This document provides questions for students to answer in a statement of explanation (SOE) about a written piece. It asks students to reflect on choices made regarding writing structure and style, intended audience, themes addressed in relation to prompts, use of source material, and language techniques used to achieve their goals. Students are reminded to be concise and address a few questions from each section rather than trying to answer every question posed.

1. Statement of explanation
What choices have you made in your
writing?

2. How is this form appropriate to this
style?
• What is it about the structure of your writing
that makes it a short story, descriptive
narrative, journal entry, or blog?

3. Who is the audience and why might they
be interested in this piece?
• Who is your piece aimed at and what will they
get out of reading it?
• Which less obvious groups might get something
out of reading your piece?
• What kind of publication would you imagine it
would appear in and what kind of readership
does it attract?
• Why is it important that such a readership hear
your ideas?

4. What is it you intend your audience to think
about as a result of reading your piece?
• What opinions are you trying to change?
• What might someone learn from reading your
piece?

5. How does your piece show an understanding of
the context of Encountering Conflict and the
use of the prompt?
• What aspect of the encountering conflict have
you explored in your piece?
• Is there something unusual or not often
spoken about in relation to E.C. that you have
chosen to focus on?
• How has the prompt shaped your piece? Was
it the starting point? Was it the moral of the
piece?

6. How did you use the ideas and content
of the text ‘Paradise Road’ in your piece?
• What aspect of the movie did you incorporate
into your writing?
• Is there a particular scene or theme in the film
which inspired you?

7. What choices did you make in terms of vocabulary,
punctuation and language techniques to best suit
your intentions?
• Did you start your piece mid- action or mid-
conversation?
• What kind of figurative language did you use?
Simile? Metaphor?
• Did you use certain adjectives or adverbs to
create a particular feelings or sense of place?

8. REMEMBER
• You don’t need to address every question that
has been raised in this presentation
• Choose a couple of questions for each section of
your SOE and be concise
• This is designed to show us that you have
deliberately used some writing techniques and
not others
• This happens naturally when you write with a
particular audience in mind so make sure you
have a very clear idea who that is