unfair policing and laws that target Indigenous peoples is a key idea in the text, and Kinsella dedicates a poem to Ms Dhu, an Indigenous woman killed while in custody.

External source for further reading: https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2021/apr/09/the-facts-about-australias-rising-toll-of-indigenous-deaths-in-custody  

A key theme of False Claims of Colonial Thieves is mining, which refers to the practice of removing valuable materials from the Earth. Many of these resources are found on traditional Aboriginal lands, which are destroyed by the mining process. This is especially offensive to many Indigenous groups because many Indigenous cultures have a strong spiritual connection to their land (often known as Country). There is consequently a lot of tension between the Indigenous populations and governments, especially in Western Australia, where both of the authors live.

External source for further reading: https://www.aph.gov.au/Parliamentary_Business/Committees/Senate/Former_Committees/uranium/report/d07  

How Can You Use This in Your Essays?

Understanding a text’s context is very important in being able to analyse the text in appropriate depth.

For example, knowing that mining is often considered harmful to the lands to which Indigenous peoples have a strong connection, will allow you to discuss this concept in your essays. Indeed, Papertalk Green argues that mining is just as harmful to Indigenous peoples as earlier ‘false claims’ were, which is a sophisticated idea for you to use in your assessments.

As you begin to better understand and incorporate context into your essays, you can then take things one step further by examining how the author has used context as a means of demonstrating their authorial intent . For example, the effects of the Stolen Generation have been explored in several poems, and a possible viewpoint is that the Stolen Generation was used to demonstrate the devastating loss of Indigenous cultures and traditions.

‍ Station Eleven is usually studied in the Australian curriculum under Area of Study 1 - Text Response. For a detailed guide on Text Response, check out our Ultimate Guide to VCE Text Response .

Breaking Down a Station Eleven Essay Prompt

We've explored themes, characters, symbols and provided a summary of the text over on our Station Eleven by Emily St John Mandel blog post. If you need a quick refresher or you’re new to studying this text, I highly recommend checking it out!

Here, we’ll be breaking down a Station Eleven essay topic using LSG’s THINK and EXECUTE strategy , a technique to help you write better VCE essays. If you’re unfamiliar with this strategy, you can learn about it in our How To Write A Killer Text Response study guide.

Without further ado, let’s get into it!

The Prompt: ' The distortion of memories can be harmful.' Do you agree?

The first thing to note about this prompt is that it's a theme-based prompt, focussing specifically on the theme of memory, which plays a significant role throughout the novel! But more specifically, it's asking directly about the impacts distorted (i.e. misrepresentative/twisted/warped) memories have on individuals, and whether this is harmful or not. So ultimately, you have to look at which memories are distorted throughout the novel, and evaluate whether this process is ultimately helpful to the characters or not.

Not sure what we mean by ‘theme-based prompt’? Then, you’ll want to learn more about the 5 types of essay prompts here .

‍ Step 2: Brainstorm

• Many characters' memories are altered significantly from what actually occurred - this is especially relevant for the characters living after the pandemic, as memories naturally distort over a 20-year period
• The two main characters we see whose memories are altered the most are Tyler and Kirsten - both of whom were children during the collapse of civilisation
• For Tyler, his recollections of the past are all dominated by violence and this has a significant impact on his worldview. One could very easily argue that it is this distorted view of reality that ultimately leads to the formation of his cult and the subsequent harm he inflicts
• Thus, in the case of Tyler, it is quite clear that the distortion of memories has been quite harmful
• However, on the other hand, Kirsten has had to commit unspeakable acts, (as implied by her being unable to remember her past/childhood), but this is seen as a coping mechanism, allowing her to move forward in life
• Thus, for Kirsten, the manipulation of her memories through her forgetting is ultimately rather positive!
• Memory distortion doesn't just relate to these two characters - it also affects Clark quite severely
• He is shown to be quite unhappy in the pre-apocalyptic world, which is a stark contrast to his fulfilment by the end of the novel. What causes this?
• This can be attributed to his distortion of memories which allows him to view the old world in a far more positive manner, with significant nostalgia
• Thus, like Kirsten, Clark's distortion of memories is also presented as largely beneficial
• So ultimately, while there are downsides to manipulating one's memories (Tyler), Mandel shows that distorting memories is largely a positive coping mechanism for many characters!

From my brainstorming, I'll be approaching the essay with the following contention: 

Distorting memories can be harmful but more often is beneficial.

Now it's time to work out our paragraph ideas.

P1: Tyler's distortion of memories is largely detrimental and therefore harmful because they are tainted with violence and thus exacerbate his suffering.

P2: However, Kirsten uses this as a coping mechanism, enabling her to move forward from the trauma associated with the collapse of society and therefore the distortion of memories is necessary in her case.

P3: Further, Clark's rose-tinted view of the past world allows him to come to terms with the collapse of society and again is beneficial.

While Emily St. John Mandel's post-apocalyptic novel Station Eleven illustrates the harm which can be associated with the distortion of memories, it ultimately expounds on the benefits which can be garnered by those who alter their perceptions of reality given how this can serve as an invaluable coping mechanism to process trauma. The non-linear structure of her novel, achieved through the interweaving of pre- and post-lapsarian scenes (1) , allows her to sculpt parallels between her characters who are able to accurately recall both the positives and the negatives of the 'modern world'. She thus advocates that whilst the distortion of memories can perpetuate and enable violence, it can alternatively result in tangible benefits when utilised in a positive manner, thus exposing Mandel's credence in how this can actually serve to benefit individuals and entire communities as a whole.

Annotations (1) It is really useful to show an understanding of how the novel has been constructed and why - so through Station Eleven not following a traditional model of time, this allows Mandel to really contrast between her characters - namely Kirsten and Tyler.

Mandel expounds (2) how the distortion of memories can ultimately exacerbate the suffering experienced by vast sectors of the community, arguing that it is this which actively perpetuates harm due to the inability of humans to adequately process trauma, particularly trauma which stems from one's childhood given the loss of innocence which accompanies this. Indeed, Tyler, who was characterised as a young boy during the 'neutron bomb' of the Georgia Flu and the subsequent destruction of civilisation 'had the misfortune of remembering everything', ultimately resulting in dire consequences for the majority of characters who interact with him. Mandel condemns Tyler's innate desire to justify the pandemic, arguing his inability to forget, process and fully comprehend ‘the blood drenched years of the collapse’ drives the creation of his cult which eventually perpetuates great suffering. This ultimately results in significant consequences, thus allowing her to denounce how the distortion of memories (with Tyler's recollections largely being defined by extreme violence and gore) can be extremely harmful. Indeed, 'ruling with a combination of charisma, violence and cherry-picked verses from the Book of Revelations', Tyler damages the overwhelming majority of people he comes into contact with, from having numerous 'child brides' to rendering the town of St. Deborah by the Water 'unsafe' to his cult containing only a few 'true believers', (3) serving as the embodiment of humanity's insatiable lust for power. Through his reciting of only phrases from the Book of Revelations, labelled the most exclusionary and brutal book of the New Testament (4) , Mandel condemns the selectivity of Tyler's beliefs, advocating that his internalisation of only the most harmful and violent phrases exemplifies the lack of benefits associated with violently distorting memories given the inability of humans to process such immense trauma and suffering. Whilst Mandel explains Tyler's actions as stemming from the violence underpinning his childhood, particularly given that he was raised by a 'lunatic' whom others deemed 'unsaveable', she dispels the notion that this excuses them, arguing the degree of hardships inflicted by Tyler himself are unjustifiable, thus further exposing her credence in the necessity of being able to forget harmful memories in order to overcome them. Ultimately, through her portrayal of Tyler's inability to forget his childhood as 'a boy adrift on the road', Mandel reveals the potential for harm to be imposed due to the distortion of memories so that they are marked by violence, arguing that this can indeed be overwhelmingly dangerous.

Annotations (2) It is great to use action words such as 'expounds' instead of the basic 'shows’ as this demonstrates a more in-depth understanding of the author’s views and values (ensuring you meet VCAA Criteria 2: Views and Values ).

(3) When making claims such as that Tyler harms 'the majority of people he comes into contact with', it is great to show multiple examples, so that your claims are properly backed up with appropriate evidence!

(4) This is a really great point to draw out that other students may not consider - Tyler never references any other components of the New Testament and only focuses on the most violent sections of one particular book.

However, Mandel also displays a belief in the positives which can be gleaned by those who inherently distort their memories as a mechanism to process traumatic times in their lives, arguing this can provoke significant, tangible benefits. Conveyed through the non-linear structure of her novel, Mandel sculpts parallels between Tyler and Kristen given their similar ages and respective connections to protagonist Arthur through him serving as their father and father figure respectively, with the significant difference being that only the latter was able to forget 'the year [she] spent on the road…the worst of it' (5) . As such, only Kirsten is able to adequately move on from this extremely traumatic period in her life, exemplifying Mandel's credence in how the distortion of memories can truly serve as an invaluable coping mechanism allowing individuals to overcome significant harm, with Kirsten experiencing a large degree of post-lapsarian fulfilment given her 'friendships' with her fellow members of the Travelling Symphony, her 'only home'. Despite Kirsten's past being underpinned by significant violence, with her having three 'knife tattoos' to commemorate those she has had to kill in order to survive, her continued ability to adapt her memories into less traumatic ones is applauded, with her murders having been portrayed as occurring 'slowly…sound drained from the earth' as a way for her to process 'these men [which she] will carry with [her] for the rest of [her] life', thereby exposing Mandel's credence in the necessity of being able to overcome trauma through distorting memories. As such, she ironically went on to perform Romeo and Juliet following one such event which, given Mandel's depiction of the unparalleled significance of artistic forms of expressionism facilitating human wellbeing as Kirsten 'never feels more alive' than when she performs, exposes Mandel's illumination of how altering false realities (6) can ultimately provoke tangible benefits given Kirsten's ability to simply move on despite the traumatising nature of the truth. Ultimately, through the juxtaposition between Tyler and Kirstens' distortion (7) of memories, Mandel expounds how distorting memories can wield both consequences and benefits, with the latter occurring when employed subconsciously by individuals to process harmful memories.

Annotations (5) It is quite sophisticated to go back to the construction of the novel throughout the essay (as opposed to just briefly mentioning it in the introduction!). This shows you truly understand why the author structured the novel the way she did, which in this case is to highlight the similarities and differences between Kristen and Tyler.

(6) Try to avoid repeating 'distortion of memories' every single time - it is great to use synonyms such as 'false realities', but make sure you're using the right words (see annotation 2 for more information).

(7) Note how this links back to paragraph 1 (given that these two points are so similar and go off of one another) which makes the essay flow better. We are showing that our argument is well-structured and follows logical patterns.

Furthermore, Mandel similarly explores the benefits of utilising the distortion of memories as a coping mechanism and how, especially when this is done through the lens of nostalgia, it can facilitate unprecedented satisfaction. Indeed, Clark is depicted to be the literal embodiment of post-lapsarian fulfilment (8) given his ability to, albeit through rose-tinted glasses, appreciate the 'taken-for-granted miracles' of the 'former world' through his position as the 'Curator' at the 'Museum of Civilisation'. Subsequently, he serves to expose Mandel's belief in the benefits of altering one's recollections in an overwhelmingly positive manner. As such, Clark 'spend[s] more time in the past…letting his memories overtake him' as he maintains integral cultural artefacts which 'had no practical use but that people wanted to preserve'. This ultimately eventuates into a significant degree of fulfilment for not only Clark himself, but also the other residents of the Severn City Airport, the children of whom 'like all educated children everywhere….memorise abstractions' of the pre-lapsarian society, with the entire Airport community revelling in the everyday 'beauty' of objects not typically appreciated by the general populace. In doing so Mandel highlights her belief regarding the significance underpinning the benefits which can be gained from those whose memories are distorted to cope with losses in a positive manner, arguing this can enable a substantial increase in wellbeing. This is exacerbated through the juxtaposition in Clark's pre- and post-lapsarian fulfilment, for in the former he is denigrated as merely an unhappy 'minimally present...high functioning sleepwalker' (9) . Overall, through her portrayal of Clark's satisfaction despite his elderly status and the loss of everyone dear to him, Mandel exposes her belief in the value of distorting one's memories in an overwhelmingly positive manner, advocating this can facilitate the forming of one's intrinsic purpose and thus fulfilment.

Annotations (8) You want to show how characters correlate to specific themes, and if one embodies a particular idea, then you should clearly state that! It shows examiners you really know your stuff. See this blog for more about the themes and characters in Station Eleven . 

(9) Again, you want to clearly highlight how Clark is distorting his memories, including by providing evidence to back up your claim.

Ultimately, Emily St. John Mandel’s Station Eleven exemplifies the limitations of the human psyche when affected by trauma, arguing that the distortion of memories can have either a positive or negative impact upon the individual. Whilst she cautions her audience against the dangers of adhering to selective recollections, she simultaneously presents the benefits which can be garnered from this, alongside the ability to liberate oneself from such harmful memories.

For more Station Eleven writing samples, check out this blog post , which compares three different paragraphs and analyses how they improve upon one another.

If you found this essay breakdown helpful, then you might want to check out our Station Eleven Study Guide where we cover 5 A+ sample essays with EVERY essay annotated and broken down on HOW and WHY these essays achieved A+ so you reach your English goals!

Updated 19/01/2021

1. What Is Text Response? 2. What Are You Expected To Cover? (Text Response Criteria) 3. School Assessed Coursework (SAC), Exams and Allocated Marks 4. How To Prepare for Your Text Response SAC and Exam 5. How To Write a Text Response

1. What Is Text Response?

Like its name, Text Response is when you respond to a text. The most popular texts are novels and films; however, plays, poetry and short stories are also common. Your response will be in the form of an essay, in which you discuss themes, ideas and characters. Recall all the novels and films you've studied since Year 7 (there'll be quite a few!). You should be very familiar with the process of watching a film or reading a novel, participating in class discussions about themes and characters, and finally, submitting an essay based on the text.

As you graduate into higher year levels, you spend each year revising and improving on TEEL, learning to better incorporate quotes and formulating even longer essays than the year before (remember when you thought you couldn't possibly write an essay more than 500 words?).

The good news is, all of that learning is now funnelled into VCE’s Text Response, one of the three parts of the VCE English study design. Text Response, officially known as ‘Reading and Responding’ in the study design, is the first Area of study (AoS 1) - meaning that the majority of students will tackle the Text Response SAC in Term 1. Let's get into it!

2. What Are You Expected To Cover? ( Text Response Criteria)

What are teachers and examiners expecting to see in your essays? Below are the VCE criteria for Text Response essays.

Note: Some schools may express the following points differently, however, they should all boil down to the same points - what is necessary in a Text Response essay.

a) Critically analyse texts and the ways in which authors construct meaning;

Much of the ‘meaning’ in a novel/film comes instinctively to readers. Why is it that we can automatically distinguish between a protagonist from an antagonist? Why is it that we know whether or not the author supports or denounces an idea?

Here you need to start looking at how the author constructs their texts and why they have made that choice. For example, the author describes a protagonist using words with positive connotations (kind, brave, charming), whereas the antagonist is described with words using negative connotations (vain, egocentric, selfish).

For example, 'in Harry Potter , by describing the protagonist Harry as "brave", the author JK Rowling exhibits the idea of how possessing bravery when making tough choices or facing challenges is a strong and positive trait.'

b) Analyse the social, historical and/or cultural values embodied in texts;

Society, history and culture all shape and influence us in our beliefs and opinions. Authors use much of what they’ve obtained from the world around them and employ this knowledge to their writing. Understanding their values embodied in texts can help us as readers, identity and appreciate theme and character representations.

For example, 'through the guilty verdict of Tom Robinson in To Kill A Mockingbird , Harper Lee expresses the belief that the American legal system in the 1930s was not always fair or just.'

For more information on context and authorial intent in VCE English, read Tim's blog, Context and Authorial Intention in VCE English, or Olivia's on what authorial intent is and why it's important .

c) Discuss and compare possible interpretations of texts using evidence from the text;

Be open to the idea that many texts can be interpreted in many ways. Texts are rarely concrete and simple. Take The Bible , a book that is one of the most popular and famous books in history but is interpreted differently by every person. Acknowledging more than one perspective on a certain aspect of the text, or acknowledging that perhaps the writer is intentionally ambiguous, is a valuable skill that demonstrates you have developed a powerful insight into your text.

For example, 'in The Thing Around Your Neck , feminist readers condone Adichie's stories which all revolve around women either as protagonist or as narrators, giving voice to the disempowered gender in Nigerian society.'

‍ d) Use appropriate metalanguage to construct a supported analysis of a text;

While you should absolutely know how to embed quotes in your essay like a boss , you want to have other types of evidence in your Text Response essay. You must discuss how the author uses the form that he/she is writing in to develop their discussion. This encompasses a huge breadth of things from metaphors to structure to language.

For example, 'The personification of Achilles as "wolf, a violator of every law of men and gods", illustrates his descent from human to animal….' or 'Malouf’s constant use of the present voice and the chapter divisions allow the metaphor of time to demonstrate the futility and omnipresence of war…'.

To learn more about metalanguage, read our ' What Is Metalanguage? ' post.

e) Control and effectiveness of language use, as appropriate to the task

When examiners read essays, they are expected to get through about 12-15 essays in an hour! This results in approximately 5 minutes to read, get their head around, and grade your essay - not much time at all! It is so vital that you don’t give the examiner an opportunity to take away marks because they have to reread certain parts of your essay due to poor expression and grammar.

For further advice on the above criteria points, read Emily's (English study score 46): Year 12: How To Turn Your Text Response Essays From Average to A+ .

3. School Assessed Coursework (SAC), Exams and Allocated Marks

Reading and Creating is assessed in Unit 1 (Year 11) and Unit 3 (Year 12). The number of allocated marks are:

• Unit 1 - dependant on school
• Unit 3 English – 30 marks
• Unit 3 EAL – 40 marks

Exactly when Text Response is assessed within each unit is dependent on each school; some schools at the start of the Unit, others at the end. The time allocated to your SAC is also school-based. Often, schools use one or more periods combined, depending on how long each of your periods last. Teachers can ask you to write anywhere from 800 to 1000 words for your essay (keep in mind that it’s about quality, not quantity!)

In your exam, you get a whopping total of 3 hours to write 3 essays (Text Response, Comparative and Language Analysis). The general guide is 60 minutes on Text Response, however, it is up to you exactly how much time you decide to dedicate to this section of the exam. Your Text Response essay will be graded out of 10 by two different examiners. Your two unique marks from these examiners will be combined, with 20 as the highest possible mark.

4. How To Prepare for Your Text Response SAC and Exam

Preparation is a vital component in how you perform in your SACs and exam so it’s always a good idea to find out what is your best way to approach assessments. This is just to get you thinking on the different study methods you can try before a SAC. Here are my top strategies (ones I actually used in VCE) for Text Response preparation that can be done any time of year (including holidays - see How To Recharge Your Motivation Over the School Holidays for more tips):

a) Reread your book (or rewatch the film)

After all the learning and discussion you’ve had with your teacher and peers, you should have now developed a solid foundation of knowledge. Rereading a book enables you to refresh your memory on subplots, popular passages and most importantly, helps you fill in any missing gaps in knowledge. Take this as an opportunity to get familiar with the parts of the texts you're less confident with, or to examine a particular theme that you know you're weaker in (HINT: A good place to start is to make sure you know the difference between themes, motifs and symbols !)

b) Do a close analysis

This is like an advanced version of rereading a book. A 'close analysis' - a term stolen from VCE Literature (thanks Lit!) - is basically where you select a passage (a short chapter or a few pages), and analyse it in detail.

As you move through the passage, you can pick out interesting word choices made by the author and try to interpret why they have made this choice. Doing a close analysis will immensely strengthen your metalanguage analysis skills, and also give you the opportunity to stand out from other students because you can offer unique and original analysis and evidence in your essay. I know this can be a bit confusing, so this video below shows a full close analysis of a Macbeth passage in action:

c) Read and watch Lisa's Study Guides' resources

Doing this study all by yourself can be rather daunting, so we've got your back. We specialise in supporting VCE English by creating helpful videos, study guides and ebooks. Here are some just to get your started:

YouTube Videos

We create general Text Response advice videos like this:

We also create text-specific videos:

And if you just need general study advice, we've got you covered too:

Check out our entire YouTube channel (and don't forget to subscribe for regular new videos!).

Study Guides

Our awesome team of English high-achievers have written up study guides based on popular VCE texts. Here's a compilation of all the ones we've covered so far:

After Darkness by Christine Piper

Cosi by Louis Nowra

‍ ‍ Extinction by Hannie Rayson

‍ Flames by Robbie Arnott

False Claims of Colonial Thieves by Charmaine Papertalk Green and John Kinsella

‍ Go Went Gone by Jenny Erpenbeck

‍ Like a House on Fire by Kate Kennedy

‍ Measure for Measure by William Shakespeare

‍ Old/New World Selected Poems by Peter Skrzynecki

‍ ‍ On The Waterfront by Elia Kazan

‍ Ransom by David Malouf

‍ Rear Window by Alfred Hitchcock

‍ Runaway by Alice Munro

‍ Station Eleven by Emily St John Mandel

Sunset Boulevard by Billy Wilder (Analysis of Film Techniques)

Sunset Boulevard by Billy Wilder (Incorporating Cinematic Features into your VCE Essay)

‍ The Crucible by Arthur Miller

‍ The Complete Maus by Art Spiegelman ‍

The Erratics by Vicki Laveau-Harvie (Setting)

The Erratics by Vicki Laveau-Harvie (Breakdown of Themes & Quotes)

‍ ‍ The Golden Age by Joan London

‍ The Lieutenant by Kate Grenville

‍ The Secret River by Kate Grenville

The White Girl by Tony Birch

‍ To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee

‍ William Wordsworth: Poems Selected by Seamus Heaney

‍ ‍ Women of Troy by Euripides (Don Taylor's version)

‍ Year of Wonders by Geraldine Brooks

Tip: You can download and save many of these study guides for your own study use! How good is that?

And if that isn't enough, I'd highly recommend my How To Write A Killer Text Response ebook.

Most people seem to the think the most difficult part of Text Response is the writing component - and they're not completely wrong. However, what I've found is that not even students place emphasis on the brainstorming, preparation and planning of Text Response.

Think about it - if you don't come to the table with the best ideas, then how can you expect your essay to achieve A+? Even if you write an exceptional essay, if it doesn't answer the prompt, your teacher won't be sticking a smiley face on your work. We need to avoid these common teacher criticisms, and I have no doubt you've experienced at least once the dreaded, 'you're not answering the prompt', 'you could've used a better example' or 'more in-depth analysis needed'.

Enter my golden strategy - the THINK and EXECUTE strategy . This is a strategy I developed over the past 10 years of tutoring, and I've seen my students improve their marks every time. The THINK and EXECUTE strategy breaks up your Text Response into two parts - first the THINK, then the EXECUTE. Only with the unique THINK approach, will you then be able to EXECUTE your essay to its optimum potential, leading yourself to achieve those higher marks.

To learn more about the THINK and EXECUTE strategy, download my ebook sample on the shop page or at the bottom of this blog, or check out the video below:

‍ d) Get your hands on essay topics

Often, teachers will provide you with a list of prompts to practice before your SAC. Some teachers can be kind enough to hint you in the direction of a particular prompt that may be on the SAC. If your teacher hasn’t distributed any, don’t be afraid to ask.

We have a number of free essay topics curated by our team at LSG, check some of them out. Also go scroll back up to our list of study guides above, as most of those also have essay prompts included:

‍ ‍ All the Light We Cannot See Essay Topics ‍ Like a House on Fire Essay Topics ‍ ‍ The Handmaid's Tale Essay Topics ‍ ‍

e) Brainstorm and write plans

Once you've done some preliminary revision, it's time to write plans! Plans will help ensure you stick to your essay topic and have a clear outline of what your essay will cover. This clarity is crucial to success in a Text Response essay.

Doing plans is also an extremely time-efficient way to approach SACs. Rather than slaving away hours upon hours over writing essays, writing plans can will save you the burnout and will get you feeling confident faster.

I've curated essay topic breakdown videos based on specific VCE texts. In these videos, I explore keywords, ideas and how I'd plan an essay with corresponding examples/evidence.

f) Write essays

Yes, sad, but it’s a fact. Writers only get better by actually writing . Even if you just tackle a couple of essays then at least you will have started to develop a thinking process that will help you to set out arguments logically, utilise important quotes and time yourself against the clock. It will help you write faster as well – something that is a major problem for many students. With that said, let's get into how to write a Text Response next.

Take a look at some of the essays our amazing LSG team have written:

After Darkness Essay Topic Breakdown

All the Light We Cannot See Essay Topic Breakdown

‍ Extinction A+ Essay Topic Breakdown

‍ Station Eleven Essay Topic Breakdown ‍ ‍

Women of Troy Essay Topic Breakdown ‍

If you need any more tips on how to learn your text in-depth, Susan's (English study score 50) Steps for Success in Text Study guide provides a clear pathway for how to approach your text and is a must read for VCE English students!

And, if you're studying a text you hate (ugh!) be sure to check out Lavinia's guide which teaches you how to do well even when you don't like your text !

5. How To Write a Text Response

Before you start writing, make sure you're familiar with The Five Types of Text Response Prompts . Understanding the different types will help you move beyond a 'basic' one-size-fits-all structure.

Introduction

In an introduction, you're expected to have the following:

• Context (or background)
• Author's name
• Title of text
• Main arguments

Here's an example from Vindhya (English study score 46), in her post Dissecting an A+ Essay Using 'The Golden Age' by Joan London :

Perhaps nothing exemplifies the power of love and recognition more than the bond between Albert Sutton and his older sister, Lizzie, in Joan London’s ‘The Golden Age’. Many of London’s characters exhibit suffering that requires compassion and support to heal and grow, to distinguish present from past. However, London explores the perspectives of such characters from different aspects of trauma, and emphasise that love and recognition do not always work to heal and mature. Frank Gold, the novel’s resident “sneaky” boy who adjusts to newfound life in the Golden Age Convalescent Home seeks love as an adult, rather than eliciting sympathy as a supposed victim. Here love and recognition are unsuccessful in amending Frank’s troubles when given from the perspective of an outsider, a judgemental onlooker. In a similar sense, Ida Gold seeks recognition not from Australia, who she views as a ‘backwater’, but validation in herself after having been ousted from her Hungarian identity. London, however, makes sure to emphasise the impact that Sullivan has on Frank Gold’s life. Sullivan, a boy only a few years older than Frank, seems content with his future, with his fate, despite his sacrifice of rugby and conventional life. There is a lacking sense of urgency for love and recognition in Sullivan’s life, rather, it appears that Sullivan accepts his fate, regardless of his father’s sympathy or support. Thus, London explores a myriad of ways in which love and recognition may or may not heal wounds inflicted upon individuals.

Try to keep your introduction to the point. There's no need to prolong an introduction just to make a set number of sentences. It's always better to be concise and succinct, and then move into your main body paragraphs where the juicy contents of your essay resides.

Body Paragraph

Most of you will be familiar with TEEL. TEEL can stand for:

• T opic sentence
• L inking sentence

If your teacher or school teaches you something slightly different - that's okay too. At the end of the day the foundations are the same.

Early in the novel, London makes reference to Norm White, the resident groundskeeper of The Golden Age Convalescent Home. Norm White hands Frank Gold a cigarette, 'as if to say a man has the right to smoke in peace'. Here, there is a complete disregard for rule and convention, an idea that London emphasises throughout the text. This feature provides a counter-cultural experience for Frank, pushing him to realise that he is a strong human being rather than a mere victim. This is a clear contrast to the “babyishness” of the home, and is used as evidence of true humanity in an era where society judged upon the unconventional. Frank yearns for a traditional Australian life after his trauma in Hungary; 'his own memory…lodged like an attic in the front part of his brain'. Hedwiga and Julia Marai’s caring of him pushed him towards fear and reluctance to trust, yet also pressured him to seek acceptance in a world that ostracises him for his Jewish heritage and polio diagnosis. This here is why Frank desires a mature, adult connection – love that regards him as an equal human being. Frank seeks Elsa’s love and company as she too loathes being reduced to a victim, an object of pity. Frank thereafter uses humour to joke of his wounds; 'we Jews have to be on the lookout'. Elsa sees 'a look in his eyes that she recognised', thus their bond enables both characters to heal. London alludes that Frank requires love and recognition not from the perspective of a sorrowful onlooker, rather he longs to be recognised as a mature adult.

Conclusions should be short and sweet.

Although trauma is often treated with love and compassion, London details different perspectives on this idea. Whilst Frank Gold requires a specific kind of recognition, Ida and Meyer seek validation in themselves and their relationship, whilst Sullivan is at ease with his fate and does not yearn sympathy from his father.

For further detail from Sarah (English study score 45), read her advice on 5 Tips for a Mic-Drop Worthy Essay Conclusion .

That's it for the Ultimate Guide to VCE Text Response . Good luck!

*Originally posted in 2011, this blog post has been revised for the latest English study design.

If you’ve been studying John Donne’s metaphysical poetry, you’ve probably noticed that his works are riddled with different symbols and motifs. Embedded throughout his poetry, these literary devices may seem slightly abstruse to the reader. You may find yourself asking: What do they mean? And in relation to what? Even Donne’s contemporaries failed to appreciate his poetry. The neoclassical poet John Dryden rejected Donne’s works because it “affects the metaphysics” and “perplexes the minds of the fair sex with nice speculations of philosophy, when he should engage their hearts, and entertain them with the softnesses of love”.

One thing that you should understand about Donne’s romantic poetry, is that while his stark images of compasses and spheres may seem foreign to you, they were also alien to his predecessors too. So, if you’re struggling to comprehend his enigmatic poetry, not to fear! Because John Donne’s poetic peers didn’t initially get it either.

The reason for this is because Donne refused to conform to the poetic conventions of the time. The poet emerged as an idiosyncratic in the Elizabethan era, the Renaissance. Unlike his contemporaries, he didn’t employ elaborate descriptions of symbol natural landscapes, classical myths and female beauty. The reason for this was because Donne did not believe in the one-sided love and emotional frustrations that his contemporaries tried so hard to convey in such imagery.

Donne’s poetry was so different because he rejected and even openly mocked the idea of such a high-minded religious worship in literary romance. In “A Valediction Forbidding Mourning,” Donne criticises the “tear-floods” and “sigh-tempests” of the “dull sublunary lovers.”. In a similar vein, Donne satirises the “sighs” and “tears” (The Canonisation) so prevalent in Petrarchan works.

Instead, Donne advocated for a different kind of love. He espoused a love that comprised of the Body and the Soul, which was a dominant intellectual issue in the literary treatment of love in the 1590s. More specifically, Donne embraced the balance between Platonic love and the Ovidian love.

Platonic: Platonic love is essentially love that surpasses the mere sensual and physical. It is a very spiritual concept and is based on reason, affection, respect, intellect and compatibility.

Ovidian: Ovidian love

The idea of balance derived from discoveries being made about the human body during the Elizabethan era. The Renaissance was fundamentally a time of discovery (particularly in the area of science). Elizabethans believed that elements in the body needed to be balanced,

Top Tip: When you’re analysing John Donne’s poetry and writing essays, be aware of Donne’s overarching message in his romantic poetry. Most explanations about his use transcendent relationship with his lover is thus determined by obtaining a balance between the spiritual and earthly pleasures. Most examination questions will leave room for to discuss the connection between the material and the divine world! Make sure to understand this, because this is a huge component to his poetry.

1. List of Listening Resources That You Can Access For Free 2. How To Use These Free Resources (a Step-by-Step Guide) 3. Let Me Walk You Through How I approach These Listening Exercises 4. Time to Test Your Listening Skills

For an overview of the EAL study design plus tips and tricks for reading comprehension, time management and more, check out The Ultimate Guide to EAL .

The listening tasks of the EAL exam are worth 20% of the total exam marks.  Since this section was introduced to the exam fairly recently, limited past exam questions are available for students to practice. In this blog, you will find a comprehensive list of external resources that are accessible for free. Although they are not designed specifically for the purpose of VCAA exams, they can still boost your marks if used wisely. I will offer some advice that helped me receive a perfect study score in EAL and give you a step-by-step guide on how to use these listening resources to better prepare for EAL listening.

1. List of Listening Resources That You Can Access For Free:

ABC Radio National

• ‍ The art of 'adulting' - Mornings - ABC Radio
• ‍ Our future shaped and changed by Covid 19 - Big Ideas - ABC Radio National
• ‍ The New Laws of Robotics and what they might mean for AI - Future Tense - ABC Radio National
• ‍ Urban pandemic – isolation and inequality - Future Tense - ABC Radio National
• ‍ Will this new vaccine be a game changer? - 7.30 (abc.net.au)
• ‍ Borders starting to open up across the country - 7.30 (abc.net.au) ‍

Randall’s Listening Lab

• ‍ General Listening Quizzes
• ‍ Summer Camp | Randall's ESL Cyber Listening Lab (esl-lab.com)
• ‍ Check out this inspiration speech from Lisa Tran, our founder of Lisa’s Study Guide
• ‍ Inside the mind of a master procrastinator | Tim Urban - YouTube
• ‍ Intermediate English Listening - Nelson Mandela (esolcourses.com)
• ‍ Online English - Martin Luther King Jr Video Listening Quiz (esolcourses.com)

ABC 5 minutes more (this is super fun and easy one to listen to, perfect for times when we feel a bit lazy)

• ‍ Umbrellas Up! Umbrellas Down! : ABC iview
• ‍ The Friendly Caterpillar : ABC iview

BBC The Newsroom

• ‍ How to Vaccinate the World - Episode 3 - BBC Sounds
• ‍ Steve Jobs' 2005 Stanford Commencement Address - YouTube
• ‍ Bill Gates Harvard Commencement Address 2007 - YouTube
• ‍ In case you missed my Tulane speech, watch it here! - YouTube
• ‍ Natalie Portman Harvard Commencement Speech | Harvard Commencement 2015 - YouTube

And for my fellow Chinese friends, I recommend 可可英语 . It pretty much includes all major news sources worldwide including the Voice of America, CNN, ABC, National Public Radio, NBC News, BBC, The Economist and National Geography. I particularly love the fact that both the website and its free app offer English transcription and Chinese translation side by side.

2. How To Use These Free Resources (a Step-by-Step Guide)

I recommend you listen to the audio three times. Below, I have broken down what you should pay attention to during each listening exercise.

1st Time Listening

Step 1: read and annotate background information  .

• Read the background information if available. This mimics the ‘Background Information’ given at the very start of each question in the VCAA exam. In most cases, it provides a general introduction to the speakers and gives you a brief idea of what to expect in the upcoming audio. 
• Highlight the name of the speakers.
• Underline important information.

Step 2:  Read and Annotate the Questions

• Familiarise yourself with the questions during reading time and annotate them. 
• Develop an annotation system that works well for you personally.

1. I usually underline key information that gives me information on  ‘what’, ‘why’, ‘how’, ‘where’ and ‘when’ (refer to the table in Step 4 below for definitions for these ‘W’ words).

2. Highlight the main person/subject that the question is referring to. This will help you during note taking and formulating your answer. Under the stress of exams, we might lose track of which speaker is talking, especially when the two speakers sound similar. By highlighting the name of the speaker in the question, it reminds us which speaker to pay attention to when answering the question.

• If you are playing the audio clips by yourself for practice, make sure you give yourself time to analyse the questions before hitting play! If you have a friend or family member who can act as your ‘exam facilitator’, as soon as reading time ends, highlight or underline the keywords before your exam facilitator plays the audio clips! 

Step 3:  Listen to the Audio Only (Without the Visual)

This is pretty self-explanatory!

Step 4: Write Down Side Notes

• Write down as much information as you can to practice speed writing
• Some ‘W’ words (see table below) may not apply to all audio clips so free feel to only use the ‘W’ words that are relevant

2nd Time Listening 

Step 1: Fill in the blanks and try to be aware of words you don’t quite ‘get’.

Step 2: Note down how the speakers convey their attitude, feeling, ideas, etc.

Step 3: Interaction between speakers. 

There will typically be a question that asks you to describe the interaction between the speakers, such as , ‘Suggest 2 words to describe the interaction between A and B’. The answer you need to provide will typically be a two-word answer. I would encourage you to learn the adjectives used to describe a range of interactions, for example: 

Words to describe positive interactions include:

• Friendly, respectful
• Professional, formal, polite
• Relaxed, warm
• Amicable, sanguine

Words to describe negative interactions include:

• Embarrassed
• Teasing, childish
• Tense, unpleasant, disappointed
• Confrontational

3rd Time Listening  

Listen to the audio while you read the transcript if available.

3. Let Me Walk You Through How I approach These Listening Exercises

Now that you know the steps, let’s see them in action. Below, I will demonstrate the step-by-step process of how you can make full use of the listening resources above.  

We’ll use this video clip from ABC Life Matters as an example: Is the internet becoming more 'ethical'?

Download this worksheet so that you can work through this listening task on your own too!

Step 1: Read and Annotate Background Information

Step 3: Listen to the Audio (Without the Visual)

Step 4 : write down side notes.

For practice, I recommend taking notes in a table format, using the ‘W’ words I mentioned above. We are going to designate a separate table for each speaker in the audio.

2nd Time Listening   

This is where you have the opportunity to fill in the blanks for the challenging words that you did not pick up in the first round. For example: Ubiquitous, monopolists, admirable, immersed, sophisticated and algorithm 

I will use ‘friendly’ and ‘polite’ to describe the interaction between the interviewer and Jocelyn Brewer. As you listen, see if you can identify why I have chosen these two words to describe the interaction. Keep in mind that there is no right or wrong answer here as long as your choice of descriptive words suit the audio clip.

3rd Time Listening   

Usually I would read the transcript in this third and final step, however, since there is no transcript available for this piece, I will skip this step.

4. Time to Test Your Listening Skills

Using the same audio clip and worksheet , have a go at these VCAA-style questions that I wrote up, and then check out my sample answers to see how your own answers compare. You will probably notice that a lot of the information you gather from the  ‘W’ words actually provides you with the answers to the majority of the questions here.

Sample Questions:

• What are the problems with internet use today? (2 marks)
• What is it that can draw people in and what example does Brewer use in relation to this? (2 marks)
• What is Beverley Wang’s opinion on some apps showing many ‘likes’? Support your answer with an example of word choice and language. (3 marks)
• What are the costs people have to pay, as Brewer suggests, for the use of Internet? (2 marks)
• What does Ecosia try to recognise? (2 marks)
• Give the word that the company officer of Ecosia uses to describe Google’s dominant power over the search engine. (1 mark)
• What are the two adjectives Beverely Wang uses to praise Ecosia? (2 marks)
• What are the challenges faced by companies like Ecosia, according to Brewer? (2 marks)

Sample Answers: 

• The problems of internet use lie in its prevalence in society and how powerful the technology is. The apps are designed to mimic the best psychological behaviours and maintain our interest. 
• Users are drawn in by a range of psychological hacks employed by the app designers. For example, Facebook has adjusted the size of the font to keep us engaged and immersed. 
• Beverley Wang expresses her opinions that some apps can foster addictive behaviours and can be scary by using a frustrated and alarmed tone. Additionally, by repeating the term ‘consuming’ four times in a row, delivered in a fast pace, Wang affirms the unethical and addictive nature of the apps.
• Brewer suggests people have to pay with time and attention.
• Firstly, Ecosia aims to be an ethically-orientated company by planting one tree for every 45 web searches. Secondly, it promises to be a ‘privacy-friendly’ platform and endeavours to expose the shameful motives of some search engines such as Google. 
• ‘monopolists’
• ‘noble’ and ‘admirable’
• Since using Ecosia requires ‘people-poser’, the public need to be more aware of the benefits of switching from an ‘automatically-preferred’ search engine to Ecosia. Ecosia receives ‘56 enquiries every minute’ compared to ‘40 thousand’ enquiries on their competitor’s web engine. 

For further tips and tricks on tackling the EAL Listening Exam, check out How To ACE the EAL Listening Exam . For more advice and samples about listening practice, see EAL Listening Practice , Tips on EAL Listening and How To Take Speedy Notes During Listening Component of VCE EAL Exam .

This blog was updated on 28/10/2021.

• Useful Resources

Themes (Similarities and Differences)

[Video Transcription]

We’ll be applying the CONVERGENT and DIVERGENT strategy from LSG’s How To Write A Killer Comparative and at how ideas are developed in similar or different thematic directions in these texts. CONVERGENT ideas lead to similar conclusions and messages, while DIVERGENT ideas take us to different conclusions. If you’d like to learn more about this strategy which can help you build more insightful discussions of the text by finding unique points of comparison, then I’d recommend you check out the LSG’s How To Write A Killer Comparative study guide. In the meantime, let’s start with some CONVERGENT ideas. 

Power, Race and Oppression

In both texts, we see racial systems that take power away from Bla(c)k people. In the play, settler-colonialism is a big one. It’s depicted as a home invasion, a ship taking up a whole harbour, and as a process of devaluing land and ignoring its custodians. This trickles into contemporary institutions (widely understood patterns, rules or structures within society) which perpetuate these dynamics of race and power, such as the police and the media. Oppression is similarly maintained in  The Longest Memory , where physical violence, and even just the threat of possible physical violence, is used to enslave African Americans. Plus, all of this racial violence was justified by the socio-economic interests of enslavers . Both texts see Bla(c)k people disempowered by a range of white institutions. 

Check out our comparative scene analysis where we explore this theme in more depth.

Family and Community

On the other hand, family and the wider community are depicted as a galvanising or healing force in both texts. In  The 7 Stages of Grieving , we see how death can bring together entire communities to commiserate, dance and mourn collectively, drawing on one another’s strength. Depictions of families in projections of photographs also outline how joy and solidarity can be drawn from community. In the novel, family ties are also important. Whitechapel and Cook build a committed relationship to one another; she even says, “he proves he loves me every day.” At the same time, Cook also provides her unconditional love and support to Chapel, whose education and eventual relationship with Lydia are facilitated by her.

Memory and Grief

Both texts show how memory and grief are significant burdens for Bla(c)k people and operate at multiple dimensions. The play is sort of built around the five stages of grief but demonstrates how First Nations grief isn’t neat or linear. It can go from highly expressive to numb in moments. It also has roots in Australia’s genocidal history such that the death of any First Nations person—but especially elders—is felt widely. In  The Longest Memory , there’s a physical dimension to Whitechapel’s grief. He earns the name “Sour-face” because of the worry lines that developed after Chapel’s death. He feels extremely guilty and only after Chapel dies does he realise why Chapel disagreed with him so stubbornly in life. He actually learned the tough lesson that he’d been hoping to teach Chapel.

What about divergent ideas? Let’s break down two now.

Struggle and resistance.

Both texts offer ideas about what the fight against racism might look like, but at times these ideas are more different than similar. In  The 7 Stages of Grieving , the main struggle is to be heard and understood . In the play and in real life even, we can see how the media is stacked against First Nations peoples, so their fight is about cutting through the bias and making sure they are fairly represented. In  The Longest Memory , the fight against slavery is portrayed quite differently. In a scenario where physical violence was used the way it was in order to oppress, self-emancipation was seen by many as the only path out. Enslaved workers weren’t fighting to be heard, they were fighting to survive. It’s also worth bearing in mind the history of abolition, which happened in Northern states first. This gave them a destination, as well as hope. 

The Generation Gap

The other thing that the texts diverge on is the relationship between parents and children. In the play, family is consistently shown to provide support and community. As the woman speaks about her father and brother, the unconditional love and support between them is palpable. However, the novel depicts a bit more conflict— Whitechapel argued with Chapel based on his lived experience, and the many young people he had seen be killed for trying to free themselves. However, Chapel was far more committed to freedom than to survival. There isn’t necessarily a ‘right’ answer either way, but this definitely isn’t a tension that we see in the play.

I discuss all these themes in further detail in A Killer Comparative Guide: The 7 Stages of Grieving & The Longest Memory . In this guide, I offer you a deep dive into these two texts through plot summaries and analyses, structural features, critical readings, and best of all, 5 sample A+ essays fully annotated so you can understand exactly how to achieve better marks in your own essays.

As with all our essay topic breakdowns, we'll follow LSG's THINK and EXECUTE technique, as taught in our How To Write A Killer Text Response . The LSG's THINK and EXECUTE technique follows three steps in the THINK phase - A nalyse, B rainstorm, and C reate a Plan. Learn more about this technique in this video:

Let's use essay topic #1 from the section below.

Compare the ways in which the two texts explore the possibility of social change.

‘Social change’ is a key term here, but the word ‘possibility’ also stands out to me. Social change—probably towards equality—isn’t something that just happens, so the prompt also wants us to think about how to get there, and whether that seems achievable in the contexts of these stories. The prompt is phrased as an instruction (“Compare”) which invites you to analyse both texts together, but you totally knew that already!

I’d probably start by brainstorming what exactly needs to be changed. In each text, we see institutions and structures which are violent and harmful—from the play, police and the media, and from the novel, the economy itself. However, these institutions are upheld in different ways, and require different mechanisms of change—while the play emphasises grieving and unity, the novel focuses more on emancipation.

Because we’ve got two sets of ideas for each text, let’s alternate the texts (Essay Structure 1, as discussed in How To Write A Killer Comparative ) to cover these ideas in four paragraphs.

P1: Starting with The 7 Stages of Grieving , social change is required at the institutional level. Police and the media are racially biased, and Aboriginal people aren’t given a platform to tell their stories. Reconciliation needs to include Aboriginal voices.

P2: With The Longest Memory , social change is required across the economy that depends on enslaving people and stealing their labour, while others have an economic interest in the status quo.

P3: Because of this, change seems more possible in the play, and we start seeing it happen towards the end, as the ice thaws and people, Bla(c)k and white, march across the bridge together.

P4: On the other hand, emancipation is seen as the only path to change in the novel, as intergenerational social pressures among the enslaving class in the South are insurmountable.

So our contention will probably revolve around the idea that ‘social change’ means different things in each text as social inequalities exist at different levels (Paragraph 1&2)—as such, the ‘possibilities’ for that change look different as well (P3&4), particularly the extent to which white people can be involved in that change.

If you'd like to see the sample A+ essay we wrote up for this essay topic, then you might want to check out our A Killer Comparative Guide: The 7 Stages of Grieving & The Longest Memory!

Sample Essay Topics 

Now it's your turn! Give these essay topics a go.

1. Compare the ways in which the two texts explore the possibility of social change.

2. How do The 7 Stages of Grieving and The Longest Memory present the emotional pain of racism? 

3. What do Aunty Grace and Chapel illustrate about the complexities of belonging to a racial minority?

4. Compare how the narrative structures of The 7 Stages of Grieving and The Longest Memory enhance their storytelling effect.

5. “People called him Boonie! He was known as Boonie…” (The 7 Stages of Grieving)

6. “I literally saw the boy surrender to that whip …” (The Longest Memory)  ‍

7. Compare how the two texts explore innocence.

If you're interested in reading a 50 study scorer's completed essays, along with annotations so you can understand my thinking process, then I would highly recommend checking out LSG's A Killer Comparative Guide: The 7 Stages of Grieving & The Longest Memory.

Useful Resources

How To Write A Killer Comparative study guide

The Ultimate Guide to VCE Comparative

Compare the Pair- A guide to structuring a reading and comparing essay

The link between your contention and topic sentences in relation to the prompt

‍ ‍ A Guide to Structuring a Reading and Comparing Essay

Reading and Comparing Essays

Bombshells and The Penelopiad are studied as part of VCE English's Comparative. For one of most popular posts on Comparative (also known as Reading and Comparing), check out our Ultimate Guide to VCE Comparative.

1. Introductions

Bombshells is a collection of six monologues written by Joanna Murray-Smith, each featuring one female character who is symbolic of a specific stage in life and role. Together, they are a telling account of the struggles of being a woman in a modern world, and the monologue format allows the author to emphasise how they are simultaneously unique and universally relatable.

The Penelopiad is Margaret Atwood’s retelling of Homer’s Odyssey from Odysseus’ wife Penelope’s point of view. The story is narrated first-person by Penelope who resides in the underworld, but is also peppered with spoken, sung or chanted testimonies from the twelve dead maids of the story who act as a Chorus, a traditional part of ancient Greek theatre. Although the story is old and much-retold, the voice is modern and the author’s messages concerning women and their position in the world and their relationship with men are universal, regardless of the historical period.

3. Characters

The Penelopiad

4. Sample paragraphs

Prompt: How do Bombshells and The Penelopiad emphasise the subtleties of the male-female relationship dynamic?

While the narratives of both Bombshells and The Penelopiad are firmly focused on the female perspective of issues relevant to them, the texts also address the male perspective and role in such issues. Like the women, the men created by the authors have instrumental roles in the way the stories play out, which interestingly are sometimes disproportionate to their actual involvement in the plot.

Body paragraph

One of the main differences between the texts, other than the literary format, is the level of dialogue and active participation afforded to the male characters. In The Penelopiad , the male characters arguably largely direct Penelope’s life, from her father essentially selling her into marriage to Odysseus’ life-disrupting departure, return and ‘lies…tricks and… thieving’, not to mention her ‘quite spoiled’ son Telemachus’ will to usurp and disobey his mother. Penelope’s narration gives them large amounts of dialogue and paints them as three-dimensional people in her life, whereas the male characters in Bombshells have barely any dialogue – most of them have none – and yet manage to cause a similar level of turmoil in the female characters. The marriage of Theresa McTerry to her fiancé Ted, for example, sends her into long, capitalised rants heavily punctuated with exclamation marks and profanities; Murray-Smith does not even give Ted a full description. Even without forming the male characters into rich, detailed personas, she still manages to fully showcase the chaos visited upon Theresa by her ill-considered marriage. She draws greater attention to her inner panic and desperation than we see in Penelope, whose voice retains a sense of shocked detachment even when crying or suffering. As such, the differing approaches of the authors both showcase the fact that men can wreak significant havoc with women’s lives, and that we do not actually need to know much about the particulars of the men or their acts to comprehend the women’s suffering.

The approaches of Atwood and Murray-Smith towards the level of engagement of their male characters differ significantly, yet both show the full impact of their actions on the lives of their female counterparts. Even when the men are given only cursory mentions, their presence as an agent of change within the story is sufficient for them to dramatically alter the courses of the characters they consort with.

More full sample A+ essays available in our Ultimate VCE English Study Guide Bundle.

It’s very hard to look past the overt feminist overtones of both try – even though these are some of the most interesting parts of the texts and you definitely should discuss them, there is more to them than messages about women. Maybe expand your view to more general ideas about human beings, how we live our lives and the ways we react to situations of duress.

Also consider that these texts are in two different formats; how does the live performance of Bombshells change the way it is perceived? How do the different media of these texts support or emphasise the authors’ messages? What can a monologue do better than a book in terms of transmitting an idea and vice versa?

Want to download this study guide? Click the button below!

We’ve explored creative writing criteria, literary elements and how to replicate the text over on our The Ultimate Guide to VCE Creative Writing blog post . If you need a quick refresher or you’re new to creative writing, I highly recommend checking it out!

For many students, writing creative pieces can be slightly daunting. For some, it is about unleashing the writer within as the boundaries and thematic constraints that exist in Text Response are lifted. For others, it can be an opportunity to discover new writing styles, branching out from the generic T-E-E-L structure.

Formats of imaginative pieces include:

• short narratives,
• a personal diary entry ,
• chronicling the character's thoughts,
• and monologues.

Writing in an imaginative style allows you to draw from your own morals, views and feelings. You can weave in personal anecdotes, experiences, and metaphorical language which gives one's writing that pizazz and individualist factor!

Moreover, you can showcase how you have perceived and interpreted the characters within the novel/film, the landscapes they inhabit. Alternatively, you can step into different personas. For example, for the topic of conflict, I can write as an injured army medic, a doctor, a foreign correspondent and a war photographer.

However, imaginative writing also has many pitfalls students tumble into (do not despair; you can get out of it!):

1) Don't get too caught up in emotions and flowery language.

Great imaginative pieces are not only graded on how good your story telling skills are. More importantly, your teachers would be grading on the palpable links to the themes of the text and prompt you have been given.

In Year 11, when I wrote an imaginative piece, I went overboard with the flowery metaphorical language. My teacher said ‘Overall, the piece is good however, at some parts it sounded like purple prose.’ When I read it over now, I shudder a little.

2) In Reading and Creative, there is greater emphasis on extrapolating themes and ideas from your studied text.  

So, those radical and out-of-the box ideas and views you have in relation to the text can now be used.

For example, the overarching themes in  Every Man In This Village Is A Liar  encompass the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, inequality (the unequal status of women in Middle East), the effect of war on the physical body and the human psych and, how the media portrays war and violence. The starting point to planning any context piece is to use quotes and ideas within your text. Infer meaning from those quotes and main ideas and ask yourself:

• 'Does it hold a great degree of relevance to issues prevalent today?'
• 'Can I link it to my sac/exam prompt?' 

So, here's an example of planning a creative piece. Two of my favourite quotes from  Life of Galileo  are:

'Science is the rightful, much loved daughter of the church.'

‘Our ignorance is limitless; let us lop off a millimeter off it. Why try to be clever now that we at last have a chance of being less stupid.’

In essence, this conveys the overarching theme of science vs. religion, and how Church and the inquisition exploit the peoples' views through their own ignorance. Their fear of change, pioneering and gaining of new knowledge stems from the prospect of chaos if society's entrenched values are uprooted. I interpreted this as 'ignorance is not bliss' and instead, it breeds fear in people. This is in relevance with the tragic events that has occurred in recent years - acts of terrorism, and/or racially motivated attacks. In the context of our modern society, religion and science still maintain an intriguing and tumultuous relationship. As the advancement of technology and ethics are not at equilibrium, this is where controversy arises. Conversely, we now have to consider whether this relates to the prompt:

A person never knows who they truly are, until tested by conflict.

Possible idea for this example:

"Is it ethical to administer a new drug capable of rewiring and regenerating brain function at a neuronal level to someone who has sustained extensive brain damage? Is it deemed humane to potentially change a person's character? At what personal cost will this have? - Playing god."

Tips to achieve A+ in creative writing

1. ensure it is related to the text..

A lot of students believe that the reading and creating essay is exactly the same as the old context essay. However, there is a significant difference! While a creative context essay does not have to link to the text in any way and only needs to explore a certain idea (e.g. encountering conflict), the reading and creating essay needs to offer a relevant interpretation of the text as well as show understanding of the text’s messages and how the text creates meaning .

The easiest way to write a creative response that links clearly to the text is to write about a scenario that is related to the plot line. You can do this by writing a continuation of the storyline (i.e. what happens after the end?), or by filling in gaps in the plot line which the author did not explicitly outline (what happens behind the scenes that caused the outcome?) In this way, your response will be completely original and still demonstrate an understanding of the world of the text.

2. Write in a way that shows understanding of how the text creates meaning.

When creating your response, be aware of the features present in your text (such as characters, narrative, motifs etc) that you can use in your own essay. For example, if the text is narrated from a first-person perspective, you may also mimic this in your essay. Or, you could tell it in first-person from another character’s point of view to demonstrate another interpretation of the text. You may also include motifs from the text into your own response. But be careful when making decisions about structure, conventions and language. If the text is written in very formal and concise language, it is probably not a good idea to use slang. Similarly, if the text is a play, structuring your response as a script might be a better choice than writing a poem!

3. Explore the explicit and implied ideas and values in the texts.

Lastly, remember that whilst it is a creative response, your purpose is NOT to tell a nice story but to explore the ideas, values and messages left by the author! There will always be various interpretations regarding these values, and you can express your understanding of the text through your portrayal of certain characters, or through the events in your response. For example, if you were studying Measure for Measure and wanted to explore how human nature cannot be restrained or limited by law and punishment, you could write a continuation of the play in which the city of Vienna has reverted to its original state of moral decay.

4. Show, don't tell

Creative essays are great because they offer interesting and unique stories; however, there is one common downfall that occurs in writing. Some students create pieces that are  too  straightforward. Rather than using vocabulary, imagery and symbolism to express a point, they simply write down a statement that sums up what they wish to say. Your aim is to invite the reader to  experience  the story through your words. This can be done through the character’s thoughts, feelings, actions etc. Thus the well-known phrase among writers, ‘ Show, don’t tell’ . Keeping this idea in mind turn you into a much more successful writer – and you’ll see the difference!

Tell: Katie was very happy.

Show: Katie’s face lifted. Little wrinkles appeared around her bright eyes, her dimples made an appearance that dug into her cheeks as a big grin emerged to show her perfect teeth.

Tell: She felt horrible for the weeping children.

Show: Guilt throbbed inside her as she stared at the weeping children. Her heart pounded against her chest, her hands trembling beside her still body, her brain screaming at her to do  something .

Tell: I was scared.

Show: I hear my breathing; heavy, and rapid. I shut my eyes tightly. I can feel goosebumps running up my arms and down my back.

To test whether or not you are ‘telling’ instead of ‘showing’, think about whether or not your sentence leaves room for questions. In Example 1, ‘Katie was very happy’ would leave the reader thinking – what thought or action showed that she was happy? Whereas ‘show’ demonstrated that she was happy without directly stating it.

The key is to go into the finer details of your story!

Finally, have fun and enjoy the process of planning a creative narrative, let your imagination run a little wild and rein it in with your knowledge! Hopefully these tips were helpful and you are now more confident and informed on the Reading and Creating response! 

This blog post was written by Amanda Lau, Rosemary Chen, and Lisa Tran.

English is tough. Whether it be memorising quotes or writing under timed conditions, everybody has something that they need to work on — some missing link that may make the difference between grades.

The fun yet exasperating part of English is that there’s always some way to improve. Even the best of the best can struggle with differentiating themselves from the pack, irrespective of how many quotes they know or how well they understand the subject matter. Often, students can feel shackled by the formulaic “topic sentence plus explanation plus evidence plus analysis plus concluding statement”, leaving great ideas in the mud as they scramble to fit their essay into restrictive boxes.

Sometimes, the conventional structure of an English essay can weigh a student down, which is why bending those rules is a skill that, eventually, can prove the key to truly going above and beyond .

Walk before you run

Before you move past your structure, though, you’ve got to know it.

Every essay paragraph needs to hit on a few key points: a main argument, evidence, and analysis of that evidence relating back to the prompt. For example…

In Station Eleven, forgetting is more important than remembering. Do you agree?

Planning is crucial irrespective of your writing style. The texts you study are meant to be thought-provoking, so thought needs to go into what you’re going to say even before you start saying it. My more flexible, relaxed essays always resulted in plans that looked identical to more conventional responses, as seen below.

• Forgetting is important as a coping mechanism to the post-modern world -> older people who “lost more” e.g. Jeevan, Dieter, Clark’s demands to “[not] think about it”
• Nevertheless, remembering is important in forging paths to the future -> the Travelling Symphony
• When they are both embraced, both forgetting and remembering can create the new and honour the old -> the Museum of Civilisation and the electric town

Once you have this understanding of structure, you can begin to move past it.

What exactly does an essay “beyond structure” mean? The way English is currently taught results in a lot of essays more or less looking the same, with a topic sentence dutifully followed by explanation of that point, and evidence not being introduced until about halfway through the paragraph.

Essays beyond structure don’t ignore those points, but rather, they shuffle them around a little. Evidence can be introduced right after the topic sentence, for example.

The shock of the Georgia Flu is catastrophic, entirely subverting the technological interconnectedness of the 21st century… The “divide between a before and an after” that the Georgia Flu marks is so devastating and uncompromising that it is little wonder, then, that forgetting should become such a crucial tool for reconciling oneself with the radical new world order.

Growing out of "crutch" phrases

In structured essays, transitions between points are obvious. When we want to introduce a quote, we say something like “In Mandel’s Station Eleven… ”, and when we want to analyse that quote we say “Here, the author…”.

Of course, there’s nothing wrong with using phrases like these! They can be very helpful in showing your assessor where you are addressing the task and the text. But addressing “crutch” phrases in your writing, which are often overused and underdeveloped, is a fairly straightforward way of forcing yourself to write differently.

Some “crutches” that I always used include:

• This exemplifies… – introduction to analysis
• Indeed… – transition to another point
• Ultimately/In conclusion… – concluding

It is important not to mistake signposting for these crutch phrases, such as “Furthermore” or “Conversely”. Signposting helps assessors determine when you are building on or deviating from previous points, which is highly useful when they’ve read a hundred essays on the same prompt as yours. Crutch phrases, on the other hand, make you feel better about your essay, when in actuality they contribute very little and could be rewritten to be something of greater value.

The following statement follows the typical English pattern of evidence to analysis.

In Emily St John Mandel’s Station Eleven, Dieter “longs for the sound of an electric guitar”. This exemplifies the wider loss of technology, and even identity, suffered by humanity after the Georgia Flu, and indeed is further highlighted by the “incomplete list” of Chapter 6.

There’s nothing wrong with the analysis above, and it makes a good point about the text. But removing “This exemplifies” forces a writer to try something daring and new…

Dieter, an otherwise well-adjusted member of the Travelling Symphony, “longs for the sound of an electric guitar” – his desire echoes Chapter 6’s list, and the omnipresent lack of electricity to a species once defined by it.

Shorter quotes are your friend

A great way to keep up the momentum of such an essay is to let points bleed into each other. There is no rule in English that says the first two sentences of your paragraph can’t include evidence, nor any regulations stipulating that the end of a paragraph has to be a rewritten version of the topic sentence.

Evidence, I have found, is the best way to bridge gaps between discrete points of structure. Not only does using evidence show understanding of the text, but it doesn’t have to be an entire sentence all on its own. Sometimes, two or three words are enough to marry two points – and, at the end of the day, shorter quotes are easier to memorise!

Mandel’s narrator mourns fundamental modern aspects of survival, such as “pharmaceuticals” and “fire departments… police”, in the same space that she pays homage to “concert stages” and “social media”. The resulting impression is not one of traditional cutthroat dystopia… Rather, Mandel’s quiet remembrance of the … modern innovations of technology that brought the 21st century together … highlights the emotional consequences of such ease of communication being lost.

Reading is fundamental

If you’re feeling a little overwhelmed about moving beyond structure, don’t worry – there’s something quick and easy that you can do right now to help push your writing, and it doesn’t even involve any writing of your own.

If you get the opportunity to, I would encourage you to read other people’s essays. Obviously, higher-grade essays are always valuable, but they can also be intimidating, even demoralising. I’ve found that reading essays at my grade level, or even lower, have been fantastic for learning new phrases and picking up different bits of evidence.

The best thing about English, in my opinion, is the same thing that brings it the most criticism – that there is no right answer. It can never hurt your understanding of a text (or your potential grade) if your discussion is informed about more perspectives.

Practice makes... progress!

At the end of the day, any and all good English essays have their roots in the fundamentals. Even as you play around with structure and move past formula, it is always crucial to remember the basics, and to return to them if you feel like you’re getting lost.

Always remember to link back to the prompt! It’s something so basic and obvious that students of all grades overlook. The prompt is the backbone of your essay – make sure that you keep it centre stage.

Get feedback as often as you can, whether it be from teachers, tutors or other students that you trust. English is a game of constant tweaking and refinement, and the more feedback you get the better your essays will be for it.

Finally, practice. Writing, like any skill, can only be honed and improved if one puts effort into honing and improving it. Writing beyond structure often comes as a massive learning curve, and it is diligence and a willingness to learn – not natural talent – that will allow you to become better and better at it.

To conclude

English is tough, and because almost everybody does it, it can be hard to stand out from the masses. Being different takes courage, and in VCE it certainly takes a lot of work, but I have found that writing beyond structure has the potential to elevate not only your understanding of a text or your performance in SACs and the exam, but your enjoyment of writing for English as a whole.

The new VCE English syllabus has kicked off its first year in 2016. Now, I know a lot of us are still grappling to understand the changes, and who knows? You might look like this:

...an array of bewilderedness, surprise, and perhaps even...excitement? Don't worry, we're all in the same boat. The new English syllabus is exciting, especially once we're familiar with all the changes. So, have a peek at the infographic below to get a good overview of what we're saying 'hello' and 'farewell' to:

Ok, now let's look into each of the Areas Of Study (AOS) in detail. The following breakdown focuses on Units 3 and 4 of the new English syllabus:

Area of Study 1 - Reading and Creating

Students study:  2 selected texts from Text List 1 (see the 2017 VCE English Text List here).

Purpose:  To write an expository essay on the 1st text, and then a creative response on the 2nd text for Area of Study 1. 

SAC 1:  Write an analytical essay for Text 1 (~800-1000 words).

SAC 2:  Write a creative response + a written explanation (~800-1000 words or, if in the form of an oral presentation ~4-6 minutes).

What you should aim to do:  You will study both books in detail; looking at themes, characters, literary devices, author's intention and more. Know that the study of these two texts do not overlap at any point - you study them separately for two separate SACs (see below!).

Side note: The 'Writing in Context' component from the old syllabus has been semi-integrated into 'Reading and Creating'. This is the only part of the new course where you have the opportunity to experiment with your creative writing skills. Keep in mind that there will not be a creative component in your VCE English 3/4 exam ( I can hear so many sighs of relief )!

Area of study 2 - (Part I) Analysing argument

Purpose:  The ultimate goal is to demonstrate your understanding of how the author constructs their argument in an attempts to persuade the reader to agree with his or her contention. Here you analyse a variety of different forms of publication, from opinion articles, editorials, speeches to cartoons and diagrams. Learn more on 'How the author intends to persuade their readers'  blog post here .

SAC 3 : An analysis and comparison, in written form, of argument and the use of persuasive language in two to three texts (written or visual) that present a point of view on an issue (~800-1000 words).

What you should aim to do:  The highest marks in this SAC will be rewarded to those who can clearly explain the connection between author's use of language, and how that enables the development of their ideas. Avoid listing language techniques and offering your personal judgement on whether or not the article is effective in persuading you. You goal is to objectively investigate how the author constructs their article via argument and certain language choices.

Area of study 1 - Reading and Comparing

Purpose: To explore meaningful connections between two texts. You will be using compare and contrast skills (see our blog post on Compare and Contrast Essays ).

SAC: A 900-1200 word essay offering a detailed comparison between ideas, issues, and themes of both texts.

What you should aim to do: Avoid superficial connections. Simply referring what is similar and different between the two plot events will not score you many marks. The key here is to look at the bigger picture – what are the major values and messages that the texts deliver? Are they aligned? Are they the opposite? To ensure you’ve got your Reading and Comparing at an A+ level, download my FREE Reading and Comparing sample chapter from my latest VCE English study guide.

Area of study 2 - (Part II) Presenting argument  

Purpose:  Students must prepare an oral presentation based on a topic debated in the media. It has to have appeared recently, which means it can only be a topic that has appeared in the media since September the previous year. This section pushes you to research and form a stance on the issue, where you will then write your own persuasive speech using the skills you have gained from studying 'Analysing Argument'. On top of that, you will need to focus on your delivery of the speech, which includes things like tone, pace, eye-contact, and much more! If you're curious to learn more, have a look through some of our posts on  Oral Presentation  ideas for inspiration!

SAC :  A sustained oral piece (~4-6 minutes) that presents a point of view relating to an issue currently in the media + a written explanation (~300-500 words) explaining your decisions made in the planning process, and how these demonstrate your efforts in attempting to persuade the audience.

What you should aim to do:   If your school hasn't made the decision for you already, it's crucial that you choose a topic that is original and offers you room for argument. This means avoiding topics where majority of the public opinion already rests on one side (e.g. does climate change exist?). Writing a fantastic oral presentation is only the job half done, you need to ensure your delivery is spot on. Watch my video on quick presentation tips which helped me score full marks in my SAC!

That's my summary and some quick tips alongside to help you cruise through the year. Best of luck! 

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In Cold Blood

88 pages • 2 hours read

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Critics often cite In Cold Blood as a work that helped popularize true crime—a genre that now encompasses not just books and journalism but documentaries, YouTube series, podcasts, and more. What do you think draws people to true crime stories? Is it just morbid curiosity, or does the genre also help us think through some aspect of ourselves, our lives, our society, etc.? 

Teaching Suggestion: Given the amount of debate (and controversy) the true crime genre continues to spark, there’s no “right” answer to this question. However, encourage students to think beyond the more voyeuristic aspects of the genre to the ways in which true crime might help us cope with issues like mortality and the nature of evil.

• “Why do we love true crime - and is it healthy for us?” : NBC News op-ed on the psychology of our interest in true crime
• “Why Do Women Love True Crime?” : New York Times article on the gender dynamics of the true crime genre
• “Is True Crime as Entertainment Morally Defensible?” : New York Times discussion of the ethics of the genre

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Essays on In Cold Blood

Prompt examples for "in cold blood" essays, true crime and narrative.

Explore the genre of true crime as a narrative in "In Cold Blood." How does Truman Capote blend journalistic reporting with storytelling, and what impact does this narrative style have on the reader's engagement with the story?

Character Analysis

Analyze the complex characters in the book, particularly Perry Smith and Dick Hickock. What motivates their actions, and what psychological factors contribute to their criminal behavior?

Morality and Justice

Discuss the moral and ethical questions raised by the book. How does the portrayal of the Clutter murders and the subsequent trial challenge conventional notions of justice and morality?

The American Dream

Examine the theme of the American Dream in "In Cold Blood." How does the Clutter family represent the idealized American life, and what commentary does the book offer on the pursuit of success and happiness?

Psychology of Violence

Consider the psychological aspects of violence and its impact on individuals and society. How does the book delve into the minds of both the perpetrators and the investigators, shedding light on the psychology of violence?

Author's Role

Analyze Truman Capote's role in the creation of "In Cold Blood." How does the author's personal involvement with the case, his relationship with the subjects, and his writing process influence the narrative and its portrayal of the events?

Examples of Juxtaposition in Cold Blood

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In Cold Blood: Rough Childhood as a Way to Raise a Murderer

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Polarized Gender Roles in in Cold Blood: Power and Submission

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Parallel Character Development in in Cold Blood: Humanization of Victims and Their Murderers

Subtle discourse of capital punishment in the capote's in cold blood, analysis of perry's mental issues in in cold blood, reality over fiction: capote's nonfiction innovation in in cold blood, storytelling and point of view: three examples of narration in true crimes novels, capote's new literary form in "in cold blood".

Truman Capote

Novel, True Crime, Non-fiction Novel, Crime Fiction

Perry Edward Smith, Richard Eugene Hickock, Herbert Clutter, Bonnie Clutter, Nancy Clutter, Kenyon Clutter, Bobby Rupp, Alvin Dewey, Harold Nye, Roy Church, Clarence Duntz, Tex John Smith, Susan Kidwell, Willie-Jay, Floyd Wells, Lowell Lee Andrews, Mr. Helms, Alfred Stoecklein, Bess Hartman, Barbara Johnson, Don Cullivan

Relevant topics

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In Cold Blood Truman Capote

In Cold Blood essays are academic essays for citation. These papers were written primarily by students and provide critical analysis of In Cold Blood by Truman Capote.

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In Cold Blood Essays

The role of fate: 'in cold blood' and the question of free will anthony tran college, in cold blood.

Truman Capote’s In Cold Blood is a nonfiction novel which seeks to understand the reasons leading to the tragic murders of the Clutter family. Whilst Capote does not endeavour to downplay the atrocities committed by Perry Smith and Dick Hickock,...

Capote's Presentation of the Murderer's Families Anonymous 12th Grade

Capote presents the murderer’s families as somewhat complicated as he researches them to try and find the motive. As a journalist writing a faction novel, his accounts of the families mostly come from them first-hand – however, he never mentions...

In Cold Blood: Retaining the Reader's Interest through Suspense and Tension Amit Momaya

In modern literature, suspense and tension are almost essential in producing works that are both successful and interesting to the reader. These two aspects of literature are especially important in Truman Capote's novel, In Cold Blood, which...

The Narrator's Perspective in True Crime Books Timothy Sexton

In Cold Blood, All the President's Men and Midnight in the Garden of Good of Evil all deal with real-life crimes. Each of the authors takes a different approach to point of view, depending upon their unique relationships to the setting in which...

Perry Smith's Culpability in 'In Cold Blood' Anonymous 12th Grade

In Truman Capote’s nonfiction novel, In Cold Blood, Perry Smith and Dick Hickcock were convicted of murdering the entire Clutter Family. When proven guilty, both Perry and Dick were sentenced to death. Though Perry had been the one to murder the...

The Art of Manipulation Truman Capote 11th Grade

Famous novelist, Truman Capote, in his non-fiction book, In Cold Blood , recounts the murders of the Clutter family committed by Perry Smith and Dick Hickock. Although this book is considered non-fiction, critics have questioned the authenticity of...

Truman Capote: A Child's True Nature in "Miriam" Anonymous 11th Grade

Two people, one name: an inconspicuous, plain woman versus a poised young girl. A line is drawn between imagination and reality, but that line is blurred. In "Miriam" by Truman Capote, symbolism is incorporated to show that Mrs. Miller is living...

Is In Cold Blood a Polemic Against Capital Punishment? Anonymous 11th Grade

Truman Capote’s In Cold Blood is critically acclaimed as a masterful portrayal of American crime and is known for the introduction of the concept of a “nonfiction novel.” At such crossroads of true events and storytelling, many criticisms can be...

How to Parent a Murderer Anonymous 11th Grade

By juxtaposing the childhoods of Perry Smith and Dick Hickock, Truman Capote shows that although a solid family structure is the most important influence on a person’s character, it is ultimately up to each person to decide what his actions will...

A Lurid Falsification Anonymous 11th Grade

In the 1950's and 1960's, the concept of the nuclear family was a personification of the American dream, the illusion of the perfect life, the perfect wife and the perfect children, all living in a model community. With four staccato shotgun...

Character Development in In Cold Blood: From the Clutters to Their Killers Anonymous 11th Grade

A majority of the world would agree that random murder is unethical and deserving of severe punishment- especially if this murder is done to an innocent, kind family. However, there is a great debate over the extent of punishment which random...

How Truman Capote Captures the Zeitgeist of America in the 1950s and 1960s Anonymous 12th Grade

Yoko Ono once described the 1960’s as an era of release from the conventional bonds of society. To understand fully the rejection of society in the 1960’s, one must also evaluate society of the 1950’s. Truman Capote not only captures the essence...

In Cold Blood as Experimental Nonfiction Dao Ngoc Vu 11th Grade

In Cold Blood by Truman Capote reconstructs the Clutter family murder and investigation case into what Capote calls a “nonfiction novel,” an experimental type of journalism that combines the fluidity and continuity of a novel with the facts and...

Capote’s Bias and Fairness: An Analysis of In Cold Blood Sarah Dempsey 12th Grade

Nonfiction novels are a genre of book that employ all devices of a fictional piece, however all of the information is completely factual. Though legitimate, the integrity of the writer still can be called into question, depending on the portrayal...

In Cold Blood Rhetorical Analysis as Anti Capital Punishment Ray M. Bartlett 10th Grade

Through the use of a carefully chosen epigraph, organization, a non authoritative presence, embellishment, researching the character’s backgrounds, and pathos, Truman Capote is able to tell the story of Dick Hickock and Perry Smith in great detail...

In Cold Blood: Gender Roles Between Dick Hickock and Perry Smith Anonymous College

In our society—past and present, gender norms have presented themselves in a moderately strict frame of which personality traits are to be expected from males and females. In past traditional expectations regarding gender, it was the women’s role...

The American Dream and Dick and Perry's downfall Anonymous 12th Grade

Truman Capote’s ‘In Cold Blood’, highly contested for its scathing depiction of 1960’s American society is renowned for its portrayal and characterization of the permeating theme; The American Dream. It seeps into all facets of society and impedes...

The Secret Behind the Great American Dream Jenny Xu 10th Grade

In Cold Blood begins with a death of the Clutters family, whose lives are ended with gunshots. The killers are 2 men with different backgrounds, characteristics, and reasons to kill. Capote first depicts the whole event in mystery and he exposes...

The Theme of Morality Jonathan Dodson 12th Grade

The non-fiction novel ‘In Cold Blood’ depicts the true story of multiple murders that took place in the small farming town of Holcomb, Kansas in 1959. Capote – the author and narrator of this text provides a wealth of knowledge surrounding the...

Idealization of the Clutters Isabel Sebode 11th Grade

The novel ‘In Cold Blood’ by Truman Capote is a work of Fictional Journalism, otherwise known as ‘faction’ or ‘the non-fiction novel’. Initially, this might make it difficult to judge whether Capote tried to influence the reader’s opinion on the...

Nature vs. Nurture: “In Cold Blood” by Truman Capote Essay

• To find inspiration for your paper and overcome writer’s block
• As a source of information (ensure proper referencing)
• As a template for you assignment

Introduction

In Cold Blood is a non-fiction novel written in 1966 by an American writer Truman Capote. It describes the horrible murder that happened in 1959 in Kansas when all four members of the Clutter family were killed in their own house. However, the motives of this crime remained unclear as almost nothing was stolen.

Capote started to write his novel during the investigation – he wrote about how two criminals who had committed this crime, Dick Hickock and Perry Smith, were caught, convicted, and hanged. At the same time, investigating the reasons for killing the members of the Clutter family, Capote addresses an essential issue of criminals’ tendencies and the origin of their violence. Thus, in In Cold Blood, using the examples of Dick Hickock and Perry Smith, the author shows that both nature and nurture may determine violence. Dick was raised in a loving family, however, his violence was in his genes – he simply loved to kill. On the contrary, Perry is a sensitive man who was neglected, abused, and misunderstood since his childhood. Moreover, regardless of a committed crime, these sources determine the different attitudes of criminals toward it.

In In Cold Blood, Dick Hickock represents the position of nature and demonstrates that inherent characteristics and genes determine a person’s criminal tendencies regardless of his environment. Described as an American-style “good kid” with a face distorted by a car collision, Hickock has “the left eye being truly serpentine, with a venomous, sickly-blue squint that although it was involuntarily acquired, seemed nevertheless to warn of bitter sediment at the bottom of his nature” (Capote 39). Using vivid descriptions with metaphors and comparisons, Capote aims to demonstrate the contrast between a man’s conditions of life that formed the perception of him by other people and his genuine nature that probably became unleashed after an accident. At the same time, one of two sons raised in a loving family, Dick is described as a brilliant and smart student and “an outstanding athlete-always on the first team at school” (Capote 161). Although his family could not afford college, Hickock found a well-paid job with Santa Fe Railways and subsequently married. At the same time, while Dick’s nature took over him and he destroyed his own family through cheating and was sent to prison for committing crimes, his family still protected him. During the proceeding, his father said: “that boy has plenty of good inside him. If ever you seen him on a football field, if ever you seen him play with his children, you wouldn’t doubt me” (Capote 162). Thus, by contrasting Dick’s nurturing in love and affection and the conditions of his blissful childhood and adolescence with the details of a horrible crime committed by him and his attitude to it, the author demonstrates that the intention to kill derived from this person’s genes, or nature.

In turn, Perry Smith is presented as a person whose criminal tendencies are determined by the conditions of his nurturing. Perry grew up in a highly dysfunctional family, and since his childhood, he had faced violence, abuse, misunderstanding, and neglect moving between children’s shelters, orphanages, and detention homes where he was brutally beaten by nuns, nurses, and mistresses. Perry addressed people as highly evil, describing his experience in one of the shelters and a nurse’s actions in the following way: “what she used to do, she’d fill a tub with ice-cold water, put me in it, and hold me under till I was blue. Nearly drowned” (Capote 132). Describing his experience in detail, Perry showed that experiencing violence could become violence from his side as an only experience as his parents did not explain to him what was good and what was bad. At the same time, the author clearly states that Perry’s nature is different as the man is described as sensitive, intelligent, and talented, however, society limited his ability to grow and develop. For instance, Perry’s father did not allow him to go to school as he pursued his own egoistic interests to keep the boy as a servant. Perry wrote: “no education, because he didn’t want me to learn anything, only how to tote and carry for him. Dumb. Ignorant. That’s the way he wanted me to be” (Capote 181). In these words, it becomes clear that Perry started to realize what people in his environment did, how they raised and treated him, and how they limited his opportunities. Having the ability to go to school and probably enter college, Perry had all chances to avoid crime commitment. In turn, being neglected, abused, and misunderstood, he did not get life he genuinely deserved. Thus, Capote demonstrates that even a highly talented, sensitive, and peaceful man may become a criminal if he is raised in violence.

At the same time, regardless of crime commitment, the author shows that nature and nurture as sources determine different attitudes to illegal and immoral actions. Thus, Dick is guided by his desire to kill without paying attention to the family’s property to rob. Before a crime, he already knew that there would be no witnesses and did not want to wear stockings on his face to hide his identity. He told Perry: “ain’t that what I promised you, honey—plenty of hair on them-those walls?” (Capote 46). In these words, he stated that he wanted to be as violent as possible, and he indulged himself in killing. Moreover, after leaving the Clutters family’s house, he made jokes and did not feel any remorse – instead, he blamed Perry for being too sensitive when he started to doubt the righteousness of their actions. On the contrary, it is possible to say that Perry did not want to kill the Clutters. Being with Dick, “he was here, and embarked on the present errand, not because he wished to be but because fate had arranged the matter” – in particular, Perry wanted his friend, his former cellmate Willie-Jay who would be released in Kansas (Capote 50). This circumstance proves that Perry was not interested in crime commitment. However, his subsequent violence in the house of the Clutter family may also be explained by his nurturing and the environment in which he was raised. Perry was beaten, abused, neglected, and ignored – his opportunities were limited by his family and society, however, he could achieve a lot and avoid criminal activities. In this case, his dissatisfaction with life and its injustice was growing and finally released in the house of the Clatters. In other words, Perry did not have personal enmity toward them – instead, it is possible to say that he “killed” his parents, nurses, nuns, and peers who mistreated him.

Capote, Truman. In Cold Blood . Random House, 1966. Web.

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IvyPanda. (2023, December 5). Nature vs. Nurture: “In Cold Blood” by Truman Capote. https://ivypanda.com/essays/nature-vs-nurture-in-in-cold-blood-by-truman-capote/

"Nature vs. Nurture: “In Cold Blood” by Truman Capote." IvyPanda , 5 Dec. 2023, ivypanda.com/essays/nature-vs-nurture-in-in-cold-blood-by-truman-capote/.

IvyPanda . (2023) 'Nature vs. Nurture: “In Cold Blood” by Truman Capote'. 5 December.

IvyPanda . 2023. "Nature vs. Nurture: “In Cold Blood” by Truman Capote." December 5, 2023. https://ivypanda.com/essays/nature-vs-nurture-in-in-cold-blood-by-truman-capote/.

1. IvyPanda . "Nature vs. Nurture: “In Cold Blood” by Truman Capote." December 5, 2023. https://ivypanda.com/essays/nature-vs-nurture-in-in-cold-blood-by-truman-capote/.

Bibliography

IvyPanda . "Nature vs. Nurture: “In Cold Blood” by Truman Capote." December 5, 2023. https://ivypanda.com/essays/nature-vs-nurture-in-in-cold-blood-by-truman-capote/.

In Cold Blood | Capote | Q3 Essay Prompts AP Lit Open Ended Literary Response

Description

Enhance your students' critical thinking and analytical skills with this set of 10 carefully crafted essay prompts, designed to complement the reading of Truman Capote's In Cold Blood. These prompts, inspired by the AP Literature Q3 open-ended response essay , are perfect for high school ELA classes , fostering a deeper understanding and engagement with literature.

The beauty of these prompts lies in their thematic nature, making them versatile enough to be applicable to In Cold Blood or any other literary text exploring similar themes. This feature provides a valuable tool for teachers to spark meaningful discussions and insights among students, regardless of the text being studied.

Included in this resource are both PDF and digital links, catering to the needs of traditional classrooms as well as those embracing a paperless or online approach. The availability of 10 distinct prompts allows teachers to offer variety to different classes or individual students, supporting academic integrity by combating cheating and encouraging student choice in writing assignments.

These prompts are not just questions; they are gateways to in-depth analysis and critical thinking. They are ideal for in-class timed writings, analytical practice with group paragraphs or essays, and test preparation.

What's Included:

✅ 10 thematic essay prompts, adaptable to various texts

✅ PDF format for easy printing

✅ Digital access link for online or paperless classrooms

This resource is a valuable addition to any ELA curriculum, providing a fresh and engaging way to challenge your students and enhance their writing skills. It saves you time and energy in planning, while offering a dynamic tool to enrich your students' literary experience.

Take a peek at the preview to see how this resource can help you!

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