SEVEN SECRETS STUDENTS
MUST KNOW BEFORE
SEPTEMBER
Presented by Lindsay Williams
Copyright
L & E Williams Holdings Pty Ltd, 2010
AIMS
• To consider seven aspects of student writing
that can really make a difference in the QCST
and NAPLAN Writing Tasks
OUTLINE
• Aims and outline of session
• Seven secrets students must know before
September
• Theory into action: Improving ‘Self
discovery’
• Conclusion
THE SEVEN SECRETS
What students must know before
September
THE SEVEN SECRETS
1. Demonstrate a knowledge and understanding of the world
beyond your immediate teenage interests and concerns.
2. Add depth to your writing by using a variety of long and short
noun groups.
3. Write in third person; avoid first person.
4. Go beyond formulaic, recipe-like approaches to your chosen
genre.
5. Use different sentence lengths, types and structures for
particular effect.
6. Use vocabulary that helps you take an authoritative stance –
strongly positive or negative.
7. Use figurative language and grammatical metaphor.
DISCLAIMER
These tips do not substitute for:
• a good knowledge of the official criteria
• or your own reading of student samples published in
the Retrospectives and NAPLAN reports each year.
Successful writing is an almost mystical blend of
ingredients. These secrets are useful tips, but cannot
guarantee a high grade. You must use these tips flexibly
in order to achieve their desired purpose.
There are always exceptions to the rule!!
SECRET ONE
Demonstrate a knowledge and understanding of the world beyond
your immediate teenage interests and concerns.
Write about what you know about…but not necessarily your day to day
life as a teenager. Remember, you’re trying to show yourself at your
very best.
Demonstrate your knowledge of the ‘exotic’.
Broaden your general knowledge. Read the newspapers and quality
magazines (e.g. Time and New Scientist); watch documentaries and
the television news; visit galleries and museums; read books and
watch television programs about other countries and lifestyles.
SECRET TWO
Add depth to your writing by using a variety of
long and short noun groups.
The ship
The largest ship I’d ever seen docked in Olympia, a
red and black freighter two blocks long and
taller than half of downtown. (from Highest
Tide by Jim Lynch)
Making effective use of the noun group structure,
including apposition. Note: Longer noun groups
tend to cluster in initial descriptions of short
stories.
SECRET THREE
Write in third person; avoid first person.
Under pressure in exams, it is too easy to slip
into colloquial, everyday language.
Try writing in third person from the perspective
of a mature adult.
SECRET FOUR
Go beyond formulaic, recipe-like approaches to your
chosen genre.
• Formulaic writing (genre recipes) can assist students
achieve passing grades
• Data is less conclusive for students achieving higher
grades
• Students need to be assisted in the ‘subtle task…of
creating a form that suits well their ideas and
emphases’
Bonnie Albertson (May 2007)
VALUE OF GENERIC ‘RECIPES’
QSA Retrospective (2009)
‘The responses sampled this year and in the past
raise some concerns about students’
understanding of “genre”. Some responses were
composed formulaically around the (supposed)
structural components of genre…In
contrast…skilled writing focusses on a
message…skilled writers make language choices
appropriate for the content, purpose and
audience…’ (page72)
ESSAYS (EXPOSITION)
Avoid five paragraph essay with explicit
signalling of stages (e.g. firstly, secondly,
thirdly…)
See ‘Essence’ essay.
NARRATIVES (SHORT STORIES)
o Slice of life (choose a complication that can be
solved in ten minutes ‘real’ time)
o in Media Res (in the middle of things…)
o avoid explicit signalling of time shifts
SECRET FIVE
Use different sentence lengths, types and structures for
particular effect.
As a human race, our conception of history is that it is
linear, a long seemingly endless chain of events that
stretch behind us like a dust bitten road, never to
concern us again. We regard history as dead, a
shadowy reality, inhabited only by dead people, in
which past events have crumbled away like ash in their
insignificance. Yet, this perception is fundamentally
flawed.
Response 5, 2008
SENTENCE STRUCTURE & LENGTHS
He hadn’t ever been destined for the priesthood,
to be a man of God, a shepherd guiding his
flock of hapless humans. His father wanted him
to stay on their farm, remaining forever in the
verdant hills with only the cows for company.
His mother wanted him to make something of
himself, to break the circle of poverty and
insignificance his family had so long ago fallen
into. Somehow, though, he found himself a
priest.
Response 2, 2008
SECRET SIX
Use vocabulary that helps you take an authoritative stance –
strongly positive or negative.
Use specific words that carry implicit evaluations and attitudes. Have
a store of synonyms and antonyms - graded.
Brittany Lindsay is the face of the work against childhood obesity.
The young Queenslander was 10 years old and weighed 80kg when
she had the signs of a heart attack including chest pain, shortness
of breath and pain in her arm.
(SM, 11/1/09, page 1)
NEWS REPORT
Original news report: Brittany Lindsay is the brave face of
the battle against childhood obesity.
The young Queenslander was just 10 years old and weighed
80kg when she suffered the early signs of a heart attack
including acute chest pain, shortness of breath and pain
in her arm.
(SM, 11/1/09, page 1)
ATTITUDINAL VOCABULARY AND ‘PHASES’ (ROSE, 2006)
Genre: a culturally-situated, staged, purposeful activity
involving action and language
Stage: highly predictable segments in each genre
Phase: more variable segments within each stage,
carrying pulses of information and attitude
ATTITUDINAL VOCABULARY AND
‘PHASES’
Orientation
‘setting’ and ‘description’: The flicks of silver fish tails
sent flashes of light into my eyes.
‘events’: I swam through the school, chasing them
into the long sea grass.
‘comment’ and ‘events’: My laughter sent a stream
of bubbles to the surface. I was free, weightless,
nothing could hold me back. I kicked my legs and
was propelled (??) to the surface for my next
breath. Then I could return to my underwater
paradise, where I could kick and twist and –
APPRAISAL AND ‘PHASES’
Complication
‘problem’: I felt something catch my ankle as my fingertips skimmed
out of the water. I kicked again but I couldn’t get my face to the
air. I looked down. A fishing line, almost invisible, was wrapped
tight around my ankle, cutting into the skin.
‘reaction’: I struggled to free myself but I only tightened it further.
My head began to pound in lust for oxygen, but hard as I tried
my fingers could do nothing to budge the miniscule knots. My
lungs screamed for air, my throat burned, my head was in agony.
In a last desperate act I clawed for the surface. Blood flow was
cut off to my foot and my head was still half a metre underwater.
My insides burning, my skin freezing, my arms and legs
exhausted,
‘events’: I relaxed. I took a deep breath and felt a surge of icy salt
water rush down my throat.
ATTITUDINAL VOCABULARY AND
PHASES
Orientation:
‘description’
• My laughter
• Free
• Propelled
• Paradise
Complication: ‘reaction’
• Struggled
• Pound
• Screamed
• Burned (in lust for oxygen)
• Agony
• Desperate
• Clawed
• Burning
• Freezing
• Exhausted
SECRET SEVEN
Use figurative language (including lexical metaphor) and
grammatical metaphor.
Figurative language
• Similes (e.g. like the dust of crushed diamonds)
• Metaphors (e.g. eyes: black pits from which no light
escaped)
• Symbols (e.g. jigsaw for the gaps in our knowledge
about others)
• Alliteration (e.g. honeysuckle scent)
Judicious and sparing is enough.
GRAMMATICAL METAPHOR
Lexical metaphor: meaning is carried by a different,
less usual form of wording – one thing means
another, e.g. He was menacing.  His eyes were
dark pits.
In simple terms, the meaning from a more
congruent word class is carried by another word
class.
The rope is long [adjective].  The length [noun] of
rope
Examples
Many people have criticised these ideas. 
These ideas have been subject to widespread criticism.
Basically, we assume that (learners) retain unfamiliar words
depending on how much they are involved in processing
these words. 
Our basic assumption is that the retention of unfamiliar
words is conditional upon the degree of involvement in
processing these words.
ESSENCE (2008)
Examples of
nominalization
• Our own choosing
• So protective
• The belief
• Aesthetic reasons
• Mispronunciation
• The obvious remedy
• All my travels
• The blame
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Aramaic origins
The connotations
My conversations
A liar
My possession of it
Universally
protective
Our choosing
An answer
The reasons
Their mishandling
NAPLAN 08: METAPHOR
In the distance, the great city looms. A
behemoth of towering structures surrounded
by a halo of pollution. An ugly blemish,
blocking out the sun as it sinks beneath the
horizon.
‘You know, Matt,’ said Thim, sinking his hands in
the pockets of his tattered jacket, ‘there used
to be these things before the city came. These
things called birds. They flew.’
I frowned at this odd statement.
NAPLAN 08: NOMINALIZATION
In the distance, the great city looms. A
behemoth of towering structures
surrounded by a halo of pollution. An ugly
blemish, blocking out the sun as it sinks
beneath the horizon.
‘You know, Matt,’ said Thim, sinking his hands
in the pockets of his tattered jacket, ‘there
used to be these things before the city
came. These things called birds. They flew.’
I frowned at this odd statement.
NAPLAN 08: NOMINALIZATION
• Dust and smoke particles polluting the air
encircled the city  a halo of pollution
• ‘You know, Matt,’ said Thim, sinking his hands
in the pockets of his tattered jacket, ‘there
used to be these things before the city came.
These things called birds. They flew.’  this
odd statement
THEORY INTO ACTION
MORE SELF-DISCOVERY (P2-3)
Suggestions for Melissa
• Write in third person
• Add depth by packing information into noun groups
• Write a narrative (not a personal recount in letter form): relate one
incident in detail; start ‘in media res’
• Longer paragraphs; vary sentence themes (currently too many
sentences begin with ‘I’)
• More infused or implicit evaluation – and vary it more to suit the
story phases
• Use a central metaphor, e.g. jigsaw (‘I had this hole which I needed
to close up…I have been put back together.’)
CONCLUSION
Questions?
REFERENCES
Albertson, Bonnie (May 2007). ‘Organisation and development
features of Grade 8 and Grade 10 writers: a descriptive study of
DelawareTesting Program (DSTP) essays’. Research in the
teaching of English. Volume 41:4.
Lynch, J. (2008). The highest tide. Great Britain: Bloomsbury.
QSA (2009). Queensland Core Skills Test Retrospective 2008. Spring
Hill, Queensland: The State of Queensland (QSA).
Rose, D. (2006). ‘Reading genre: a new wave of analysis’. Linguistics
and the Human Sciences. 2:1.