BlogStudyHow to Use an English Extension 1 Creative Writing Journal

How to Use an English Extension 1 Creative Writing Journal

Have no idea where to start with your English Extension 1 creative writing piece?

You’re not alone!

Creative writing was my weakness and I knew I had to focus on it to get my marks up for Extension 1.

But I just wasn’t sure how.

That’s when my teacher brought the entire class fancy notebooks labelled ‘Creative Writing Journal’.

This is the secret weapon to acing the creative writing section of the exam!

It’s important to note that the creative writing and essay pieces are weighted equally, so you must have excellent writing skills for both!

Without further ado, here are three steps towards using your English Extension 1 creative writing journal to ace your exam!

Step 1: Nail the Basics

I’m sorry to all the trees that have suffered at my hands. While I do not advocate the wastage of paper, for me, I need things in hard copy.

That’s why having a physical English Extension 1 creative writing journal works best for me.

On my laptop, I’ve got about three different documents with remnants of creative brain dumps splattered on it.

However, if I continued digitally, then I’d simply open up a new document and all my old ideas would get lost within layers of files. I wouldn’t even try to dig them up come HSC!

If you’re more of a technocrat, then I recommend using Evernote. It’s a free app that allows you to store all your notes in one place.

I find that it gives you a little bit more freedom to type, note-take and actually draw/sketch your ideas in a single document rather than the traditional Word or Pages.

But if you’re a little behind the times and still prefer hard copies, then this idea is perfect for you.

Looking at your hard-copy journal will remind you that you’ve got to work on your creative – you can’t just hide it within layers of folders and documents!

Step 2: Be Artistic

I’m not an artistic person at all. I barely scraped a C in Year 8 Visual Arts after breaking my clay teapot three times.

But recent scientific studies have shown that simple artistic activities like colouring, can help alleviate stress and the onset of numerous mental disorders.

The HSC is an extremely stressful year, and while we just need to grit our teeth and keep pushing on, we do need a take time off. For ourselves, for our family and our mental well being.

Let’s not forget that our mental and physical well being always comes before the HSC.

The journal, similarly to my bullet journal, provides me with this escape. After doing some structured study, I like to just work on some simple art pieces in my journal.

For example, here is work-in-progress that I created for the ‘After the Bomb’ module:

But how does that help me with my creative writing?

That simple artistic piece, other than helping me de-stress, is a compact reflection of my understanding of the ‘After the Bomb module’.

The brightly coloured writing amid nuclear hell is the hope and faith in humanity that kept humanity afloat within existential questioning and doubt in the purpose of humanity.

The flowers represent two different aspects:

  • The drooping flowers demonstrate the degradation of the natural world amidst exponential scientific and technological human advances (e.g. the atomic bomb).
  • The single upright flower symbolises the resilience and source of escape humanity sought during the Cold War.

The dead bird is symbol of the human cost of the war. Since birds are often associated with freedom (physical, social and belief-wise), a dead bird clearly demonstrates the loss of them.

I hope you can see from this that a simple diagram that help consolidate your understanding of the module and let you have a little down time.

Step 3: Track Your Work

I inherently find creative writing to be hard. I love science and maths. Things with definite solutions and logical reasoning appeals to me.

English offers none of these securities.

Although, if you happen to also be struggling with essay writing, I recommend you check out this article!

I really do question why I do this subject sometimes. I’ve contemplated many times dropping English Extension 1, but being on 10 units is something that I don’t think I can come to terms with yet.

So being able to track my work and progress is reassuring.

Whenever I’m having doubts about the course, I flip open my journal and think ‘I’ve put in [this] much work already; I’m sure I can push along to the next assessment and rethink this then.’

Other than that, the English Extension Creative Writing Journal is almost like an extensive set of notes.

Within it, you can put:
  • The rubric – broken down and analysed (like in the mind-map image above).
  • Creative brain dumps – personally I use an A5 notebook since it’s small and easy to carry around with me anywhere. You really never know when inspiration will hit.
  • Quotes – There are an amazing addition to your Creative Writing Journal; they are a compact embodiment of the atmosphere and political/social/economic/scientific (paradigms!) ways of thinking of that time.

What to include in your journal

Artistic Doodles

Are you that person who’ll be swayed into doing work for a subject they don’t even like simply because it’s aesthetic? Because I am for certain!

That’s why having cute After the Bomb related doodles around my journal helps. Not only goes my journal look pretty jazzy, but it also motivates me to work on it.

An added bonus? You might just inspire your friends to get into journaling too!

Don’t forget: if we all do well, then we all do well. 

It’s also good to visually represent context as it’s no secret that the markers love context, especially in essays AND creatives.

One way I like to remember my context is to draw it. An E4 creative must show evidence of research and references to the context of the time.

For example, to remember the world leaders during the Cold War, I’ve drawn each leader on a page and surrounded him with significant things he has said, contributed to the war effort, and any other political / social / philosophical / economic changes caused or influenced by him.

Key Ideas

It can be helpful to simplify your creative down to its key ideas, particularly to study.

By the time Trials come around, I’ll have multiple creatives that I’ll be able to pull bits and pieces from to extensively engage with the question.

However, with all my other subjects, remembering all the details can get very tough, so I create silly doodles that I associate with certain parts of my creative.

For example, in my preliminary creative (our topic was Existentialism), I drew a gnome/Santa hybrid as my Existential representation of a God who has lost his sense of purpose. For others it may not make any sense, but for me it was enough to trigger a cascade of ideas!

Creative Writing Drafts 

Having hard copies are great, but if you’re anything like me, you hate it every time you make a mistake and grudgingly have to put a strike though a word.

So, I generally type up my creative, making edits and fixing it up.

Once I’m happy with it, I copy it down into my journal (writing slowly and consciously to make no mistakes!) and submit it for feedback.

I love getting my journal back with handwritten comments and feedback all along my creative. It really helps in making my next draft an even stronger one.

Reflections

This allows you to flip back to older drafts and see how you’ve improved and how your ideas have changed over the year!

Before the HSC exam, you could skim all your ideas and have them at the back of your head, ready to pull bits and pieces from each to suit the question.

That’s all from me! So, why not give the English Extension 1 Creative Writing Journal a go?

Looking for some extra help with HSC English Extension?

We pride ourselves on our inspirational HSC English Extension coaches and mentors!

We offer tutoring and mentoring for Years K-12 in a variety of subjects, with personalised lessons conducted one-on-one in your home or at our state of the art campus in Hornsby! Check out the comprehensive tutoring we provide in Bankstown! 

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Dharni Patel is not really limited to being a 2017 HSC student; she’s a certified science nerd and baker, and to her knowledge, still holds the record for the most missed basketball/netball/anything-ball shots in her community. When she’s not buried in textbooks and gripping her beloved calculator Calci (4 unit maths does that to you), you’ll find her grazing the pages of Cosmos, playing with her 11-month Labrador Tyson or just planning how she’ll walk to accept her Nobel Prize in Chemistry (but she’ll settle for a Nobel in biology or medicine if she must).

 

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