Student true story time.
This Year 12 student had worked for hours and hours (and hours) preparing, drafting and perfecting the short story creative task they’d been set in Y12 English.
They submitted their story and they got a B grade.
The next week, they sat their exam, which covered the exact same task and content.
(Don’t get me started on this type of assessment – I’ll save that for another time! But as you can probably tell I’m not a fan – for a variety of reasons).
Anyway, they did what they thought was a good job.
BUT. Cue results…
They got… a D.
Whaaaat?!
(That’s what they were asking too).
But there WAS a clear reason.
This week, I’m explaining why this happened and exactly what we did to turn things around.
This Year 12 student had worked for hours and hours (and hours) preparing, drafting and perfecting the short story creative task they’d been set in Y12 English.
Because this was in preparation for real assessment of writing the short story under exam conditions, they’d been given the scaffold and all the requirements of what had to go in there. So that stage of practice and preparation and prpducing their narrative had mainly been about coming up with a good story line and then making sure all the specified elements were there and worked well together.
They submitted their story they’d worked on in class and for homework and the teacher marked it and they got a B grade.
They were pretty happy with that as creative writing was not one their natural strengths or something they particularly enjoyed. In fact, it was something they struggled with and would rather do the dishes every night for a month than have to come up with and write a story!
Anyhow, the next week, they sat the exam, where they had to write that story in exam conditions.
(Don’t get me started on this type of assessment – I’ll save that for another time! But as you can probably tell I’m not a fan – for a variety of reasons).
Anyway, they did what they thought was a good job. Of course they didn’t remember everything word for word. They left a couple of things out that they forgot, and changed or adapted a couple of parts , but they were confident they’d do pretty well.
Cue results and they got… a D.
As you can imagine they were pretty disappointed, but more than that, they were confused and disheartened. They didn’t understand why their mark had dropped so much.
They’d re-told the same story. It had the same beginning, middle and end. They’d got the same characters and setting.
So, I offered to take a look.
From the first reading I could see why they’d got a D.
And I knew the likely reason and situation that had led to this.
Because I’ve seen it so many times in different subjects and different types of tasks.
The reason they’d got a much lower mark was because the little bits that they’d missed out or forgotten to include, were the elements that were going to earn them marks!
In this case it was the specific literary techniques.
Things like using metaphors, onomatopoeia and imagery in their writing.
Using emotive language.
Also, the more mechanical elements, like including direct speech and formatting that correctly with accurate punctuation and line breaks.
And having a variety of sentence structures that enhance the events in the story at particular moments.
In other words they HADN’T REALISED WHICH WERE THE MOST IMPORTANT bits in their writing.
This student wasn’t clear on what was actually going to earn them marks in the exam.
And they didn’t know that the word-y syllabus criteria – that are so often an additional task in themselves to decipher and de-code – meant that these super-specific items are the things that markers are looking for.
They, like most students, thought it was more about the storyline, the events and the characters.
And that would make sense, right?
The task is to write a short story. So you’d be forgiven for thinking that the marking criteria would be centred around your storyline, setting, events and characters.
It’s not.
And the more students I can help to realise this, the more students are going to focus on the elements and techniques WITHIN the story, rather than the story itself.
You can get a better mark with great techniques but poor story, than with a great storyline but no techniques that the marker can tick off the checklist.
Which was what this Y12 student had ended up with in their exam. A great story that had virtually no specific literary techniques.
But this is ACTUALLY a true story with a happy ending. Because of course the good news is that armed with that checklist and then and run with it in their finals.
AND by sharing this story, I’m hoping that more students can live happily ever after in each and every creative writing or narrative task they do from now on.
Until next week, let’s make this a fantastic week.
Yours,
Katie 🙂
