WACE Literature case studies
WACE Literature · Put your knowledge to work in context.
WACE Literature is a Western Australian senior-secondary course within the Western Australian Certificate of Education, administered by the School Curriculum and Standards Authority (SCSA). It suits Year 11 and 12 students who enjoy close reading and want to build interpretive arguments about literary texts, and it is commonly taken as an ATAR pathway subject by students aiming at university humanities study. The WACE Literature case studies are 5 cases and about 2,234 words.
1The Two Readings of the Final Stanza
A Year 12 student is analysing a 24-line poem for a closed-book timed response. The final stanza reads: 'The gate stands open still, / though no one walks the path / that we once wore to dust.' In her first draft she writes: 'The open gate shows the speaker's enduring hope that the beloved will return.' Her teacher marks this as an over-reading and asks her to distinguish between what the text supports and what she has imported.
485 words, about 2 min2Choosing Between Two Poems Under Exam Conditions
A student has 50 minutes to write one comparative response. The question asks how two poems present memory.
415 words, about 2 min3The Creative Piece That Borrows Too Much
A student submits a 900-word creative narrative for internal assessment. It retells a scene from a set novel from a minor character's point of view, using the novel's character names, setting, and one paraphrased exchange of dialogue.
466 words, about 2 min4The Quotation That Does Not Say What She Thinks
In an essay on a play, a student argues that a character is 'consumed by guilt'. Her key evidence is the line: 'I did not think the deed would look so red.' She glosses it as 'the character admits guilt and cannot bear what he has done'.
444 words, about 2 min5Structuring a Response to an Unseen Passage
A student faces an unseen prose passage of about 350 words and must write a critical response in 40 minutes. The passage is third person, past tense, with one long sentence of 60 words followed by several of four or five words.
424 words, about 2 min