Advice on marking

Literacy Objectives forms an ideal basis for developing careful, detailed comments when marking. Because each unit builds the bridge from reading appropriate texts and using these to craft writing, explicit teaching of the appropriate text conventions is made easy, especially through use of the worksheets of annotated texts and the supportive OHTs.

As the model texts encourage exploration of the text, at word, sentence and text level features, these features can then become the focus for marking. Not only will the pupils be clear about what is expected of them in their writing, but they also have a model that they can follow. Most importantly, they will know what it is you are looking for when marking, particularly if they have used the pupil checklists as support. Each pupil checklist and supporting diagnostic marking frame for the teacher’s use has been designed to support the tasks in the three books. Pupil checklists and diagnostic marking frames are provided for each of the writing purposes covered in the Pupils’ Books. The checklists and marking frames are provided in both PDF and Word format, allowing them to be adapted to meet individual pupils’ needs where necessary. The use of the same pupil checklist and marking frame for a specific writing purpose across the three years of Key Stage 3 can help to chart pupils’ progress as well as identifying strengths and weaknesses across each year group.

What do we want to see in pupils’ writing?

Clear, appropriate communication with the reader that involves a degree of subtlety and sophistication; awareness of form; controlled manipulation of meaning and layers of meaning; fluency in expression; and last but not least, accuracy!

Which means …

• That the writing has an impact on the reader
• That it addresses the issues of style, purpose and audience
• That it shows evidence of careful structure – overall and internally, within and between paragraphs (coherence and cohesion)
• That sentences are varied for clarity, purpose and effect
• That it is technically accurate with regard to syntax, punctuation and spelling
• That effective vocabulary choices have been made.

Where to start and what to do

When you are marking a piece of writing, first of all read for overall impact and then consider the strengths and weaknesses in text, sentence and word level, in order to focus appropriately on any intervention required. Use the diagnostic marking frames to focus the marking. Look for the following:

Text level features

Opening
How well does the writer establish the theme/argument? Engage the reader? Initiate a narrative problem? Create setting, character etc?
Closure
How well does the writer close the piece? Resolution? Deliberate ambiguity? Rhetorical device? Sustained form or genre?
Reader-writer relationship
Look at the level of detail provided for the reader; specifying nouns; direct address/asides; authorial comment or reflection in narrative; tone and register.
Paragraphing
Paragraphs should be used – appropriately. Each paragraph should have a clear organisational function and there should be use of topic sentences, particularly in non-fiction writing. Link words and phrases (such as firstly, however, and chronological markers – next morning), will guide and support the reader through the text. In narrative writing, paragraphs should do one of three things – sustain, develop or contrast. Once pupils have grasped that you can play around with the shift in focus, it often unlocks planning for them.

Cohesive structure
This builds on paragraphing. How well is the piece structured? There should be clear sequencing of ideas/arguments/events and cohesive use of nouns/pronouns. Substitution of key words to avoid repetition should be checked for, unless repetition is being used for deliberate effect.

Sentence level features

Sentence length/variety
Are all the sentences of a similar length, or do they vary? Short sentences can be used for dramatic effect; longer sentences for detail, elaboration, and expression of opinion/argument. Playing with sentence structure can be exciting for pupils, particularly boys. The following – repeated sentence/verb/object, frontloading subordinate clauses, using of adverbials or non-finite clauses at the start, delaying the meaning until the end for effect – are all ways of supporting pupils when they are playing around with sentence structure.
Verbs
Key questions here – does the pupil use many finite verbs with few adjectives, adverbials etc. and what is the quality of the verbs? Are there many non-lexical verbs (such as was, do, have, could) or verbs which do not carry much weight (such as got, went, said)?
Clauses
Too much co-ordination (lots of clauses linked by and or but) leads to a pedestrian, plodding and very balanced piece of writing. The most likely effect here is that the reader will fall asleep! Subordination (beginning with words like because, unless, if, that, who etc) allows for the development and expansion of complex ideas.
Punctuation
Punctuation trips pupils up, because to use a full stop disturbs the flow of writing. However, once pupils have understood that punctuation is used to make meaning clearer, they can see the relevance. They can also add punctuation for effect – dashes, ellipsis, and exclamation marks etc. Accurate sentence demarcation includes use of the comma and apostrophes of omission and formality.

Word level features

Spelling
Spelling patterns/patterns of error should be looked for when marking, so that not every spelling is corrected. Identify two or three key spellings which will have most impact and will impact on other misconceptions e.g. –ies endings, or doubling of consonants.
Lexical choices
Adventurous writing will use abstract nouns to express feelings, one powerful verb rather than a verb + adverb. And description is not about over use of adjectives.

Making this happen – strategies for success

• Use the Framework of objectives
• Use the sequence for teaching writing suggested by the Strategy to structure and focus teaching on the objective
• Demonstrate and model (the metacognitive process) – pupils need to understand the decisions that effective writers make. Let them see you go through the writing process e.g. creating an effective introduction, deciding which arguments or persuasive techniques to use, key words that you would use in descriptive writing, conscious choices of vocabulary etc. Pupils need to see what a good writer does so that they can develop the same strategies.
• Use the writing frames in Literacy Objectives to scaffold the first attempts, or work on adapting these writing frames together so that pupils can learn how to do one for themselves
• Teach paragraphing skills
• Constantly remind pupils of the mantra ‘style, purpose, audience’
• Remind pupils that they are ‘writing the reading’
• Teach connectives (link words and phrases). This will push thinking forward
• Teach co-ordination and subordination, variety in sentence lengths and types
• Ensure that pupils know the levels and what should be done to improve their own levels
• Use exemplar material or pupils’ own work to illustrate specific points
• Set targets, related to clear, shared learning objectives, to focus the teaching and learning
• Use ‘post it’ notes and annotation to create a written dialogue with the pupil

What makes comments helpful to children?

They should:

• Relate to what has been taught, reinforcing the objectives
• Be positive, indicating what has been done well
• Pick up individual or group targets, where relevant
• Indicate an area for further work and how to set about the next priority
• Be precise, including the use of shared, technical terms
• Be realistic in expectations.

When is it more useful to talk to a child?

You might choose to do this because you are not sure exactly what the child knows or intended and you need to check this before commenting. Sometimes feedback is complicated and it maybe too much to write and read and therefore needs to be staged carefully. Finally, where the work is well above or below expectation, talk enables you to deal with the issues more sensitively.

What should written comments look like?

It is not practical to talk to each pupil about each piece, so it is important to develop a style of written comment which is accessible and enables pupils to make use of what is written.
As a minimum, written comments should:

• Include a positive comment related to the objectives
• Indicate something to improve and how
• Refer to any relevant targets for writing.

Don’t forget

Written comments need not always be at the end of the work. It can be more effective to make annotations on the text at the relevant place, to indsicate strengths or areas for development. Generalised comments, particularly of the vague, approving sort, may recognise effort but do not move the pupil’s learning on. Devise routines so that the points are followed up either in group work or the next piece of writing, using some of the strategies for success listed above.

‘The only good comment is the one that causes thinking to take place’.