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Home > Drama > HSC Course > Essay Writing for HSC Drama Exam > Essay Writing for the HSC Drama Exam

Essay Writing for the HSC Drama Examination

Writing under examination conditions

When you write a response for the HSC drama written paper there are a number of essay writing principles you should follow, for example:

• Analyse what the questions asks of you and then answer the question
  
  
• Develop a line of discussion in answer to the question
  
  
• Back up your line of discussion with quotes from the texts set for study
  
  
• Express your ideas clearly and write with your own voice
  
  
• Write a well structured and informative response that encapsulates your learning experiences
  
  
• Engage the reader of your essay with your practical dramatic knowledge of the texts set for study and give each of the texts equal value in your response
  
  
• Remember that it is a drama and theatre essay, and therefore it must express not just what you know about the texts, but more importantly what experiential and experimental learning you have undertaken. In other words, what you have actively ‘done’ in the HSC Drama classroom.

Revising for the exam

It is important to ‘rehearse’ your essay writing skills so that you will be confident how you express yourself when you sit for the external examination. To achieve this you could:

• Draft and re-draft the relevant ideas you have developed from your class workshops and performance experiences
• Decide what points or aspects of argument may need to be made and backed up by evidence from the texts

and then:

• Practice planning and writing the essay from old exam papers
• Keep timing yourself to make sure you can write everything you want to in the 45 minutes time slot.

Writing from your classroom experience

When ‘rehearsing’ or actually writing for the HSC Drama exam there are a number of points to keep constantly in mind:

• There should be a real sense of your classroom workshops, personal explorations and performance experiences in your individual drama essay. This means you can write from the first person (I or my), your groups’ perspective (we or our group) and from the audience perspective (they or as an audience member, I). For example, in appropriate places in your essay you could begin a topic sentence with the following and then complete the sentence and paragraph:
  • Our group improvised a scene which . . .
  • My workshop experiences into the topic area . . .
  • We worked with each other to create . . .
  • When we experimented with . . .
  • When I became a . . .
  • My character’s tone of voice . . .
  • I explored my character’s body language by . . .
  • My workshop experience . . .
    
    Or in the body of a paragraph you could state:
    
    
  • The audience reacted with laugher when . . .
  • We explored our performance through . . .
  • In a class workshop the students created a . . .
  • We worked with each other to create . . .
  • We used our bodies to try to . . .
  • In class we explored language activities that . . .
  • We improvised a number of cultural and social concerns that were similar in both plays by . . .
  • As an audience member I found myself . . .

If you have not had much practice writing from your learning experiences it is worthwhile going back over your logbook entries to refresh your memory of the workshop activities you have undertaken that were pertinent to your understanding of the texts. For example, what improvisations, physical learning, problem-solving activities, characterisation workshops, rehearsals, performances, have you recorded, described and reflected upon that helped you actively to understand your area of dramatic study. How can you use these records and your memories to discuss dramatic meaning and audience engagement in your essay?

Dramatic elements in your essay

The elements of drama

The elements of drama are the features that give your topic area its unique shape and form, and can help you to create a written language to discuss your ideas. The elements can be expressed in the following way:

Role and character are directed by focus driven by tension, made explicit in time, place and situation through the use of structure, language, sound, movement, rhythm and moment to evoke atmosphere and symbol, which together create dramatic meaning and audience engagement (7-10 Drama Syllabus 2003, p.14).

Each topic area set for study is grounded in the elements of drama. Of course some topics may have a greater focus on such areas as character, tension and/or symbols while others may have a greater focus on place, situation and rhythm but ALL focus on creating dramatic meaning and audience engagement so in your essay it is important to use the language of the elements of drama to help you discuss your learning.

The rubric

Each topic area has a description of what you have to study and this is called the rubric. The essay question you will answer will be based in part on this rubric. For example, part of the rubric in Topic Areas 1 and 2 Australian Drama and Theatre (Core Study) asks you to investigate how different Australian practitioners use dramatic forms and performance styles and the various ways in which artistic, cultural, social, political and personal issues and concerns are reflected in different contexts. Therefore it is important to understand the terminology in your rubric in practice and try to use it in your response. For example you could discuss:

• How the play’s dramatic form (insert the dramatic form) increased the theatrical sense of . . .
  
  or
  
  
• How a workshop enabled you to understand that the performance style of (insert performance style) deepened the engagement with the audience as . . .
  
  or
  
  
• How an improvisation you experimented with explored the social and personal issues of the topic by . . .
  
  or
  
  
• How the audience’s reaction to the meaning of the play was deepened by the performance style because . . .
  
  or
  
  
• How the dramatic meaning of the performance was made clear to you as an audience member, by . . .

Note: If you don’t have a copy of the rubric ask your teacher to give it to you and spend some time explaining how it relates to the topic you have studied.

Write about drama and theatre

Remember that you chose to study drama and theatre; this is an artform that lets you explore the world around you through enactment, and therefore practical activities and exercises should be referred to (it is important to keep in mind that your essay should not be written, nor is it examined, like an English HSC essay). As well as providing a well-substantiated response that is engaging to read, let the language of drama and theatre come to life in your essay.

Reference

NSW Office of the Board of Studies, Australia, 7-10 Drama Syllabus, 2003, p.14.