BlogStudyHow I Wrote My English Notes to Score Band 6 Exam Results
How I Wrote My English Notes to Score Band 6 Exam Results
Most students take English notes the wrong way. Are you one of them?
After 200+ hours of tutoring, I’ve discovered the simple note-taking system that top students use to predict questions, master the rubric, and walk into the exam knowing exactly what to write.
In this article, I’m going to show you:
The exact way top students annotate the rubric (and why it matters more than you think)
A 3-step method to write notes that actually help you in the exam
How to build an essay scaffold that writes half the essay for you
3 ways to use your notes that most students never consider
Bonus: FREE Band 6 essay scaffold + note templates you can download
The best part? It’s all easier than you think—once you know what to do 💪
With Maths, it’s easy. You get formulas. You get topics. You follow steps. But in English? You’re handed a novel or a film and told, “Go write an essay.” About what, exactly?
Should you memorise quotes? Analyse characters? Include the author’s childhood trauma?
Most students are never taught what actually matters when writing notes for English—and that’s why so many waste hours copying down information they’ll never use.
But here’s the good news: there’s a system. And once you know it, everything clicks.
In this guide, you’ll discover the three types of English notes that Band 6 students swear by—and how to structure them so they actually help you write better essays.
The 3 Types of English Notes You Need
Here’s a hard truth: most students have notes… but not the right ones. The kind that actually help you predict questions, craft killer thesis statements, and write under pressure.
So, what do top-scoring students do differently? They don’t just summarise texts. They build a note system that sets them up to win. Here’s what that looks like:
1️⃣ Annotated Rubrics That Explain the Marking Criteria for You
Markers don’t care how many quotes you’ve memorised if you’re not hitting the criteria. Annotated rubrics are your roadmap. They help you break down each criteria point so you can tailor your responses to meet them directly.
2️⃣ Text-Specific Notes That Cover What’s Actually Important
Stop wasting time with giant quote dumps. Smart notes focus only on what actually matters—themes, techniques, key quotes, and how each one links back to the module focus.
Once you’ve got this structure, turning notes into paragraphs becomes insanely fast—especially under exam conditions.
3️⃣ Essay Scaffolds That Make Writing Feel Automatic
Essay frameworks give you a go-to structure for common question types. Instead of improvising under pressure, you’ll slot your ideas straight into place—like a formula, but for English.
These 3 note types aren’t “nice to have”—they’re how top students save time, avoid burnout, and still smash their exams.
Should I handwrite or type my notes?
There’s a reason students get stuck on this question—it feels like choosing between what’s efficient and what actually sticks in your brain.
So, which should you go with?
👉 Handwriting is better if:
You find that typing turns into autopilot and your brain checks out.
You’re a visual learner who loves using colour, layout, and doodles to make things memorable.
You want to slow down and absorb what you’re learning as you write—it forces deeper processing.
👉 Typing is better if:
You want fast, searchable notes (hello, Ctrl + F) that save you time during revision.
You’re juggling multiple texts and want to quickly copy-paste quotes or reorganise ideas.
You’re a clean, minimalist learner who works best with digital structure.
My take? I always typed my notes—being able to instantly find quotes or restructure my essay ideas made exam prep way less stressful.
But here’s the truth: the “right” method is the one that makes you actually use your notes. If typing means you revise more, do that. If handwriting helps you remember better, stick with it.
Still unsure? Try both for one topic—and see which one you actually revisit later.
Here’s the mistake nearly every student makes (including me): You read the rubric once in Week 1… then forget it even exists.
Big mistake. Huge.
Because that “boring overview” your teacher hands out? It’s actually a a line-by-line breakdown of what your markers want you to say in the exam. That’s why top students annotate it like a map—because every verb, noun, and adjective is a clue.
Here’s how to start:
Highlight key directive words (like evaluate, challenge, consider)
Unpack each phrase: What is it actually asking you to explore or argue?
Reflect on how these ideas link to your texts, your thesis, and your essay structure
Here’s an example of an annotated rubric table for the Year 12 Common Module:
Extract from Rubric
Explanation
In this common module students deepen their understanding of how texts represent individual and collective human experiences.
An individual human experience is one experienced by one individual whereas a collective experience is shared.
They examine how texts represent human qualities and emotions associated with, or arising from, these experiences.
Explore the attributes, characteristics and feelings connected to or caused by human experiences.
Students appreciate, explore, interpret, analyse and evaluate the ways language is used to shape these representations in a range of texts in a variety of forms, modes and media.
How do different forms of texts utilise language to explore human experiences? How effective is the use of language in exploring this?
Students explore how texts may give insight into the anomalies, paradoxes and inconsistencies in human behaviour and motivations, inviting the responder to see the world differently, to challenge assumptions, ignite new ideas or reflect personally.
How do anomalies, paradoxes and inconsistencies prompt students to think about the world in a new way?
Anomalies: Behaviour and motivations outside the norms and conventions of a particular social context. Paradoxes: Behaviour and motivations which on the surface, do not make sense… Inconsistencies: Behaviour and motivations which change in some way.
They may also consider the role of storytelling throughout time to express and reflect particular lives and cultures.
How have storytelling techniques evolved throughout time, and how do they differ between cultures? What role does storytelling play in different communities and how does it explore human experiences?
By responding to a range of texts they further develop skills and confidence using various literary devices, language concepts, modes and media to formulate a considered response to texts.
Through studying the prescribed texts, students can strengthen their own writing skills, applying this to their essay responses.
How to Write English Notes for Specific Texts
Step 1: Research
Start by highlighting key quotes from the text for reference so you can include them in your notes and use them for analysis. This is often the most confusing part of the process because it’s difficult to know what quotes are useful for your analysis.
Take a look at this example of a marked-up passage from Macbeth, and then use the table below for what to look for in your own prescribed text!
What to Look For
What it Means
How to Spot It
Techniques
Techniques are the way an author uses language to create a certain effect.
Some common effects are:
1. Creating a deeper meaning.
2. Making the audience relate or empathise with a character.
3. Simply just making the writing sound nice.
Some common techniques to look for are metaphors, imagery and characterisation.
It’s useful to create a list (or find one online) of the most common techniques and their definitions so you can refer to it while reading through your text.
It’s also helpful to highlight anything that stands out to you. If you sense there might be a hidden meaning or if the wording feels unusual but you’re not sure why, chances are the author is using a technique!
Themes
Themes are basically the main ideas and subjects which are represented within a narrative.
Themes are not to be confused with motifs, which are images or concepts that recur throughout a text.
Motifs can be used to represent a theme, for example, the image of a cross and the concept of an afterlife are motifs that represent the broader theme of religion.
It’s helpful to research the text first and identify all the main themes so you know what you’re looking for when highlighting quotes.
Pay special attention to the conflicts that shape the plot and moments where characters openly express their beliefs.
These often highlight the main ideas and provide concrete examples to connect to the themes you're analysing.
Context
Context is the background information of what was happening when the text was written.
There are several different types of context:
Sociopolitical context: Any political or social movements happening when the text was written. Cultural context: Any traditions, customs or other cultural norms when the text was written. Personal context: What was happening in the author’s life when the text was written. Literary context: What was happening in the literary world when the text was written. Textual context: The time period and place that the story itself is set in. This can be different from the author’s own experience.
Look for parts of the narrative that closely reflect real world events.
For example, if a character is going through a divorce and the author wrote the book right after being divorced themselves, the text’s representation of divorce would likely be influenced by their personal context.
Perspectives
A perspective is the overarching view of an author on the themes they are exploring.
A perspective can either be supportive or critical.
Take the theme of technological advancement, here are two differing perspectives an author could present:
Supportive: "Technological advancement is beneficial for society because it enables progress in fields such as healthcare and education." Critical: "Technological advancement is detrimental to society because it impedes human autonomy and creativity."
Sometimes authors will incorporate lines or even full speeches that align with their own perspective.
An example of this is the ‘Quality of Mercy’ speech from William Shakespeare’s The Merchant of Venice where he presents a supportive perspective on the Christian ideal of mercy.
However, authors aren’t always as direct with their perspectives and you have to read into how things are represented in the text.
For example, Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale never flat out mentions the notion of a patriarchy. However, through the oppressive way she portrays a society that controls women’s bodies and limits their freedoms, the reader can understand that she is critiquing the ways in which a patriarchal system denies women their autonomy.
Step 2: Organisation
So you’ve gathered your quotes, context, techniques, and themes… but now your notes feel like a cluttered brain dump.Here’s where most students stop—and why their essays fall flat.
The secret to writing sharp, Band 6-level paragraphs?
You need to draw the links between your evidence and ideas before you write. When you can clearly connect your quotes to techniques, themes, and context, your analysis becomes automatic.
If you’re a visual learner and want to have all the main ideas surrounding a quote in one place, then a mind-map might be the best way to go:
To organise your notes so they are relevant to the module’s rubric, I also recommend having significant rubric phrases as subheadings for you to organise your analysis under them and ensure you’re including key terms.
Here’s an example with The Crucible and the ‘Texts and Human Experiences’ rubric.
Rubric Excerpt:The representation of paradoxes, anomalies and inconsistencies of human behaviour and motivation.
Quote from Text: “Danforth: You misunderstand, sir; I cannot pardon these when twelve are already hanged for the same crime. It is not just.”
Analysis: Danforth deludes himself into thinking it would be more just to hang more people on the same false pretences rather than admit they were wrongly sentenced, thus highlighting the inconsistency between his self-proclaimed motivation of being devoted to God and immoral behaviour of prioritising his reputation and position of power in the court over than human life.
To focus on analysing literary techniques, making a TEE table for each theme is really useful for unpacking quotes in a digestible yet detailed way.
Can’t spot any techniques? Staring at a quote thinking, “How am I supposed to analyse this?” That’s where Artie, our AI English tutor, steps in.
Just paste in a quote, and Artie instantly:
Identifies multiple literary techniques
Explains their effect in simple, clear language
Shows how they link to key themes and rubric focus
No more second-guessing your analysis. No more quote paralysis. Try Artie’s “Identify Techniques” tool now and watch your quote analysis level up in seconds.
Step 3: Sophistication
Once you’ve compiled all your own analysis, it’s a good idea to read scholarly articles about your text and find quotes from academics that you can refer to in your essay to add greater sophistication and show the extent of your knowledge.
Remember that you have to unpack any quote you include from an article and how it relates to your argument to show you actually understand what the author is saying and aren’t just cramming it in to prove you did further reading.
JSTOR and Google Scholar are good places to look since they’re free to access and have a vast range of articles.
Making Essay Scaffolds
An essay scaffold basically splits up a whole essay into all its individual parts. It’s really useful for giving you a clear structure to follow and ensuring that you’re including everything you need to get top marks in your essay.
Thesis
‣ Start with a thesis statement that responds directly to the question and presents a clear argument.
‣ Make sure you answer every part of the question. For example, if your question is “how are poetic devices used to represent the experience of isolation,” and you only talk about isolation being emotionally draining without mentioning any poetic devices, then you haven’t fully answered the question.
Introduction
‣ Introduce all the key arguments you’ll be unpacking later in further detail. Typically, an introduction includes one sentence per body paragraph to encapsulate its main ideas.
‣ Don’t go into any analysis because that’s what your body paragraphs are for!
Body Paragraphs
‣ A body paragraph should contain around 2-4 quotes from the text.
‣ You need to identify at least one literary technique in every quote you choose.
‣ Just stating something like “this line is a metaphor” doesn’t count as analysis. You need to explain what the metaphor means and how it contributes to a deeper concept within the text.
‣ After unpacking the effect of your literary technique, explain how it provides an insight relevant to your essay question.
‣ Include a reference to context or authorial intent that is relevant to your analysis.
Conclusion
‣ Summarise your key arguments and restate the thesis in a nuanced way.
‣ Your conclusion doesn’t need to be very long, about three sentences is all you need to sum everything up.
‣ Don’t present any new analysis, just outline your final thoughts on all the points you have already made.
3 Ways I Used my Notes to Study for English
1️⃣ Revising the rubric
Using my annotated rubric for reference, I would go over quotes I collected and write the key terms or phrases that are relevant to each one in order to make sure ideas from the rubric were at the forefront of my analysis.
For example:
“The new sun pouring upon her [Elizabeth’s] face” → Qualities of hope and justice arising from the human experience of redemption.
“Is there no good penitence but it be public” → The judicial collective claims to be motivated by justice, but paradoxically engages in public humiliation to assert their dominance over individuals who do not conform to their religious ideologies.
2️⃣ Memorisation
This is the classic strategy of just drilling what you’ve written into your brain.
However, it’s not all that beneficial to memorise a whole essay word by word because it takes way too much time and you’re going to need to adapt your essay to the exam questionyou get on the day anyway.
I usually just memorised bits of analysis (i.e. quotes, techniques and relevant context) that were adaptable to most kinds of questions.
For example, for the Common Module: Texts and Human experiences, most questions cover some aspect of identity (individual vs collective identity, how identity is shaped by human experiences, inconsistencies between identity and human behaviour etc.) so I knew that I can reuse a lot of my notes related to that theme.
Ultimately, memorisation should be a process of first reading through your notes and highlighting the parts you think will be the most adaptable for writing an essay on the spot, then trying to commit them to memory.
3️⃣ Working on practice questions
Rather than writing a full essay, which is really time-consuming and only gives you practice for one type of question, I collected a bunch of questions from past papers (like this these ones for Mod A) and used essay scaffolds to fill in all the most important details.
This really helped get me thinking about how to respond to lots of different questions and adapting the quotes and techniques I already had to fit into a new argument. Also, a few times, I got a similar question during the actual exam and I found that details from my essay plan came flooding back to me even though I hadn’t actively tried to memorise it!
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Christina Ugov is currently completing a double degree in International and Global Studies and Theatre and Performance at the University of Sydney. Outside of her studies, she enjoys exploring creative writing projects, analysing literature and playing with her cat. She spends her spare time reading, listening to music and drinking lots of tea.
Gabrielle Wong was a Digital Marketing Assistant at Art of Smart. She graduated from the University of Sydney, studying a Bachelor of Arts/Advanced Studies majoring in Media and Communications and Marketing.
