The four-text requirement and choosing your texts
The counts, and why they are checked first
- At least four texts must be included. This is a count, so it is the first thing a marker or moderator verifies, and the easiest mark in the standard to lose.
- At least one text must be student selected — selected by you, not by the class, the teacher or the syllabus.
- Texts may be written, visual and/or oral, short and/or extended, or any combination. A film, a broadcast, a poem and a novel is a legal set.
- The connection must link all four. The Explanatory Notes say the connection relates to how all texts are linked, so a response that runs three texts hard and mentions the fourth once has not met the standard.
- A text only counts if it is genuinely used. Apply the removal test: take one text out and see whether the argument changes. If nothing changes, that text was decoration and you have effectively submitted three.
What student selected means
- You chose it, and you can say why. The reason matters more than the source, because the reason is what makes the choice yours.
- Recommended is not assigned. A text a teacher pointed you toward still counts if you read it, judged it, and decided it belonged in this set.
- A text everyone in the class studied does not count, even if you liked it most.
- Name it in one sentence at the front of your response. That removes any doubt at moderation and costs you nothing.
Choosing texts that will produce an argument
- Choose the connection and the set together. Picking four texts first and then hunting for something they share produces a true, weak connection.
- Mix forms deliberately. Four novels tend to produce a connection about content. A set that crosses forms forces you to state the connection at the level of effect, which is where the judgements live.
- Include at least one short text. A short text can be held in mind whole, which makes structural claims about it checkable.
- Look for a set where the texts disagree. Four texts saying the same thing produce a response with one half. Four texts answering the same question differently produce a second half, where Level 3 is earned.
- Choose the student-selected text last. Once you know what the other three share, you can choose a fourth that tests it.
The trap: the fourth text that fits too well
- A fourth text chosen because it matches perfectly adds nothing. If it does what the other three already do, your response gains a paragraph and no argument.
- Prefer the text that fits awkwardly but genuinely. An awkward fit gives you something to explain, and explaining it is an evaluative judgement.
- The diagnostic question: does my fourth text let me say something about the other three that I could not say without it? If not, replace it.
The grade ladder, once
- This is the ladder the whole standard runs on. Later pages name the grades without re-defining them.
| Grade | The standard's wording | What the Explanatory Notes say it means |
|---|---|---|
| Achieved | respond critically | Evaluative interpretations and judgements, supported by evidence |
| Merit | convincingly | Discerning and informed judgements |
| Excellence | perceptively | Sophisticated and insightful and/or original judgements |
- Nothing on that list is length, text count, or amount of evidence. More of those moves you along Achieved, not up the ladder.
- Applied to text choice: Achieved is four texts genuinely used; Merit shows in why the set was chosen; Excellence needs the fourth text to change the reading of the first three.
Worked Example
Worked Example
A student has five candidates, all described here specially for this page, and must build a set of four around the question of how a text handles a decision that has already been made.
| Text | Form | Source | |
|---|---|---|---|
| A | Notice of Closure — a one-page council notice closing a river swimming hole | Written, short | Class set |
| B | The Long Paddock — a memoir of a family's last season on a farm | Written, extended | Class set |
| C | Crossing — a twelve-minute film of a family's last morning in a house; a sale sign enters frame at 0:40 | Visual | Class set |
| D | Fifteen Minutes — a radio talkback segment arguing about the swimming ban | Oral | Available |
| E | The Shed Sale — a short story in which a family sells a farm and is sad about it | Written, short | Available |
Choose four, and identify the student-selected text.
Answer:
Step 1 — establish what the class texts share. A, B and C all present a decision already taken before the text begins, and in none of them does anyone argue with it, because no decision-maker appears.
Step 2 — test the two candidates. Text E fits perfectly, and that is the problem: decision made, family sad, nobody to argue with — a fourth paragraph and no new claim. Text D fits awkwardly, and the awkwardness is useful: it covers the same decision as Text A, and it is the only text in which people do argue, loudly, without ever reaching the person who decided.
Step 3 — choose, and say what the fourth text does for the others. D is not another example of the pattern; it is the test of it. Three texts present decisions nobody contests, so the natural reading is resignation. D shows fifteen minutes of contest changing nothing — which suggests the silence in A, B and C is not resignation but accuracy about where the decision was made.