Toolkits
Deep dives on the ideas that show up everywhere. Each one starts with why the idea exists at all — the problem it was invented to solve, what it actually does, and where it turns up outside a classroom — and then goes through it properly: the full explanation, the table you actually need, worked examples, and the mistakes that cost marks.
Close reading
Saying what a device does
Naming a metaphor earns almost nothing. This is how to write the sentence after it — technique, effect, and the link to meaning — reliably and under time pressure.
Open the toolkit
Both writing assignments
The paragraph that scores
Point, evidence, analysis, link. One unit, used in both the critical essay and the personal response, with a worked example and the ratio to aim for.
Open the toolkit
How to use these
- Wondering why any of this is a thing? Read the opening section. It is the part a textbook usually skips.
- Stuck on a question type? Open the toolkit for that idea and find the worked example closest to it.
- Revising? Read the tables and try the checks, then go to practice questions to see whether it stuck.
- Revising for a final? There is no diploma exam in Grade 11, so your school sets the exam — the printable worksheets are the closest thing here to sitting one.