WACE Literature study guide
WACE Literature · Work through your exam, one topic at a time.
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 course develops two connected capabilities: reading and responding to literary texts, and producing literary texts and critical writing. Students analyse how authors shape meaning through form, structure, language and style, and they produce their own creative and critical responses. Topics on this exam: Reading and responding to literary texts and Producing literary texts and critical writing. The WACE Literature study guide has 2 sections and about 689 words.
01Reading and Responding to Literary Texts
Close reading that moves from observation to interpretation to evaluation. You must name and use the core concepts: narrative voice and point of view (first/third person, limited or omniscient, free indirect discourse), characterisation (direct and indirect, showing and telling), setting as more than backdrop, structure (framing, juxtaposition, turning points, closure), imagery and figurative language (metaphor, simile, personification, symbol, motif), sound and rhythm (alliteration, assonance, metre, caesura, enjambment), diction and register , tone and mood , intertextuality and allusion , and context of production and reception . Genre matters too: know the conventions of tragedy, bildungsroman, satire and lyric, and notice when a text conforms to or troubles them. Feature-spotting without purpose.
364 words, about 2 min02Producing Literary Texts and Critical Writing
This domain asks you to create (imaginative, persuasive or interpretive texts) and to argue (critical essays). Both demand control of form, audience and purpose. For creative production , understand voice and persona , point of view , genre conventions and how to bend them , structure and pacing , sensory imagery and concrete detail , dialogue and subtext , motif and repetition , and syntactic variety (sentence length for rhythm and emphasis). Show, don't merely tell.
325 words, about 2 min