St Teresa’s College
QCS: The Writing Task
Planning
Plan to succeed!
QCS Writing Task
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When: Paper #1 Tuesday morning
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Duration: 2 hours + 10min perusal
Task: 600 word written piece (story, essay,
report, reflection) in response to stimulus
 Contrib. to overall QCS grade: 29%
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Equipment Allowed
Pens (BLACK ink)
 Pencil
 Sharper
 Eraser
 Correction Fluid / Liquid Paper
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What do I have to do?
Respond to stimulus – use as inspiration
 Respond in any genre except poetry
 Brainstorm, plan, draft, edit, rewrite to
final copy standard
 Write one (1) text of about 600 words of
continuous prose
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Planning to succeed
A range of rehearsed strategies will underpin
success
 Time management & writing process are vital
 Brainstorming, planning and time allocation
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Writer’s block? You can plan
your way out of it!
General feedback from mighty
minds
1.
Penalties occur when students
write below 500 or over 750 words.
All students should aim for 600
words. Work out how many words
it will take to fill your task booklet.
Writing to page ratios
The writing booklet has 30 lines per page. A guideline of
how many pages 600 words occupies, based on the number
of words per line, is outlined below.
Number of w/p/l
Approx pages required
6
3½
7
3
8
2½
9
2¼
10
2
11
1 2/3
12
1 1/3
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Plan your paragraphs
“It is important that students set out their ideas
clearly and express them in planned
paragraphs.”
“Students need to be reminded that it is
essential their written responses have a
strong connection to the stimulus material.”
Plan your strategy
Plan to be familiar with at least two fairly
different genres. Pick writing styles you have
gained success with and are confident in and
that you can complete in the 2 hours of the
writing task.
Work on:
Responding to stimulus
 Tighter sentence structure, avoid too many
complex sentences
 Better use of paragraphing
 Spelling
 Punctuation
 Avoid slang and cliches
 Use your best vocabulary

Why plan a plan of attack?
One go at it…
 It works…
 Fail to plan, you plan to fail…
 It is a demanding task:

 Flair
and originality
 Reflects generic conventions
 Free of technical errors
 2 hours
 No computer, dictionaries or help
Using Your Time Effectively

10 min :
 20 min :
 30/30 min :
 40 min :
(Perusal)
Planning
Draft / edit
Final draft
Warnings :
30min prior to finish time
10min prior to finish time
How is my writing marked?
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Trained and registered markers
Mark according to standards developed for a set of
criteria
Each response is marked at least three times by
different markers working independently
There is a process for monitoring marker
consistency
Plan ahead
Read page 18
 Review the TICGS scheme on page 19could this work for you?
 Use the TICGS format on page 19. Plan a
response to one of the two examples from
page 11-14.

Drafting and Editing
Read page 20- highlight the key points or
areas that you need to remind yourself
of!!! (What are your weak points?)
The Power of Planning

Not even the most gifted writer can sit down and produce a
flawless piece without planning

Writing - ALL writing - is a process consisting of:
 brainstorming
 planning
 drafting
 editing
 proofreading
Planning is the key to:
effective links to the theme and the stimulus
piece
 a plausible and logically structured response
 maintaining your sanity.
 Accepting responsibility for your efforts, this
is not a “luck” or personality test.

Therefore...
… you must allocate blocks of time to each
phase of the writing process.
Last thoughts…
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Support one another
Work with the process of preparing for the writing
task
Conquer it and develop a plan to manage the task
No luck needed – you make your own good fortune
through diligence & preparation
Prepare yourself mentally and physically
Take responsibility for your
results!