QCAA English & Literature Extension case studies
QCAA English & Literature Extension · Put your knowledge to work in context.
English & Literature Extension is a Queensland General senior syllabus, published by the Queensland Curriculum & Assessment Authority, for students who will complete their study of the course in 2026 or beyond. The current document is version 1.4, last updated 15 June 2026, and an amendment report for that version is published alongside it. The QCAA English & Literature Extension case studies are 5 cases and about 2,643 words.
1The Contested Dedication Page
A Year 12 student is drafting an independent research essay on how dedication pages function as paratexts. She has three sources.
525 words, about 3 min2The Adaptation Comparison Under Time Pressure
In a 50-minute supervised assessment, a student must write a comparative analysis of a novel and its film adaptation, focusing on how each text constructs a protagonist's interiority. The novel uses free indirect discourse across 340 pages; the film uses voiceover in only four scenes plus long silent close-ups.
523 words, about 3 min3The Poetry Pairing Decision
A student must select two poems from a prescribed set of six for a comparative close-reading task. The six poems are: (1) a sonnet about grief using strict iambic pentameter; (2) a free-verse poem about urban alienation with fragmented syntax; (3) a villanelle about lost love with heavy repetition; (4) a prose poem about immigration and language loss; (5) a lyric poem about nature with regular quatrains and ABAB rhyme; (6) a dramatic monologue in the voice of a historical painter.
568 words, about 3 min4The Unreliable Narrator in a Creative Response
A student is writing a 1,200-word creative response to a novel with an unreliable first-person narrator. The assessment requires the response to 'demonstrate understanding of narrative technique' and to be accompanied by a 300-word reflective statement explaining choices.
511 words, about 3 min5The Secondary Source Conflict
A student researching a novel's treatment of colonial memory has found two critics who disagree. Critic X (a 2008 article in a peer-reviewed journal) argues the novel ultimately reinforces colonial nostalgia through its elegiac tone.
516 words, about 3 min