the conventions of discussion and reflection on writing processes, including metalanguage to discuss writing, the role of feedback, and the processes of drafting, reviewing, editing and refining

What this key knowledge point is asking

VCAA wants you to know how to discuss and reflect on your own writing. The Creating Texts SAC includes a written explanation (sometimes called a commentary or statement of intention) in which you articulate the decisions behind the piece. The written explanation is not a description of the piece; it is an account of the choices and the processes that produced it.

This dot point also covers the conventions of giving and receiving feedback in workshop settings, and the disciplines of drafting, reviewing, editing and refining. The point is that writing is a process, not an event, and that the marker can read whether the process has happened.

The metalanguage you need

To discuss writing, you need vocabulary precise enough to name what you did. The metalanguage families.

Purpose terms

The four VCAA purposes (express, explain, reflect, argue). The verbs of effect (position, complicate, qualify, destabilise).

Audience terms

Specialist, generalist, sympathetic, sceptical, insider, outsider.

Context terms

Mode, register, publication context, occasion.

Structural terms

Diptych, frame, sequence, spiral, single scene. Section break, opening hook, closure.

Language feature terms

Diction, register, syntax, syntactic compression, polysyndeton, asyndeton, anaphora, free indirect discourse, imagery field, motif.

Process terms

Draft, revise, redraft, edit, refine. Feedback, peer review, self-review.

A written explanation that uses two or three terms from each family precisely is doing the work. A written explanation that uses one term repeatedly or that drifts into generic vocabulary ("technique", "device", "thing") is not.

The role of feedback

Feedback is part of the writing process VCAA wants you to use. Three sources of feedback worth using.

Peer review

Classmates reading your draft. The most useful peer feedback is specific: a peer who can name where the piece loses voice, where the opening drifts, where the ending feels assembled rather than chosen.

Teacher feedback

Often more diagnostic than peer feedback. The teacher can name the craft level that the piece needs to operate at and the move that would lift it.

Self-review

Reading your own draft after a gap. The most powerful self-review tool is reading the draft aloud, silently or actually. Sentences that work on the page often falter when heard.

Giving feedback

The convention. Specific, descriptive, useful.

Specific

Name the paragraph, name the sentence, name the move. "Your opening" is too vague; "the second sentence of paragraph one" is specific.

Descriptive

Describe what you read as a reader, not what you would have written. "I lost voice at paragraph three" is more useful than "you should change paragraph three".

Useful

Name what the writer can do with the feedback. "I lost voice at paragraph three; the sentence rhythm there is shorter than the rest of the piece" gives the writer somewhere to start.

Receiving feedback

The convention. Listen, do not defend, do not commit to act on every note.

Listen

Note what is being said without interrupting.

Do not defend

A draft that needs a defence is a draft that needs revision.

Do not commit to act on every note

Feedback is data, not instruction. A useful draft session might generate twenty notes; five will become revisions.

The drafting process

VCAA names the process explicitly: draft, review, edit, refine. The four stages are not interchangeable.

Drafting

The first writing of the piece. Drafting is generative; the discipline is to produce material the reviser can shape, not to produce the final piece in one pass.

Reviewing

Reading the draft with an eye to large-scale shape. Does the piece have a controlling image? Does the voice hold? Does the opening land? Does the closing earn its weight? Reviewing produces structural revisions.

Editing

Reading the draft with an eye to local craft. Sentence rhythm, word choice, paragraph length. Editing produces line-level revisions.

Refining

The final pass. The smallest changes. A comma, a verb, a single word per paragraph. Refining is what separates a competent piece from a confident one.

Each stage uses different attention. A common mistake is to edit and refine while drafting; the result is a stalled draft. A second common mistake is to refine before reviewing; the result is a piece with polished sentences and a structural problem the polish cannot cover.

The written explanation

The Creating Texts SAC includes a written explanation of typically 250 to 350 words, marked alongside the piece. The written explanation is the place where the dot point's content (discussion and reflection on writing processes) becomes visible.

A reliable shape for the written explanation.

Purpose, audience, context

One sentence stating which of the four purposes the piece is doing, for which audience, in which mode.

Framework engagement

One or two sentences naming the Framework of Ideas and the specific position the piece takes inside it.

Mentor-text engagement

Two sentences. Name the mentor, name the specific move borrowed, characterise its function in the mentor, argue its function in your piece.

Craft choices

Two or three sentences naming specific decisions about vocabulary, structure or language features. Each decision should be defendable.

Revision

One or two sentences naming a substantive revision made in response to feedback or self-reading.

Closing claim

One sentence stating what the piece achieves.

A written explanation of this shape demonstrates the conventions of discussion and reflection.

The reflection journal

VCAA expects students to keep a writing folio or journal across the Unit 3 AoS 2 program. The folio is the record of the drafting process. It is not formally assessed in itself, but the discipline it builds is what produces the SAC piece.

Three habits worth holding in the folio.

One paragraph of mentor-text observation per session

A specific move named with a quotation.

One paragraph of attempted writing per session

A trial piece, often a fragment, where you try a move on new material.

One paragraph of reflection per draft

What worked, what did not, what the next draft will do differently.

A student who keeps the folio honestly across the year arrives at the SAC with a craft toolkit, a body of trial writing, and an articulated sense of their own process. A student who does not keep the folio arrives at the SAC with talent and luck.

Examples in context

Useful feedback versus vague praise. Vague: "I really liked it, it flowed well." Useful, specific feedback: "The second paragraph shifts from past to present tense and I lost track of when the events happen; was that deliberate?" The second comment names a feature, locates it, and frames a question the writer can act on, which is the feedback convention the dot-point wants.

A reflection that names decisions. Weak reflection describes the piece: "My story is about a girl who moves house." A strong reflection names craft decisions and reasons: "I chose a present-tense, single-scene structure so the reader feels the move as it happens, and in refining I cut the backstory paragraph because the mentor text taught me to trust the reader to infer it." This shows process and metalanguage, not summary.

Try this

Q1. Rewrite this feedback to make it specific and useful: "It was good but a bit confusing." [Short response]

• Cue. Name the feature, locate it, and frame an actionable question or observation.

Q2. Write 80 words of reflection that names two craft decisions and what changed when you refined the piece. [Short response]

• Cue. Name decision and reason; use metalanguage; describe a concrete change, not "I made it better".

Q3. Distinguish reviewing from editing in the four-stage process, with an example of each. [Short response]

• Cue. Reviewing re-sees structure and meaning; editing fixes wording and conventions at the sentence level.