Write With Purpose (+ free webinar)

A step-by-step guide for VCE French students to the written exam: how to read any prompt, choose the right tools for each style of writing, and write what the examiners reward.
 
Includes a free live webinar on Saturday 7 November (9:30am): I’ll walk you through the booklet and show you exactly what to focus on before the exam.

In my one-on-one sessions with VCE students, I’ve noticed that many jump straight into writing without spending enough time on the prompt, or without knowing what to pull out of it. Yet, learning to use the prompt first makes a huge difference to your planning, your writing and your result.
The strongest students I’ve worked with don’t reach the top band by chance. They read the prompt carefully, plan before they write, and consciously tick off what the marking criteria ask for. On the other hand, I’ve seen many students with strong French, good vocabulary and solid grammar who never reached their potential. Their language wasn’t the problem: they had never learnt to play by the rules of the marking criteria.
 
This booklet shows you how top-band students think, so you can do the same, one step at a time. Strong French gets you in the game; knowing the rules is what gets you to the top.
 
What you’ll learn:
 
How to unpack any prompt. Five questions to ask before you write a word: the style, the text type, your reader, what you must cover, and what your section needs.
A toolkit for every style of writing (my own methodology). What makes a text persuasive, evaluative, informative or personal, broken down into a small set of moves, with the French to carry out each one. 
The essentials, refreshed. What each text type needs on the page, how to keep the same register from your first line to your last, and how to find every point the task asks for.
What the marking criteria really mean. Each criterion explained in plain words, and what it takes to move from a good mark to the top band.
What past students got wrong, and how to avoid it. Six years of examiners’ reports, turned into clear traps to watch out for: the wrong style, a missed content point, a text learnt by heart.
Practical steps for both sections (my own methodology). For Section 2 Part B: how to find the relevant points in the stimulus and rephrase them in your own words, numbers and visuals included. For Section 3: how to add details that make your content count, and how to find an original angle that still sticks to the task.
 
Inside the booklet
Model texts, toolkits and mind maps for each style
Step-by-step exercises on exam-style prompts
A routine to go from prompt to plan in a few minutes
A checklist for before you write, while you write, and before you hand it in
Answers for every exercise
 
Built on the official documents, with a method that’s mine. 
Everything is built on what VCAA publishes: six years of prompts, marking criteria and examiners’ reports. The method, meaning the prompt decoder and the toolkit moves, comes from years of working one on one with VCE students as a language assistant and tutor.
 
Who it’s for
Year 11 and 12 VCE French students who want to write with purpose, and anyone whose French is strong but whose marks don’t show it yet.