Literature Assessment in St. Anthony Canossian Secondary School

The assessment in SACSS is focussed on students’ ability to write proper paragraphs for their answers, using the PEEL structure as a framework. Although the thinking behind the analysis of the text is equally as important, the teachers are more concerned with the way the students write the essays as they do illustrate that they have ideas but are not able to project them clearly. For example, the recent Common Test Literature papers for all the levels are assessed primarily on the structure and clarity of the answers, and whether students have answered the questions correctly. The students are given poems which they have already studied in class, as part of the assessment of Unseen Poetry during the Common Test.

As part of their summative assessment, students are required to do a Poetry Project which coincides with the school’s Creative Arts Week. On top of that, students are also given assignments which require them to do online research on specific subjects that are related to the central themes of their set-text novel. To prepare the Secondary 4 Literature students for their O-Levels, they are given different types of essay questions for them to practise on, in which they are asked to apply the same writing techniques that the teacher had taught them.