You’re the author – what were your intentions?

 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

 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?

 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

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

 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

 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?)

 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...

 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

 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

 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

 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

 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?

 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?

 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)