[English] RE: english Digest, Vol 33, Issue 11

[PeterPidduck at caulfieldgs.vic.edu.au]

Here's my response to the range of comments on the assessors evening -
and a point about methodology (or at least its implications).

It's interesting the range of ways the same thing can be seen. I agree
with Gail about the complexity of writing exams to suit everyone, and
that the way the exam setters think about a text or Context does not
always match the way those teaching it perceive it, and I also have
faith that the assessors and the assessment process is as fair as it
possibly can be - in my own experience of assessing, Bob Hillman always
works very hard to get a consensus of opinion among the markers, and he
communicates the discriminators very clearly. My concern was that the
assessor meeting was used by some on the panel to repeatedly defend the
exam in such a way that felt as though any disagreement about the exam
could only be thought of as ignorance or carping. I didn't feel as
though I was doing either (I didn't actually teach 'Look Both Ways', and
am glad to hear that there was some positive responses to the question
that I still feel is misconceived), but I did make a quite lengthy
response to VCAA concerning the examination about 11.00 am on the day of
the exam, and I have not received even notice of a receipt. I therefore
rightly or wrongly took what I was hearing from the assessor meeting to
be the answer. The exam was excellent. Full stop.

I thought Bob Hillman did a good job of dealing with the context
responses - if he had suggested that one form (imaginative, persuasive,
expository) had been more successful than others, he would have been
signalling to teachers to focus on one form over the other - and this is
true for a whole range of other possible advice he could have given. He
was in a genuinely difficult position in not being seen to second guess
the course that he is responsible for assessing, not implementing. I
think we can rely on the fact that good writing was and will continue to
be rewarded, and the message was clear: we should use our own judgements
within the criteria. If we want further clarification about this section
(especially the confused place of the text), then it is to come from the
curriculum managers and exam setters, not the assessors.

However, I was not so confident about a similar open-endedness in the
advice for text. It seems a small thing, but when the criteria says
'using an appropriate strategy', I am interested in the implications (if
any) of glossing over the term with another term such as 'structure'.
Presumably all coherent essays will have a cohesive structure, but I
felt that the term 'structure' was used as though it were a fixed entity
that can be applied to any essay. The term is harmless enough in itself,
but considering that Ross Huggard lectures very widely on approaches to
the writing of text essays at a very large number of venues, whilst also
appearing widely in print offering the same advice, this notion of
structure could be assumed to have a contextual understanding. There is
nothing of course wrong with Ross lecturing and writing, but his
prominence on the English circuit combined with his senior role in VCAA
assessment does call into question how much such advice should be seen
as advice and how much of it should be seen as direction. The fault does
not lie with Ross, he is free to air his views as the rest of us are,
but I am worried that if Ross's notion of essay structure is the
preferred one (especially when teaching the lower to middle strength
students), then I should subsume my own judgement and teach this
approach to my students.
 
My own view is that there are many ways to effectively answer an essay
question for weak and middle strength students as well as strong
students (who can always take care of themselves in exams). For
instance, I often find an essay that uses an introduction to set out the
three or four areas that will be discussed in the main body (which is
then referred to in the conclusion) quite cumbersome (although of course
this can be done very well), and often advise against it. If there is an
assumption made anywhere in the assessment that this is 'the' essay
structure, then I would be putting my students at a disadvantage for not
advising it. I don't want to discuss the pros and cons of such a
structure, but rather I want to highlight that we might need
clarification about what is advice and what is direction, especially
because English teachers, by the very nature of the subject, will always
have a far reaching set of opinions about how it should be taught. This
is all the more reason to have such things discussed, and for there to
be as many voices in the mix as possible. Indeed, if there is to be a
more singular approach in something, then it should be decided through
consensus rather than by the accident of prominence. 

In answer to the question of discrepant markings, I might be wrong, but
I understood that there was a fixed budget for discrepant marking, so it
won't vary much from year to year - although what is considered
discrepant might. Although, English (as with the GAT) is largely
consistent, because it is safe to say that as people go through the
process of marking, there is very little difficulty of recognising a
6/10 from an 8/10, and Bob Hillman is instrumental in this consistency.

Finally, I still think there is a danger in narrowing the focus of a
question to make explicit the need for students to respond to how the
texts are constructed (what, perhaps, has been blanketed within another
nebulous term 'metalanguage' in the SAC criteria). The Generals Die in
Bed question that asks: 'The horrors of life in the trenches are
heightened for the reader by the blunt reporting style of the narration'
would have lost nothing except for its narrowness by asking: 'Harrison
communicates the horrors of life in the trenches. Discuss'. Good
students would incorporate the blunt reporting style of the narration
without the prompt. And with Look Both Ways, if we have to, why not 'The
film-maker effectively communicates the concerns of the characters.
Discuss.'

Peter