How Literature is assessed in Whitley Secondary

As usual, a large part of the grading weightage for Literature comes from summative assessments like common tests, pop quizzes, mid and end of year examinations. Their common tests for the end of the first term is concentrated on how well the students understand their texts, and comes in the form of passage-based questions, answered with the PEE structure. The mid year exams would consist of two components, the passage-based questions on their texts, as well as an additional component of an unseen poetry essay question.

However, a portion of their grades are left for teachers to test their students are they see fit. Therefore, these assessments can be made more interesting for the students, which I felt gave teachers some room to allow them to attempt what they feel students are able to achieve. Assessment in this form is made more creative and fun for the teacher and students. For this, my CT has very nicely allowed me to devise methods to test them for what they call their Pupil’s Progress Report (PPR) grade. This would then form part of their CA grades that is to be added to their SA grades.

For my secondary 1 express class, I have decided to have them break down the last few chapters of Narnia and come up with a comic strip that reflects the theme of good triumphing over evil. This hopefully encourages their interest in the subject itself, as many of them do not like reading, what more a text for school.

The focus being on poetry this term, I would have my secondary 2 students (both Express and Normal Academic) write a poem with a few of the elements that they were taught this term included in the poem. I really enjoyed the creative writing class that we had in NIE, and was thinking of utilizing the idea for my students and have them create a poem outside of the classroom environment. After which, they would exchange poems and analyze each other’s poems. This would prepare them for the unseen poetry section of their mid-year examinations.