What is textual integrity in HSC English?

Textual integrity is how a work’s form, structure and language work together to develop its ideas. In HSC English Advanced, explain how choices made across the text build a coherent whole, then judge what those choices contribute to its literary value. A single quotation can start that argument. Evidence from across the work sustains it.

Worked example

Imagine a short story that opens with a locked gate and ends with the gate open after the narrator has driven away the person they hoped to protect. The gate recurs, but its meaning shifts from safety to the cost of exclusion.

The opening and ending work together. Reversing the image makes the ending revisit the narrator’s earlier assumption about protection. That relationship between recurring language, the story’s structure and its central idea supports a judgement about the work as a whole.

The locked gate at the start suggests safety. The open gate at the end suggests loss. Reading them together connects the recurring image and story structure to the cost of exclusion.

What is textual integrity in HSC English?

Worked example

Official exam practice