English & EAL

Born a Crime: How To Elevate Your VCE Text Response Essay

Binuki de Alwis

July 23, 2025

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VCE English requires you to write analytical essays that go beyond summary or surface-level ideas. This blog will walk you through strategies to level up your Text Response essays - from vocabulary to sentence structure to analytical depth. While we’ll be using Trevor Noah’s Born a Crime as our working example, these techniques can be applied to any text you study in VCE English.

Born a Crime is a searing critique of apartheid South Africa, a powerful meditation on identity, and a deeply personal reflection on what it means to survive and resist systemic injustice. Yet, too often, students fall into the trap of writing essays about this text that simply state something along the lines of:

Racism is a key theme in Born a Crime.

Or even, 

Noah presents racism as a negative consequence of Apartheid laws.

Now this may sound like something you’ve written recently, and let’s be clear, neither of those statements is inherently wrong. They just don’t capture the full, nuanced picture. 

Remember that in your Text Response essay, you’re not here just to state the obvious; you’re here to analyse, interpret and connect ideas within the text with precision and insight. So, let’s get into how you’re going to start doing exactly that. 

Harnessing the Power of Academic Language 

Implementing academic language, to me, is the easiest way to add nuance to your sentences. Now, this doesn’t mean you slap on some random long word just to sound smart. Instead, just opt for a slight switch from vague or general words like bad, unfair or even racist, to higher level alternatives that communicate your ideas with greater sophistication. 

This doesn’t always mean a bigger or longer word, it just means a word that expresses more clearly or more accurately what you are trying to say or describe. 

For example, you could say racism or you could be more specific and reference the form of racism you wish to discuss (e.g. institutionalised racism, systemic oppression, apartheid logic, racialised hierarchy, etc).

Here are a few more examples relevant to Born a Crime

Just make sure you fully understand the words or terms you use, because mis-using big words can have the opposite effect and make your essay worse, not better. Check out Why Using Big Words in VCE Essays Can Make You Look Dumber for more. 

Sentence Starters to Help Lift Your Analysis

Once you've got the vocabulary down, the next step is how you build your sentences. One way to instantly lift the sophistication of your writing is by using sentence starters that push you to analyse, not just describe. 

These sentence structures are flexible templates - you can swap in your own ideas while keeping the analytical framing. After each template, we have included an example that relates to Born a Crime to show you how it could work in context.

  • (Author) deconstructs __ by __

E.g. Noah deconstructs the illusion of legality by exposing how apartheid laws masked racial injustice as order and neutrality.

  • By __ , (Author) __

E.g. By embedding humour into traumatic experiences, Noah reveals the absurd and illogical nature of apartheid, while still conveying the depth of its violence.

  • The (text type) reveals not just __ , but __

E.g. The memoir reveals not just the cruelty of apartheid, but the lasting psychological dissonance it causes in individuals navigating multiple identities.

  • Rather than __ , (Author) deliberately __

E.g. Rather than conforming to the racialised expectations imposed on him, Noah deliberately uses his ambiguity to navigate and resist social categorisation.

  • Through __ , the (text type) critiques __

E.g. Through Patricia’s unwavering defiance, this memoir critiques both patriarchal violence and the myth of racial obedience.

These kinds of structures move you away from summary (what happens) and toward interpretation (why it matters). That's where the high marks live.

Connecting to Bigger Ideas

Next, it is important to remember that strong VCE responses don’t just say what is in the text. They say why it matters, whether that is socially, historically or even philosophically.

So, here’s a trick: as you write your paragraphs, zoom out (we teach the zooming in and out technique in How To Write A Killer Text Response if you want to learn more about this in more depth).

Think about how Born a Crime connects to broader ideas, like:

  • Post-colonial trauma: The lasting psychological scars of colonial violence and racial categorisation.
  • White supremacy: Not just in obvious displays of racism, but in the quiet, structural ways it defines who belongs and who doesn’t.
  • Bureaucratic violence: How systems of law and governance use paperwork, rules and classification to control, criminalise and exclude.
  • Complicity: How ordinary people enable oppressive systems by choosing silence, comfort or obedience.
  • Displacement: Not just physical, but cultural and emotional. Noah belongs everywhere and nowhere at once.

Once you’ve identified one of these ideas in a moment from the text, drill into it. Ask yourself:

  • How does Noah frame this idea? 
  • What techniques does he use to explore it?
  • What does it reveal about the society he grew up in?

How To Demonstrate Complexity in Your Writing

One of the fastest ways to elevate your response is to embrace complexity. Instead of writing as though there is only one meaning or message, allow room for contradiction, ambiguity and layered interpretation.

Yes, apartheid is evil and brutal.

But also:

  • Noah shows that humour can coexist with trauma.
  • That even the oppressed can enforce oppressive systems.
  • That sometimes survival requires compromise and, perhaps, complicity.

Being able to say, there’s more than one way to read this, shows insight and maturity (and that’s what separates a B-range response from a high A+).

Final Thoughts

You’re not just writing about Born a Crime, you’re writing about a lived experience, set against the backdrop of an entire system designed to dehumanise. Noah’s memoir is funny, yes, but it is also deeply political, deeply painful and deeply intentional.

So, when you next sit down to plan your essay, challenge yourself to go beyond what’s obvious.

Say more than ‘racism is bad’.

  • Say,
‘Noah critiques the apartheid state’s attempt to reduce identity to a legal construct, and in doing so, exposes the violence of classification itself.’
  • Say,
Born a Crime is not just about surviving injustice, but about the quiet, everyday ways people resist, reimagine and reclaim their humanity.’

Born a Crime is usually studied in the Australian curriculum as a Text Response. For a detailed guide on Text Response, check out our Ultimate Guide to Text Response.

Get our FREE VCE English Text Response mini-guide

Now quite sure how to nail your text response essays? Then download our free mini-guide, where we break down the art of writing the perfect text-response essay into three comprehensive steps.

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