2. You’re the author – what were your intentions?

3.  A dot point outline of unrelated, random thoughts loosely connected to your writing  A plan for your Context response  A summary or description of your Context response  An informal, casually written discussion or reflection on what you wrote  A vague, thrown together, last minute piece of writing

4.  A sophisticated, formally written, coherent piece of writing that articulates the reasoning behind the choices/decisions you made as the author of your Context piece  Supports your Context response It should answer the question: How did you go about putting together an effective piece of writing?

5.  A piece which combines FORM and LANGUAGE to best achieve the PURPOSE with the intended AUDIENCE  Your Authorial Intent should make it clear how you decided to do this

6. Form Language Audience Purpose Links to Context (i.e. the Prompt) Links to specific elements of the Text

7.  You should not only mention what form you chose (and why), but also the genre  Genre: persuasive, creative or expository  Forms: essay, narrative, script, article, speech, letter to the editor...  Forms have different conventions – e.g. essays use formal language, narratives use descriptive elements and so on – you should show that you understand these conventions in your Authorial Intention  It is imperative that you state WHY you chose the form you did – explain how it helped you achieve your purpose

8.  As an author, you should be conscious (thinking about) why you are making particular linguistic and structural choices:  To symbolise an idea?  To make the readers feel empathy?  To add a persuasive effect?  To instil an image in the readers’ minds?  To make the readers laugh?  To make a link with the author’s style of writing?  Also talk about the way you structured your piece (if this is significant) – tense, perspective, paragraphing, dialogue, linear/nonlinear...and so on  Think of this as doing a mini-language analysis on yourself – keeping your chosen audience and purpose in mind – language creates a link between audience and purpose (i.e. what were the intended effects of the choices you made?)

9.  Expository:  What you did to keep the reader interested?  What you did to make the explanation clear?  Why you used the examples you used?  Why you used the evidence you used?  Argumentative:  What persuasive techniques did you use and why?  How did you develop your argument?  Creative:  How did you create setting, narrative voice, use symbols, metaphor, structure, tense, point of view, imagery, dialogue and so on...

10.  You MUST discuss TONE – the ‘mood’ of the piece  Why have you chosen that tone? – what effect were you seeking?  How did you go about establishing this tone and maintaining it throughout your piece?  Tone doesn’t just happen – you need to be in control of it

11.  Having a clear sense of who you are writing to (a particular, specified, well-defined audience), will shape what you write and how you write it (so that it is appropriate for your audience)  An audience is NOT:  People aged ___ to ___ (or just ‘teenagers’)  People who enjoy reading  People who have experienced conflict  The teacher  Australians  People who are interested in the issue  The audience needs to link to your purpose and language  Talk about audience in terms of their values, attitudes or feelings – rather than age, class or gender – be specific about this

12.  What are you trying to achieve in this piece of writing for your readers?  How did you keep your piece focused on achieving this prompt?  Generally three categories of purpose:  To inform (expository)  To persuade (argumentative)  To entertain (creative)  But there can be others or a combination  Try to have an overall moral/lesson in your piece – what is it important for people to learn/remember/take away from your piece of writing?  Link your purpose to your audience and discuss how your choices regarding form and language help you to achieve your purpose

13.  It can be difficult to explain why you have made particular choices as an author – especially because these reasons must be meaningful and thoughtful  Reasons are NOT:  Because it was easier  Because I think I’m good at it  Because I thought it would be the best way to reach the audience  Because I thought it would be more interesting  Because I couldn’t think of anything else  Because the alternatives were too hard  Because I had to  Because I like writing this way  Reasons must be directly linked to your audience and purpose  Make yourself sound professional and intelligent – don’t give me reasons that make you sound lazy! You must show passion, commitment and also convince me that you have something worthy to say

14.  Explain how you explored the prompt in depth in your piece – be obvious and specific in explaining these links, especially if you wrote in a creative way as the links you made to the prompt might be quite subtle  Did you explore more than one interpretation of the prompt? Did you explore how it might relate to people/characters in different circumstances? What original, new insights did you come up with? What was the overall moral/lesson of your piece about the prompt?

15.  Which specific examples did you draw on? Why did you choose these characters/events? What was it about them that revealed ideas about the prompt and helped you achieve your purpose?  Outside examples – how did they add to your ideas and discussion?  DO NOT just re-write Najaf’s story but call him something different – this is not a clever link  For creative writing in particular: Did you draw on the author’s writing style? How? Or did you deliberately try something different to gain a new insight into the characters? What similar themes/images/ideas are there between your response and the text?

16.  Authentic, meaningful, powerful – believable!  Use a sophisticated, formal, academic tone in your AI  You CAN say ‘I, me, my’ in this – as in ‘I chose to....because I...’  Be conscious of your choices as an author as you write – don’t try to make up fake reasons later  Have a specific AUDIENCE and PURPOSE in mind before you begin writing – it’s really hard to make these up after you’ve written your response  Choose an audience that you know and understand – this might mean doing some research  600 words (handwritten) – it’s a lot to say in a short amount of space, so don’t waffle or repeat yourself  Look at samples! (see booklet or ask me)