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Module C: The Craft of Writing
Quick questions on Learning from mentor texts in HSC English Advanced Module C
15short Q&A pairs drawn directly from our worked dot-point answer. For full context and worked exam questions, read the parent dot-point page.
What are working across multiple mentor texts?Show answer
The Module C prescribed list usually includes mentor texts in different modes (imaginative, discursive, persuasive). Reading across the list is part of the work.
What are reading the unseen mentor text under exam conditions?Show answer
Paper 2 Section 3 often includes an unseen stimulus that functions partly as a mentor text within the exam. The stimulus may be a passage, an image, a quotation. Three moves under pressure.
What is sentence-level craft?Show answer
The shape of the sentence. How clauses are arranged. The relation between sentence length and effect.
What is voice and tone?Show answer
The persona the writing constructs and the emotional register it holds. The diction. The relation to the implied reader.
What are imagery and figurative habits?Show answer
The kind of image the writer reaches for. The frequency. The integration of image with argument or action.
What is structure?Show answer
How the text is organised at the paragraph, scene, and whole-text levels. The places where the writer chooses to break, return, or repeat.
What is audience management?Show answer
How the writer brings the reader into the piece and what assumptions the writer makes about who is reading.
What is apply the move to different material?Show answer
If the mentor text uses a syntactic move on a domestic scene, try the same move on a public scene. The transfer of context separates craft from imitation.
What is use the move sparingly?Show answer
A piece that contains one or two deliberate borrowed moves looks crafted. A piece that contains ten looks like fan fiction. Restraint is the difference.
What is make the move your own?Show answer
Adjust the move to fit the rhythm of your own voice. A move learned from a mentor text should sound, by the end of the piece, like your move.
What is modes overlap in real writing?Show answer
A persuasive piece often uses imaginative scene-setting; a discursive piece often uses persuasive cadence. Reading across modes builds the flexibility good writing needs.
What are moves transfer between modes?Show answer
A syntactic habit from a poem can shape a paragraph of discursive prose. An imagery pattern from a short story can lift a persuasive opening.
What is imitation over learning?Show answer
A piece that sounds like the model but does not transfer any of its moves to new material.
What is theme borrowing?Show answer
A piece that takes the topic of the mentor text rather than its craft.
What is move without precision?Show answer
Naming "voice" or "imagery" as the influence without specifying the mechanism.