Composing strong writing in The craft of writing (2024 syllabus)

Model answer. The line is generic: 'normal day' and 'everything changed' are stock phrases that tell the reader a change is coming without showing anything specific. A stronger opening starts with a concrete image or action: 'The phone rang at the exact moment Mum put the last plate on the table, and she let it ring.'

Marking spine.

• 2 marks: identifies the cliche and the lack of specifics.
• 2 marks: a stronger opening with a concrete, intriguing detail.

Model answer. 'Every morning, hundreds of commuters wait on this street for a bus that does not arrive, and the council knows it.'

Marking spine.

• 1 mark: replaces vague quantity ('a lot of people') with a specific image.
• 1 mark: replaces 'something' and 'the problem' with a concrete issue.
• 1 mark: an active, direct verb structure.
• 1 mark: a persuasive edge (naming who is responsible).

Model answer.

1. Pick a moment (30 seconds). Choose one scene close to a turning point. This keeps the piece focused and manageable in 40 minutes.
2. Choose a voice and an audience (30 seconds). Decide on narrator, tense, and tone. Voice control is the most visible craft skill.
3. Draft the ending (1 minute). Write down the last image or line. Knowing where you are going helps you build towards it.
4. List three images or details (1 minute). These become the pieces you return to, giving the piece unity.
5. Sketch a shape (2 minutes). For example: opening image, a complication, a pause, a shift, the final image.

Marking spine. 2 marks for a realistic routine within the time; 2 for including voice and ending; 2 for explaining why each step helps quality.

Model paragraph. 'Think of a person at a bus stop, or a farmer watching the sky in a dry year. Neither is idle. The one holds a schedule in their head, the other holds a whole season. Waiting asks us to keep something alive that has not yet arrived: a hope, a plan, a prediction. It is easy to describe this as passivity because nothing visibly moves, but the effort is inward and constant, like holding a door against a breeze. Perhaps that is why people in waiting rooms look so tired. They are not resting; they are carrying the future for a little while longer.'

Marking spine. 2 marks for a clear, original angle; 2 for concrete images; 2 for tone and voice; 2 for an ending that leaves an idea.

Planning. Decide your audience (a council meeting, newspaper readers), your central claim (quiet spaces are a public good, not an empty luxury), and three persuasive moves, for example an anecdote, a rhetorical question and a concrete comparison.

Shape.

• Opening (hook). A specific image, such as a library reading room at four in the afternoon, rather than a statement of topic.
• Argument 1. Quiet as a condition for thinking and recovery, with a concrete example.
• Argument 2. Quiet as a matter of fairness: the people who cannot buy their own silence.
• Counterargument. Acknowledge that noise is part of lively places, then redirect: protection does not mean silence everywhere.
• Ending. A call to action that returns to the opening image.

Voice. Choose a direct, warm and slightly wry register and keep it steady.

Model excerpt (opening and first argument of an original opinion article, about 170 words).

At four in the afternoon, the reading room of our town library holds eleven people and no conversation. A man in a work jacket is asleep over a newspaper. A girl is copying a diagram with the care of a surgeon. Nobody has asked either of them to be here, and nobody is charging them for the silence.

We tend to treat quiet as what is left over when the noise stops. It is better understood as something we build, and something we can lose. The council's proposal to turn the reading room into a "multipurpose activity hub" will not damage a single book, which is exactly why it is dangerous: the damage will be to the one hour in the day when a person can hear their own thoughts without paying for a café table.

Quiet is also a question of fairness. Those with large houses can buy silence by the square metre. Those without it depend on the rooms we protect together.

Why it works: it opens with a specific image, holds a wry, steady voice, uses an anecdote, a reframing and a fairness argument for deliberate purposes, and leaves room for a counterargument and a call to action.

Marking spine (20). About 7 for the quality and development of ideas and argument; 7 for control of language, tone and persuasive technique; 3 for structure and cohesion; 3 for accuracy and polish. A piece that lists techniques without purpose, or sounds like a school debate template, will stay in the middle bands.

What this tests. NESA's specification allows an imaginative, discursive, persuasive and/or reflective response, and the Standard sample paper used a single reflective piece based on a stimulus. A reflective piece looks back or inwards, so it needs specific experience, a considered tone and an idea at the end, not a moral.

Plan.

• Moment: one object from the drawer you can write about with real detail (the key to nothing).
• Voice: quiet, observant, slightly self-questioning.
• Shape: open on the object; recall one specific memory; step back to ask why you kept it; end on an image that shifts what the drawer means.
• Three details to return to: the weight of the key, the drawer's sticking, the turned face.

Model excerpt (about 100 words). The key is heavier than any key should be for how little it opens. I have tried it in the back door, the shed, my grandfather's tin trunk, and each time it slid in with the confidence of something that belonged. The drawer sticks on the third day of every wet week, and I lean my hip against it as he used to, which is perhaps why I have never thrown the key away. We keep things, I think, not because they work but because they still fit the shape of someone's hand.

Marking spine (20). About 7 for ideas and depth of reflection; 7 for control of voice, language and form; 3 for structure and cohesion; 3 for accuracy and polish. A piece that states its lesson outright or reaches for generalities ('memories are precious') sits in the middle bands.