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VICEnglishQuick questions
Unit 1: Reading and exploring texts and Crafting texts
Quick questions on Drafting, revising and editing: VCE English Unit 1 Area of Study 2
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 is planning?Show answer
Before drafting, decide purpose, context, audience, mode, and the one or two mentor-text moves you want to use. A 600-word piece deserves twenty minutes of planning.
What is drafting?Show answer
The first full version. The job of drafting is to get the piece onto the page; the job is not to get it right. A draft that is precious is a draft that does not finish.
What is revising?Show answer
Re-seeing the piece at the level of structure, voice, and choice. Revising is not editing. Revising asks whether the piece is doing the right thing, not whether the sentences are tidy.
What is editing?Show answer
The final pass for sentence-level clarity, punctuation, spelling, and rhythm. Editing comes last because editing a paragraph that should not exist is wasted work.
What is decide your purpose?Show answer
What is the piece for. To move a reader to a feeling. To advocate.
What is decide your audience?Show answer
Who specifically is the piece written for. A reader of a literary magazine. A class peer.
What is decide your context and mode?Show answer
A short story for an anthology is a different piece from a reflective essay for a school journal. Decide.
What is choose one or two mentor-text moves?Show answer
Specific, transferable moves you intend to use. Annotate where in the planned piece each move will appear.
What is sketch a structure?Show answer
Not a paragraph-by-paragraph outline necessarily, but the rough shape: opening move, central tension or argument, close.
What is write through?Show answer
Get to the end of the piece before going back to fix the opening. The piece you are revising should exist as a whole.
What is allow the draft to be imperfect?Show answer
Bad sentences in a draft are not a problem. Missing scenes in a draft are. The draft's job is coverage.
What is time-box?Show answer
Give the draft a session length and finish in it. A draft you carry across a fortnight loses its energy.
What is is the piece doing what I planned?Show answer
Does the opening establish purpose, context, audience. Does the close land. Is the central move (the scene, the argument, the rendered experience) clearly the central move.
What is are the structural choices working?Show answer
Is the shape of the piece right. Are the paragraphs in the right order. Is the piece the right length.
What is are the mentor-text moves visible?Show answer
Did I use the moves I planned to use. Are they working. Should I add another.