Illustrative sample — not a real student submission.This essay was authored as an example to show what NAPLAN marking criteria look like in practice. It is intended for educational use only and does not represent any individual student's work.
Year 7 Narrative Sample: The Last Lighthouse
Prompt:
Write a story that includes the following: a lighthouse, a secret, and a moment of decision.
The Marked Essay
Tap a highlighted phrase — or a criterion below — to see how this sample scored against each of the 10 marking criteria.
The lighthouse had not been lit for forty years. Its white paint had blistered and peeled into grey scales, and the iron railing around the lantern room had oxidised to the colour of dried blood. Every child in Kettering Cove knew the lighthouse was where you did not go — but Jonas Marsh, thirteen years old and burning with a restlessness he could not name, went anyway.
He pushed through the rotting door and climbed the spiral staircase one careful step at a time, testing each tread before committing his weight. The air smelled of salt and something older: rust, perhaps, or the slow exhalation of a building that had given up. At the top, the lantern room was flooded with afternoon light, and Jonas found himself staring at a logbook chained to the iron railing.
The last entry was dated the night of the Silver Lady disaster, 14 June 1983. Jonas read it twice, then a third time, feeling the sentence rearrange itself in his mind like a kaleidoscope clicking into focus. The lighthouse keeper — his great-grandfather, he now understood — had seen the storm coming hours before it hit. He had chosen not to light the lamp. Seventeen lives, the logbook said. Seventeen.
Jonas stood at the top of the lighthouse for a long time. He could see the whole cove from here: the fishing boats, the memorial on the headland, his own house with its yellow kitchen light already glowing against the dusk. He held the logbook tightly. He thought about his grandfather's silver frames on the mantelpiece — the photographs Jonas had grown up calling "brave".
He could take the logbook home. He could throw it into the sea. He could pretend he had never come.
Instead, Jonas walked back down the stairs, the logbook tucked under his arm, and kept walking — past the cove, past the memorial, all the way to the police station on Tanner Street. He did not know what would happen next. He only knew that the truth, however heavy, was lighter than what he had been carrying home all these years without knowing it.
Audience
The writer consistently maintains a sophisticated reader-aware voice. The tone never overexplains — it trusts the reader to feel the significance of the logbook discovery. The final metaphor ("lighter than what he had been carrying") is pitched perfectly at an audience who can hold ambiguity.
Text structure
Orientation (lighthouse, Jonas), rising tension (staircase, logbook discovery), complication (the moral weight of the secret), moment of decision (para 5), resolution (para 6). The structure is sophisticated and purposeful throughout.
Ideas
Original premise (family complicity in a maritime disaster) with sustained thematic development. The idea is explored with depth — the logbook discovery recontextualises the entire backstory. The resolution carries a moral idea about the nature of truth.
Character & setting
Jonas is fully realised: restless, perceptive, morally serious. The lighthouse is established through specific sensory detail (paint scales, rust smell, grey-red railing). The cove viewed from the top — boats, memorial, yellow kitchen light — is a beautifully composed scene that informs the character's decision.
Vocabulary
Excellent throughout: "oxidised", "exhalation", "recontextualise" (implied), "anaphoric" (implied), "kaleidoscope clicking into focus", "restlessness he could not name". No weak generic words. Every word earns its place.
Cohesion
Seamless cohesion across six paragraphs. Time markers ("forty years", "1983", "all these years"), consistent past tense, clear pronoun reference, and the logbook as a through-line object all contribute to a highly cohesive text.
Paragraphing
Six paragraphs, each with a distinct purpose. The single-paragraph decision point (para 5) is a sophisticated choice. Paragraph lengths are purposefully varied.
Sentence structure
Exceptional range: long periodic sentences, short fragments ("Seventeen."), anaphoric lists, participial phrases, embedded relative clauses. All structures are controlled and purposeful. This is the defining strength of the response.
Punctuation
Accurate and sophisticated. Em-dash-equivalent construction ("— his great-grandfather, he now understood —"), fragment as punctuation device, comma after fronted adverbials. No errors. Punctuation actively shapes meaning.
Spelling
No errors including ambitious words ("oxidised", "exhalation", "kaleidoscope"). Full marks.
Scores are for this illustrative sample only — not a real student result.
Overall Performance Note
This illustrative Year 7 response is a top-band essay across all criteria. The narrative is original, carefully structured, and demonstrably controlled. The language conventions are near-flawless. This is the kind of response that earns a Band 9–10 conversion.
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