1.

Themes

Themes

Being judgemental

Explanation and textual

evidence
Explanation
The short story is revolved around the
theme of being judgemental. There are a
few characters can be related to this
theme. They might jump into conclusion
too soon and it caused misunderstanding.

Examples
Lynne is one of the characters who is
judgemental. After she read about the
book written by William Bradburie in the
library, she was filled with anger. She said
that Geoff is cheating in the short story
competition even though she has never
read Geoffs story before.

Another person related to the theme is

Marge. She is the classmate for Geoff and
Marge. When Geoff mentioned that he
wanted to be a barrister or lawyer, Marge
labelled him as money minded. It can be
hurtful when we labelled someone.

Explanation
A creative idea or innovation like is not
always original because we will take idea
and inspiration from different resources to
make improvement. The same goes with
story writing, the originality does not really
exist because our storys idea will come
from the story that we read, our
experience and our surrounding.

Example

Creative writing is not

always original

Lynne emphasised the importance of

originality in the writing. When she
realised that Geoff is not cheating, she was
wondering whether she had read any story
related to the sheepdog in flood.

As for Geoff story, although his story idea

is similar to William Bradburies story, Mr
Velos told Lynne that the story is still
consider original and Geoff is not cheating.

2. Moral Values
Moral Values

Honesty and
courage

Explanation
Honesty and courage are
about being brave to tell
someone the truth. We
must take responsibility to
the mistakes that we have
done.

Examples

We consider that Geoff is

an honest person. After
Lynne shouted at Geoff,
Geoff went to Mr Velos
office to confess that he
might be cheating due to
the similarity of his story
and William Bradburies
story.

Perseverance

Avoid being
judgemental

If we are perseverance, we
will not give up easily even
the job is challenging or
difficult. We will keep on
trying until we achieve
success.

We must not be
judgemental because the
truth might be different
from what we think. If we
do not know the detail of
the situation, we should
not make the conclusion
too soon.

Lynne used weeks to

complete the miserable
story. She spent time to
draft and rewrite the story.
Although in the end, she
won the second place in
the competition, I
personally consider that it
is a good result from her
hard work.

After she read about the

book written by William
Bradburie in the library,
she was filled with anger.
She said that Geoff is
cheating in the short story
competition even though
she has never read Geoffs
story before.

3. Characters
Lynne Webbings

Textual evidence

Ambitious
Lynne had a big dream to win the HolmesWatkins medal in the short story
competition. When the result announced,
she felt really disappointed.

Jealous and vengeful

Persevering

Lynne was jealous and vengeful when Geoff

won the competition. After she discovered
that William Bradburies story was similar
to Geoffs story, she wanted to take
revenge by reporting to Mr Velos so that
she could win back the medal.

Lynne used weeks to complete the

miserable story. She spent time to draft
and rewrite the story. Although in the end,
she won the second place in the
competition, I personally consider that it is
a good result from her hard work.

Geoff Bolder

Humorous

Realistic

Honest

Textual evidence
Geoff tried to cheer Lynne by telling her a
joke. Geoff joked about how Mr Velos
picked the winner by climbing up to his
lovely special mahagony desk and dropped
both papers, and the papers that hit the
floor first wins.

Although Geoff has potential in writing, he

wants to be a barrister because he says
that there is more money in law.

Geoff confessed to Mr Velos that he had

read a book by the American Humourist,
William Bradburie three years ago.