Examination for the Certificate of Competency in English ......REVISED LETTER 31 WRITING AN ESSAY 32 SAMPLE ESSAY 32 ANALYSIS OF COMMUNICATIVE EFFECT 33 ... Alexander Papanikolaou

Examination for the Certificate of Competency in English

The universiTy of michigan

WriTing assessmenT: WhaT is a pass and WhaT is a fail?

Distributed Free of Charge

WriTing assessmenT: WhaT is a pass and WhaT is a fail?

ecceExamination

for the Certificate of Competency in EnglishThe universiTy of michigan

We would like to thank the following faculty

and staff for contributing materials and their

expertise: Denis Cheng, Nigel Downey, Yiannis

Kornarakis, Christine Irvine-Niakaris, Paraskevi

Kanistra, Charalambos Kollias, Michael Onushco,

Cheryl Traiger and Elena Xanthi.

© 2009 hellenic american union

All rights reserved. This publication is protected by Copyright (N. 2121/1993) and permission should be obtained from the Hellenic American Union prior to any prohibited reproduction, storage in a retrieval system, or transmission in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise.

Hellenic American Union22 Massalias Street, 10680, Athens, GreeceTel.: + 30 210 36 80 900Fax: + 30 210 36 33 174E-mail: [email protected] you can visit our web site: www.hau.gr

ISBN: 978-960-8331-72-3

TABLE OF CONTENTS

INTRODUCTION 9

A CLEAR PASS LETTER 10

A CLEAR FAIL LETTER 11

CONTENT AND DEVELOPMENT 14

UNDERSTANDING THE DESCRIPTOR 14

SAMPLE ESSAY 14

ANALYSIS OF CONTENT AND DEVELOPMENT 15

PASS OR FAIL FOR CONTENT AND DEVELOPMENT? 15

ACTIVITY 15

REVISED ESSAY 15

ORGANIZATION AND CONNECTION OF IDEAS 16


SAMPLE ESSAY 16

ANALYSIS OF ORGANIZATION AND CONNECTION OF IDEAS 16

PASS OR FAIL FOR ORGANIZATION AND CONNECTION OF IDEAS? 17

ACTIVITY 17

REVISED ESSAY 17

GRAMMATICAL CONTROL 18


SAMPLE LETTER 1 19

ANALYSIS OF GRAMMATICAL CONTROL 20

PASS OR FAIL FOR GRAMMATICAL CONTROL? 20

ACTIVITY 1 20

REVISED LETTER 21

ACTIVITY 2 21

SAMPLE LETTER 2 22

GRAMMATICAL RANGE 23


SAMPLE LETTER 23

ANALYSIS OF GRAMMATICAL RANGE 24

PASS OR FAIL FOR GRAMMATICAL RANGE? 24

ACTIVITY 24

REVISED LETTER 25

VOCABULARY RANGE AND CONTROL 26


SAMPLE LETTER 26

ANALYSIS OF VOCABULARY RANGE AND CONTROL 26

PASS OR FAIL FOR VOCABULARY RANGE AND CONTROL 27

ACTIVITY 27

REVISED LETTER 27

SAMPLE ESSAY 28

ANALYSIS OF VOCABULARY RANGE AND CONTROL 28

PASS OR FAIL FOR VOCABULARY RANGE AND CONTROL 28

ACTIVITY 28

REVISED ESSAY 29

COMMUNICATIVE EFFECT 30


WRITING A LETTER 30

SAMPLE LETTER 30

ANALYSIS OF COMMUNICATIVE EFFECT 31

PASS OR FAIL FOR COMMUNICATIVE EFFECT? 31

ACTIVITY 31

REVISED LETTER 31

WRITING AN ESSAY 32

SAMPLE ESSAY 32

ANALYSIS OF COMMUNICATIVE EFFECT 33

PASS OR FAIL FOR COMMUNICATIVE EFFECT? 33

INTERCONNECTION OF DESCRIPTORS 34

SAMPLE LETTER 34

ANALYSIS OF INTERCONNECTION BETWEEN DESCRIPTORS 34

ACTIVITY 35

REVISED LETTER 35

THREE BENCHMARKED ESSAYS AND THREE BENCHMARKED LETTERS 36

Essay 1 36

Analysis of Essay 1 37

Essay 2 37


Essay 3 38


Letter 1 40

Analysis of Letter 1 41

Letter 2 42


Letter 3 43


SIX PRACTICE ESSAYS 44

Essay 1 44

Essay 2 45

Essay 3 45

Essay 4 45

Essay 5 47

Essay 6 47

APPENDIX A 48

SCORING CRITERIA FOR ECCE WRITING SECTION 48

APPENDIX B 49

STIMULUS AND PROMPT FOR TOPIC ABOUT VIOLENCE 49

STIMULUS AND PROMPT FOR TOPIC ABOUT GIFTS FOR TEACHERS 49

APPENDIX C 50

KEY 50

Analysis of Content and Development 50

Analysis of Organization and Connection of Ideas 50

Analysis of Grammatical Control 51

Analysis of Grammatical Range 53

Analysis of Vocabulary Range and Control 54

Analysis of Communicative Effect 55

Analysis of Interconnection between Descriptors 56

APPENDIX D 57

SIX PRACTICE ESSAYS 57







INTRODUCTION

Passing the writing section of the ECCE is a concern of both teachers and students. Teachers devote a lot of time to writing in the English language classroom, showing the students how to organize their writing, how to use connectors and other linking devices, how to reinforce their ideas with vivid examples and precise wording, and how to vary sentence length to avoid monotony. The students devote a significant amount of homework time to writing letters and essays, planning them, writing first drafts, getting feedback and making changes, writing new drafts, all leading to a final version that they can be proud of, thanks to the teacher and thanks to their own efforts to write well.

It is important for teachers to be able to distinguish whether a piece of writing is a Pass or a Fail. Students want to know if their sense of optimism is justified as they head into the examination room. There is a lot of pressure on teachers to assess correctly because so much depends on it. This publication is designed to help teachers better assess student writing as Pass or Fail.

In previous seminars and publications, the Hellenic American Union has dealt with several aspects of ECCE writing, most recently by providing a writing handbook for teachers, in which ideas and suggestions were given to teachers for leading students through the writing process in a step-by-step fashion, from understanding the stimulus and what the prompt requires, to brainstorming ideas related to the topic and organizing them and connecting them in a coherent fashion, to evaluating students’ writing and providing meaningful feedback.

This publication looks at ECCE Writing from a different perspective: raising awareness of the Scoring Criteria for ECCE Writing, what the various descriptors mean in practice, and how to apply them to student writing.1 The purpose in looking at the scoring rubric in detail is not to train teachers how to rate writing samples. Rather, it is to understand how the scoring criteria can be applied to student writing to determine if it is a pass or fail. In many cases, this is not difficult: some seem to exceed the standard for every criterion and are clearly a pass, while others are below standard for each criterion and receive a fail without a second thought. Those two cases are illustrated below (for the stimulus and prompt refer to Appendix B):

1. The writing samples used in this book were written by students in an ECCE Preparation Course. They are

not candidate writing samples.

A CLEAR PASS LETTER

Dear editor,

I read your article about violence and I decided to share my suggestions and my opinions with you. As I am a supporter of a football team, I was influenced dramatically from the happening that you described. It’s dissappointing for everyone to see thirty people injured at the end of a game.

As I mentioned I’m a big fan of AEK Athens, a greek football team, and I watch football matches once a week. Last year I went to a football match between Panathinaikos and AEK in Olympic Stadium of Athens, where there were supporters of both teams. Before the game a stupid fan through a firework against Panathinaikos fans and that was the beginning of the ‘hot’. A lot of fireworks were flying on the air against us. I was frightened, I tried to leave the stadium but the policemen didn’t let me. 30 people went to the hospital and the game canceled. I felt horrible, but I couldn’t do anything.

In my opinion we have to improve the quality of audiences in our country. The parents must learn their children from the age of ten that it’s only a game. A good suggestion would be to add a lesson at schools about the attitude in entertaining places, like stadiums. And about the police, they must be more careful when they seek the supporters outside the stadium, and to use cameras inside them.

To summarize, the authorities should occupate more with the violence, and how to reduce it.

Lots of respect, Alexander Papanikolaou

Content and Development: Fully develops an argument with appropriate supporting details. Organization and Connection of Ideas: Smooth, effective arrangement and connection of ideas. The student opens by explaining the reason for writing the letter, gives a descriptive, real-life account of violence s/he experienced, and then suggests two ways the authorities could act in order to reduce the level of violence.

Linguistic Range and Control: Good range of grammar and vocabulary; mostly accurate and mistakes that exist do no impede comprehension.

Communicative Effect: Appropriate register, awareness of audience, and establishment of context fully enhance the intended effect on the reader. The letter gives every indication that it could be a real letter to the editor. The audience is the general public and the writer is careful to direct the suggestions to the authorities, rather than to the general public. The use of a personal example that is vividly described considerably strengthens the effect on the reader.

A CLEAR FAIL LETTER

Dear editor,

I am writting to inform you about the currently events which happened to Victory Stadium, last night.

First of all, the game was amazing. Not only the players but also the couch was fair. Suddenly, a loud voice is listened, from the one’s team fans. Moreover, they accused the couch about the last goal. In addition, the score was right. Although, the authorities acted immidiatly, they didn’t stop. Then, the chief of players give them a not polite answer so the fan reacted. Finally, other players and fans got involved and 29 people and I were injured.

In conclusion, these facts become again and again. The police should act more quick and get outside the violent people. The stadium is an athletic and entertain place. The authorities should protect it.

[Note: No closure to letter]

Content and Development: Inadequate development of argument. The readership does not need to be informed about what happened at Victory Stadium. The newspaper has already covered the story. As the task requires, there is an example of violence, but the essay does not explain what actions the authorities could take to prevent future violence.

Organization and Connection of Ideas: Ideas clearly and adequately organized. There is a clear introduction, body, and conclusion to this letter. The second paragraph illustrates the student’s ability to use connectors (First of all, not only…but also, moreover, in addition, although, then, finally), although rather mechanically.

Linguistic Range and Control: Grammar and vocabulary errors are frequent and interfere with reader’s comprehension (‘couch was fair’; ‘accused the couch about the last goal’; ‘a loud voice is listened’; ‘one’s team fans’).

Communicative Effect: Some misunderstanding of audience and purpose. No closure to the letter detracts from overall context, which is a letter to the editor. More importantly, though, the student has not fully understood the readership. They already know the details of what happened at Victory Stadium.

This letter is a clear fail. It only would pass for Organization and Connection of Ideas.

Most teachers would have little difficulty evaluating the above two writing samples as Pass or Fail. There are others, though, that fall between the two extremes. They pass in terms of some descriptors, yet fail in others. They are the borderline cases, those that are somewhere between a pass and a fail. A teacher will read a letter or essay a second, maybe even third time and fret over whether to assign it a pass or a fail. This publication is an attempt to make the decision-making in such cases more analytical, using the same descriptors that the University of Michigan uses in rating the writing section.

The Scoring Criteria for ECCE Writing Section is in the form of a rubric or table. The top row lists four criteria or descriptors: Content and Development, Organization and Connection of Ideas, Linguistic Range and Control, and Communicative Effect, along with general characteristics that indicate what feature of the writing is being looked at in each case. Running down the left-hand side of the rubric are scores, A-E, that are used to rate how well a criterion is met. Where each criterion and score intersect, there is a description of what constitutes the quality of a piece of writing for a particular criterion. The rubric is holistic rather than analytical. What that means in practice is that a piece of writing is not rated for each of four criteria, and then added up in some way. That would take time and deliberation. Instead, the four criteria are taken into consideration in assigning an overall score to the writing. For the purposes of this publication the overall score is one of two: either a Pass or a Fail.

HOW TO USE THIS HANDBOOK

In order to understand something complex, it often helps to take it apart and analyze it piece by piece. That is what is done here: The four descriptors of the rubric are looked at in isolation first. What does Content and Development mean, for example? What feature of writing does it look at? What constitutes a Pass in terms of Content and Development? What constitutes a Fail? What does Organization and Connection of Ideas refer to? What does Communicative Effect cover? The criterion labeled Linguistic Range and Control, with its descriptor, “variety and precision of grammar and vocabulary”, is complex and perhaps difficult to comprehend. As a result, we have divided it into two parts: Range and Control of grammar and Range and Control of vocabulary. Range and Control of grammar is further broken down into Grammatical Range (the variety of structures an essay employs) and Grammatical Control (how accurately those structures are used). Again, it must be stressed that this attempt to be analytical is rather artificial. It is meant to make the Scoring Criteria more accessible to teachers, to help them achieve a better understanding of what each criterion means so that they develop the ability to recognize the presence or absence of features in student writing and use that information to make an informed decision about what constitutes a Pass and what constitutes a Fail.

After an explanation of what the descriptor means, a writing sample lacking in that particular criterion is analyzed in detail. Why the writing passes or fails in that particular descriptor is then explained. That explanation is followed by an activity in which readers are asked to look at a revised version of the writing sample and comment on what changes have been made and how those changes improve the writing in terms of the descriptor in question.

After each descriptor is examined in depth, there is a section in which the interconnection between the various descriptors is discussed. That is followed by six benchmarked writing samples (3 essays and 3 letters) with an analysis of each descriptor and a decision of Pass or Fail based on the writing as a whole. Though an analysis is provided, readers may wish to analyze the writing on their own first to see how their analysis compares with the one given.

The last section of the handbook consists of six practice essays included to give readers further opportunity to apply what they have learned about the Scoring Criteria for ECCE Writing Section to their students’ writing.

A key for all the activities is provided at the end of the book.

Because of the complex nature of the rubric, teachers are not encouraged to use it with students. By better understanding the features of the rubric, though, teachers can use it as a diagnostic tool to pinpoint areas of strength or weakness in their students’ writing and give the students more meaningful feedback that can help them improve in the areas where they need the most help. This will be particularly useful for those students whose letters or essays are borderline cases. The features their writing is deficient in can become the focus of a lesson and, through practice, those students can bring their writing from a Fail to a Pass.

DISCLAIMER: The decision about whether or not a piece of writing should Pass or Fail is based upon our interpretation of the Scoring Criteria for ECCE Writing Section. Please refer to the benchmarked essays on the University of Michigan site for official benchmarked essays: http://www.lsa.umich.edu/umich/v/.

CONTENT AND DEVELOPMENT

UNDERSTANDING THE DESCRIPTOROne of the descriptors on the Scoring Criteria for ECCE Writing Section (refer to Appendix A) is Content and Development. It is used to assess how relevant the content is to the task and how good the ideas are that are used to develop the response. This quality of ideas comes from neither the prompt nor the task; it comes from the writer. The details that the writer provides are a key part of essay writing and they make the essay unique. Other students are going to have similar introductions and conclusions, but it is the body of the essay that is going to stand out as the writer’s own. One of the biggest mistakes a student can make is to think, “I’m going to be clever and avoid grammatical and lexical errors by copying material directly from the prompt and task.” Raters are trained to notice this. Since it is not the student’s own work, no matter how slightly it is altered, such copying is not assessed favorably. Making original statements, even if they have grammatical and lexical shortcomings, is better than copying material directly from the prompt and task.

This descriptor will take on relevance according to the particular essay prompt and task under consideration. For the essay we are going to analyze, the stimulus (refer to Appendix B) states that a fight broke out at a stadium between players and fans, with people being injured as a result. This is the third instance of violence at a sporting event in a month. As a result, measures are being considered to reduce the amount of violence. The task broadens the venue of the violence beyond sports to include other types of entertainment with large audiences. This means that the exam taker does not have to focus on sports when elaborating the topic. Writing about theater or musical productions would also be relevant content.

The question to be answered is why some audiences become violent. This question should be answered with specific details (examples from the news, hearsay, personal experience, etc.) that support the writer’s point of view.

SAMPLE ESSAYRead the following essay. For the stimulus and prompt, refer to Appendix B. How effective is it in terms of Content and Development?

Entertainment events usually have large audiences. People want to enjoy, to overcome their problems, to take ‘spiritual’ food, so they participate as the audience to a theater production, a musical performance and basically to sports events.

Usually the audiences are well behaved, but sometimes in special causes a small number of them become violent. I wonder who they are, in which entertainment events exist examples of violence, why they become violent, who allows them to destroy everything they want?

Comment [1]:Copied almost directly from task: ‘… entertainment events have large audiences’

Comment [2]:Copied almost directly from task: ‘…a theater production, musical performances, and sports events.’

Comment [3]:Largely copied from task: ‘Usually the audiences are well behaved, but sometimes they become violent.’

Comment [4]:It might be okay to raise these questions, but then they should be answered in the essay as well. The task only requires that the student answer why some audiences become violent.

Violence at sporting events is often caused by the spectators who are there. I believe that few groups with fans who have prepared to involved in troubles become violent. They are, basically, young people who want to give vent to their energy with that negative way.

ANALYSIS OF CONTENT AND DEVELOPMENTLarge parts of this essay rely on content taken almost verbatim from the prompt and task. As a result, very little of the essay is the student’s own work. In fact, there’s not much left to look at in order to assess the student’s writing ability. This essay is likely to fail, which may surprise some, who will say that there are few grammatical mistakes (enjoy themselves; participate to, not in; …who are prepared to get involved in…) and that these do not really interfere with the reader’s understanding of the text. Remember, though, that large parts of this essay are taken from the prompt and task, which do not have mistakes in them to begin with.

PASS OR FAIL FOR CONTENT AND DEVELOPMENT?This essay would not receive a Pass for Content and Development as is. It probably would have passed for that descriptor if the student had ‘personalized’ it by including original ideas and supporting them with specific examples and details.

ACTIVITYBelow is a revised version of the sample essay. It meets the criteria for Content and Development. Why? How is it different from the essay that doesn’t meet the criteria for that descriptor? Keep in mind the following features which characterize a Pass in terms of Content and Development:

• Uses content that is relevant to the task• Avoids word-for-word use of the stimulus and prompt• Employs original ideas and develops those ideas with supporting details

and examples

When you finish, compare your analysis of this essay with the one in Appendix C at the back of this book.

REVISED ESSAYThe media is report more incidence of violence where there are large audiences, like football matches, concerts, plays. The public wonder why, so this essay gives several reasons to explain it.

Few groups with fans who have prepared to involved in troubles become violent. They are mostly young people who wants to give vent to their energy with that negative way. For example, the violence at recent match between Olympiakos and Panathenaikos involve mostly young men. Most are school leavers who cannot find work and sit home to feel bored. They haven’t way to show their frustration and so one bad referee decision become an excuse to vent their energy.

Comment [5]:These two sentences echo the sentence in the previous paragraph: ‘Usually the audi-ences are well behaved, but sometimes in special causes a small number of them become violent.’ It doesn’t add anything to the essay. The essay is reaching the end and there is little evidence that this student has said anything original, other than the second sentence of the first paragraph: ‘People want to enjoy, to overcome their problems, to take ‘spiritual’ food…’

Comment [6]:This is the sentence where the writer begins to develop content. Unfortunately, this idea isn’t developed further and the essay ends without a conclusion.

Comment [7]:This serves as an introduction, although it fails to convey the purpose of the essay by stating that the writer will go on to explain the causes of the violence. Without conveying that purpose to the reader, the writer gives no clue as to how the essay will be organized or laid out. That will make it harder for the reader to see the organization in the essay.

Comment [8]:The writer uses an inappropriate transition marker. The writer had been describing the typical profile of those attending football matches. ‘Furthermore’ is an attempt to connect this idea and that of the drug and alcohol problem that some fans have. ‘Furthermore’ would be an appropriate term if the preceding sentence had dealt with a problem with audiences. It doesn’t. As a result, the reader is left confused about the direction the essay is taking. This creates a sense of poor organization.

Comment [9]:These are examples of ‘things that they [the fans] do not usually do’. Indicating that examples will follow would help the reader follow the writer’s train of thought.

Comment [10]:Simply adding, ‘…to most of us, a drug addict or drunk becomes…’ would allow the writer to refer back to the idea of drugs and alcohol leading to violence and make the writing smoother.

Comment [11]:What is the connection to violence associated with drugs and alcohol? If the student had written, “There are reasons for violence other than drugs and alcohol”, the reader would have a clearer sense of what is to follow.

Comment [12]:This is the writer’s concluding statement. It keeps the essay from ending abruptly. A summary of the two main causes of violence mentioned, however, would tie the conclusion more closely to the rest of the essay and improve it.

Comment [13]:The entire essay—introduction, body, and conclusion—is part of one paragraph. Having several paragraphs would have given the essay a sense of structure.

The violence is not only at football matches and not only from young men. At the Jay Lo concert, people were angry that they paid much money for tickets and she only sung for fifty minute. They didn’t think that they got what they paid, so they start to throw things to the stage.

These examples show that people have to be treated fair, in the case of young men, to be given jobs to earn a living and in case of angry Jay Lo fans, to get what they paid. If people treated fair, then they don’t react with many violences at public events.

ORGANIZATION AND CONNECTION OF IDEAS

UNDERSTANDING THE DESCRIPTORAnother one of the descriptors on the ECCE Scoring Criteria for ECCE Writing Section is Organization and Connection of Ideas (refer to Appendix A). It is used to assess how well the content has been arranged and how language is used to link ideas. Are the ideas grouped and organized into paragraphs? Is there an introduction that sets out the purpose for the writing and how the writer intends to develop his/her ideas? Are the ideas logical? That is, does one idea lead smoothly to the next? Are cohesive devices such as pronouns, articles, and idea connectors used effectively to bring about the transition from one idea to another? Do the writer’s ideas end with a conclusion?

SAMPLE ESSAYRead the following essay. For the stimulus and prompt, refer to Appendix B. How effective is it in terms of Organization and Connection of Ideas?

Today a lot of people like to go to theater productions, musical performances, sports events and other types of entertainment events. There are a lot of times that audiences become violent, especially at sports events as football and concerts in big opened places. Most of those audiences are fans of a famous person or team. A lot of them also are very young and fashionable persons. Furthermore there is the problem with drugs and alcohol that makes more complicated the behavior of a fan who thinks that the team disappointed him. Drugs and alcohol prevent them from think carefully about everything they do. Drugs and alcohol make them to do things they do not usually do. Maybe the fans throw things like food or stones. Maybe the fans try to move to where the players are. Even if the reason for a violent situation is without meaning, a fanatic person can do a murder for a seat or something totally useless. Some people are obsessed with their team. They follow their team everywhere. They are aggressive with the players to the other team. Many times they use violence, injuring other people. In my opinion, these are the reasons for violence at football games.

ANALYSIS OF ORGANIZATION AND CONNECTION OF IDEASThis essay would likely pass in terms of Content and Development, Linguistic Range and Control, and Communicative Effect. But would it receive a Pass for Organization and Connection of Ideas? There is no indication at the beginning of this essay that it is in response to a newspaper article or that the writer’s purpose is to discuss the reasons that some audiences become violent. The fact that all the ideas are put into one

paragraph also demonstrates a lack of organization. There are numerous instances where transition devices could have been used to help the reader follow the ideas being presented. Their absence makes this piece of writing difficult to follow.

PASS OR FAIL FOR ORGANIZATION AND CONNECTION OF IDEAS?This essay would fail in terms of Organization and Connection of Ideas. It is not divided into paragraphs, the introduction does not indicate where the student is heading, and the ideas do not follow smoothly from one to the next because transitional devices are missing.

ACTIVITYBelow is a revised version of the sample essay. It meets all the criteria for Organization and Connection of Ideas. Why? How is it different from the essay that doesn’t meet the criteria for that descriptor? Keep in mind the following features which characterize a Pass in terms of Organization and Connection of Ideas:

• States a purpose for writing, thereby generating expectations in the reader• Has content arranged in logical, organized way• Uses connectors and other cohesive devices to link ideas


REVISED ESSAYThere are a lot of times that audiences become violent, especially at sports events as football and concerts in big opened places. This is a problem that we have to look at to find a solution. In my opinion, the two main reasons for the violence are drugs and alcohol, and obsessive fans.

There is the problem with drugs and alcohol that makes more complicated the behavior of a fan who thinks that the team disappointed him. What do I mean by ‘complicated behavior of fans’? I mean that drugs and alcohol prevent them from think carefully about everything they do. These things make them to do things they do not usually do. For example, maybe the fans throw things like food or stones, or perhaps they try to move to where the players are. Even if the reason for a violent situation is without meaning to most of us, a drug addict or drunk can do a murder for a seat or something totally useless.

There are reasons for violence other than drugs and alcohol. Some people are obsessed with their team and follow them everywhere. They are aggressive with the players to the other team. Many times they use violence, injuring other people.

In my opinion, drugs and alcohol, as well as obsessive fans, are the reasons for violence at football games. If these things are controled, the level of violence will be less.

GRAMMATICAL CONTROL

UNDERSTANDING THE DESCRIPTORThe Scoring Criteria for ECCE Writing Section has Linguistic Range and Control as its third descriptor (refer to Appendix A). It is defined as ‘Variety and precision of grammar and vocabulary’. In order to help teachers better understand this descriptor, the material in this book deals separately with grammar and vocabulary. In addition, grammar is itself separated into two components: Grammatical Range and Grammatical Control:

• Range refers to the variety and complexity of the structures used in the writing.• Control refers to the accuracy and correctness of the grammar appearing

in a writing sample.

In reality the two cannot be separated because one influences the other. That is, the more a student tries to balance basic structures with more complex ones, the greater the likelihood that the number of errors will increase as a result of those more difficult structures.

This section of the book will focus on Grammatical Control.

Note that the scoring rubric specifies degrees of grammatical accuracy. Essays and letters that receive a Pass:

• contain a few minor and insignificant grammar errors that do not adversely affect a reader’s comprehension

• are mostly accurate and contains only occasional errors• may have noticeable errors, but, these do not adversely affect a reader’s

comprehension

Essays and letters that Fail:• contain fairly numerous errors that cause significant confusion of meaning; they

cannot be easily understood and exam scorers have to re-read them several times in an attempt to be understood.

SAMPLE LETTER 1

Read the following letter. For the stimulus and prompt, refer to Appendix B. How effective is it in terms of Grammatical Control? The grammatical errors that are serious enough to adversely affect comprehension are underlined and marked with numbers that refer to explanatory comments listed at the end of the letter:

Dear Editor,

I read your article about violence in your magazine, and I am writing to tell you my opinions about it.

First of all, a lot of times I see different happenings at the stadiums with a lot of violence (1). Last week two of the most succeed teams in Greece Panathinaikos and Olympiakos played a game. In middle of game two fans were starting to fight while the players playing. Little minutes later all the stadium was involved. The disaster was enormous and some fans injured (2) very serious.

Secondly, it is very important to take the government (3) some measures to stop these actions. The good behavior is a kind of civilization. A well-behaved person is welcome in all the places. So, the government with new laws (4) must contempt all those (5) bad behaviors. The people who make vulgarities must sent (6) to the prison and all the fans must be controlled by a closed circuit.

To conclude, the society is everyone of us. The society we are (7), so we must do something quickly to stop the violence in all the places.

Sincerely, Alexander Vasiliou

Comments:1. awkward modifier to describe happenings (the adjective clause that are very violent

would be more correct)2. incorrect or incomplete formation of the passive form of this verb seriously affects

comprehension as agent of action is not clearly known3. error in syntax (word order) affects comprehension4. improperly and awkwardly constructed noun phrase5. improper demonstrative adjective adversely affects comprehension6. incorrect or incomplete formation of the passive form of this verb adversely affects

comprehension as agent of action is not clearly identified7. serious error in syntax (word order)

ANALYSIS OF GRAMMATICAL CONTROLNumerous errors in syntax, two instances of incorrectly formed passive verbs, and awkwardly constructed phrases and clauses adversely affect comprehension.

PASS OR FAIL FOR GRAMMATICAL CONTROL?This piece of writing would receive a Fail for Grammatical Control. The errors indicated are the ones that most seriously affect comprehension. There are, however, other, less significant errors throughout the letter, as is illustrated in the sample below, where both types of errors are marked. Those that are not serious enough to adversely affect comprehension are italicized and those that seriously impede comprehension are underlined:

Dear Editor,


First of all, a lot of times I see different happenings at the stadiums with a lot of violence. Last week two of the most succeed teams in Greece Panathinaikos and Olympiakos played a game. In middle of game two fans were starting to fight while the players playing. Little minutes later all the stadium was involved. The disaster was enormous and some fans injured very serious.

Secondly, it is very important to take the government some measures to stop these actions. The good behavior is a kind of civilization. A well-behaved person is welcome in all the places. So, the government with new laws must contempt all those bad behaviors. The people who make vulgarities must sent to the prison and all the fans must be controlled by a closed circuit.

To conclude, the society is everyone of us. The society we are, so we must do something quickly to stop the violence in all the places.


ACTIVITY 1Below is a revised version of the writing sample. It meets the criteria for Grammatical Control. Why? How is it different from the letter that doesn’t meet the criteria for that descriptor? Keep in mind the following features which characterize a Pass in terms of Grammatical Control:

• Errors in grammar may be frequent, but do no interfere with reader’s comprehension.

When you finish, compare your analysis of this letter with the one in Appendix C at the back of this book.

REVISED LETTER

Dear Editor,


First of all, a lot of times I see many different violent happenings at the stadiums. Last

week two of the most succeed teams in Greece Panathinaikos and Olympiakos played a game. In middle of game two fans were starting to fight while the players playing. Little minutes later all the stadium was involved. The disaster was enormous and some fans were injured very serious.

Secondly, it is very important the government to take some measures to stop these

actions. The good behavior is a kind of civilization. A well-behaved person is welcome in all the places. So, the government must make new laws to stop all those bad behaviors. The people who make vulgarities must be sent to the prison and all the fans must be controlled by a closed circuit television.

To conclude, the society is everyone of us. The society we are, so we must do

something quickly to stop the violence in all the places.


ACTIVITY 2Some teachers may have worked through Activity 1 and found it a bit challenging to decide what constitutes an error that adversely affects comprehension. In truth, it is a rather subjective decision. Teachers who are familiar with their students’ native language are likely to find that sentences containing errors that result from first language interference are not very difficult to understand, while a native English speaker with little or no knowledge of Greek might find those very same sentences obscure and incomprehensible. Activity 2 offers another opportunity to check your ability to distinguish between significant and insignificant errors in grammar. Read the letter and again focus on Grammatical Control. Which errors adversely affect comprehension and which do not?


SAMPLE LETTER 2

Dear editor,

I am writing this letter about your editorial in the newspaper.

Once more time I heard a news that some “spectators” which they have been waching a local game got angry and tried to act as the ancient Neardendal during the hunting. I supose that 30 casual victims are equal with 15 days of war at Iraq field. The news that I heard before was that two Greek teams Panathinaikos and Olympiakos played a game. Two fans were starting to fight and all the stadium was involved. Some fans were injured very serious.

I thing that it is time the National Sport Association to take measures against the “spectators” who brake the law and also trice hardered to the players which they involved at violence event.

We, as a community, suggest a number of hard measures which is the following.a. In case that a player or a fan involv in a violence event inside or outside (near) at a

place of game event those people whill be …. Permanent.b. The NSA must order the teams to develop catalogs in which they will write all the

fans whith all the personal facts (names, adres etc.)c. The NSA must take measures to avoid the mix of the opposition fans during the

game.

Finally is strong recommend to the police to do all the things I wrote above and to focus as the prevention of violence events.

Sincerely, Maria Apostolou

GRAMMATICAL RANGE

UNDERSTANDING THE DESCRIPTORWhen looking at Grammatical Control, we saw that some students, in attempting to write with as few mistakes as possible, use simple sentences to avoid taking risks with more complex structures. There are others who do the opposite. They want to show how much they know and so try to incorporate complex structures by using noun, adjective, and adverb clauses, for example. They may also work in some conditional sentences, perhaps even inversion and embedded questions. Because of the complexity of these structures, however, the risk is greater that the student will make more mistakes. Students need to aim for a balance between the variety of structures used and their accuracy because both are considered when the writing is rated.

SAMPLE LETTERLook at the following letter and note the complex structures that the student uses at the expense of grammatical control:

Dear Editor,

I read the article in yours newspaper about violence and I want to give my opinion.

A few days ago I was in a football stadium which the match stopped because broke out violent events between fans. Some people are obsessed with football and many times behave wild and violent when their team looses.

An important role to stop the violence are the government and the presidents of the sport clubs. One solution is to illegal the fans clubs of the team who usually start the fight during sports events. Another solution is the policemen search the fans who sometimes have baseball bats and knives! Additionally in the stadium must use cameras which can see who involve in a fight. Especially the stadium can be protected by police or securities. Finally a good solution is to write on the ticket the surname and first name of the owner so that the fans can afraid of the catching by the police.

All these suggestions can prevent future violence. In the future I hope trouble will not exist in the stadium. As a result, families and children can watch matches without afraid.

Yours sincerely, Maria Antoniou

Comment [14]:The writer attempts to use a relative clause, but gets it wrong by omitting the preposi-tion ‘in’ and using the active verb ‘stopped’ instead of the passive form ‘was stopped’

Comment [15]:The writer may have meant, ‘Important to stopping the violence are…’ The regular word order, without focus, would be, ‘The government and the president of the sports club are important to stopping the violence.’

Comment [16]:An adjective clause used correctly.

Comment [17]:An adjective clause used correctly.

Comment [18]:The writer seems to be aware of the fact that a prepositional phrase indicating location, if starting a sentence, can be followed by an inverted verb and subject: In the stadium are cameras which can see who…. In this case, however, the writer uses inversion when s/he shouldn’t because this sentence is not about giving location, but rather about indicating a measure which must be taken.

Comment [19]:Correct use of a modal passive form.

Comment [20]:Use of a noun clause beginning with an infinitive.

Comment [21]:An adverb clause. Notice that the writer seems to be aware that ‘be afraid of’ needs to be followed by a noun or gerund (a verb acting as a noun) because s/he uses ‘catching’. Unfortunately, s/he did not use the passive form of the verb, ‘being caught’, which is the correct form.

Comment [22]:The writer tries using a prepositional phrase with ‘without’, but either thought that ‘afraid’ was a noun and did not know the noun is ‘fear’ or did not realize that s/he could have written, ‘without being afraid’.

ANALYSIS OF GRAMMATICAL RANGEThe student has attempted to use a variety of complex structures (e.g., noun, adjective, and adverb clauses), as well as a modal passive and gerunds after prepositions. The student also seems to demonstrate an awareness of inversion with sentences that begin with a prepositional phrase and indicate location. S/he may also be aware of how word order can shift focus in English. As a result of having used all these structures, however, there is less grammatical control. Granted, there are errors in even the simple sentences (broke out violence, behave violent and wild, when the team looses, illegal the fans club, another solution is the policemen search the fans, etc.). Even more significant breakdowns in control occur, however, in the complex structures the student has tried to use: in the stadium must use cameras, without afraid, afraid of the catching of the police, etc.

PASS OR FAIL FOR GRAMMATICAL RANGE?While this letter would fail for Grammatical Control due to the difficulties the student has producing complex structures, it would receive a Pass for Grammatical Range.

This writing sample would likely have passed in terms of Grammatical Control if the student had had a better grasp of grammar, particularly in the more complex structures, where errors appear to affect comprehension more adversely.

ACTIVITYBelow is a revised version of the sample letter. It meets the criteria for Grammatical Range and Control. Why? How is it different from the letter that doesn’t meet the criteria for that descriptor? Is there a balance of grammatical range and control? Has comprehensibility improved? How do the various types of clauses now enhance this piece of writing rather than detract from it? Keep in mind the following features which characterize a Pass in terms of Grammatical Range:

• Balances simple and complex structures• Pays attention to form (this actually falls under Grammatical Control, but the two

are interrelated)


REVISED LETTER

Dear Editor,


A few days ago I was in a football stadium in which the match was stopped because broke out violent events between fans. Some people are obsessed with football and many times behave wild and violent when their team loses.

An important role in stopping the violence can be played by the government and the presidents of the sport clubs. One solution is to illegal the fans clubs of the team that usually starts the fight during sports events. Another solution is for the policemen to search the fans, who sometimes have baseball bats and knives! Additionally in the stadium cameras must be used which can see who is involved in a fight. Especially the stadium can be protected by police or securities. Finally a good solution is to write on the ticket the surname and first name of the owner so that the fans can be afraid of being caught by the police.

All these suggestions can prevent future violence. In the future I hope trouble will not exist in the stadium. As a result, families and children can watch matches without being afraid.

Yours sincerely, Maria Antoniou

VOCABULARY RANGE AND CONTROL

UNDERSTANDING THE DESCRIPTORAs mentioned earlier, the Scoring Criteria for ECCE Writing Section has Linguistic Range and Control as its third descriptor. It is characterized as ‘Variety and precision of grammar and vocabulary’. In order to help teachers better understand this descriptor, grammatical range and control were looked at independently of vocabulary. In this section, vocabulary is focused on. How broad is the range of vocabulary used? Is it used accurately? To what degree do the words used by the student contribute to or hinder comprehension of the text? These are the questions covered in this descriptor.

SAMPLE LETTER Read the following letter. For the stimulus and prompt, refer to Appendix B. How effective is it in terms of Vocabulary Range and Control?

Dear Editor, I would like to write you about the violence at sporting events in Greece especially in football games. In Greece I have seen the really violence many times before the football games, during the football games and after the football games on the roads. The fanatic hooligans usually use the vulgar language and they some times throw stones or wood pieces to the players or to the other football club fans. This create danger to the normal fans. Families stop to go to the stadiums long time ago. I usually go to the stadium to see my favourite football club panathinakes and always choose ticket in the gates farway of fanatic fans. I avoid to go to the stadium when my favourite team plays with derby.

In Greece during weekends usually we heard bad news like your article.

In the last years Greek government tried to take measures for eliminate the violence in the stadiums. One of them is to avoid to give tickets to the guest team fans. This measure is not good for the guest team players because they don’t have the fans’ support I believe that the problem is different. The rest of these funs are with out academic education, with poor backround knowledges and bad family environment.

Best regards Lina Grigoriou

ANALYSIS OF VOCABULARY RANGE AND CONTROLThe student uses quite repetitive language to convey meaning. For example, the word football is used 4 times in the first 2 sentences. The words fan and fanatic are also used excessively, and in the case of the latter, incorrectly. There is an attempt on the part of the student to use some more advanced vocabulary words, such as eliminate and background knowledge. There are also several instances of a lack of control over the words used (what is derby?; avoid has been learned, but not the syntax that this word governs, that avoid is followed by a noun or gerund; create danger for, not to someone).

PASS OR FAIL FOR VOCABULARY RANGE AND CONTROLThis letter would receive a Fail in terms of Vocabulary Range and Control. Though there are at least two attempts to use more advanced vocabulary, the writing is characterized by numerous repetitions of the same words and several instances of inaccurate word choice.

ACTIVITYBelow is a revised version of the sample letter. It meets the criteria for Vocabulary Range and Control. Why? How is it different from the letter that does not meet the criteria for that descriptor? What could the student do to minimize repetitive use of vocabulary? Keep in mind the following features that determine a Pass in terms of Vocabulary Range and Control:

• Uses a variety of vocabulary that contributes to comprehension of the text• Aims for precision• Avoids repetition by employing alternative ways of saying the same thing


REVISED LETTER

Dear Editor,

I would like to write you about the violence at sporting events in Greece especially in football games. In Greece I have seen the really violence many times before, during and after the matches on the roads. The hooligans usually use the vulgar language and they some times throw stones or wood pieces to the players or to the other club fans. This create danger to the normal fans. Families stop to go to the stadiums long time ago. I usually go to the stadium to see my favourite team Panathinakes and always choose ticket in the gates farway of the overenthusiastic people. I avoid to go to the stadium when my favourite team plays with a rival team.


In the last years Greek government tried to take measures for eliminate the violence in the stadiums. One of them is to avoid to give tickets to the guest team fans. This measure is not good for the guest team players because they don’t have the support from the crowd in the stadium. I believe that the problem is different. The rest of these fans are with out academic education, with poor backround knowledges and bad family environment.

Best regards Lina Grigoriou

Comment [23]:Copied almost verbatim from prompt.

Comment [24]:This adjective is used here and then twice more in the next sentence. Very repetitive.

Comment [25]:This adjective is used three times in this paragraph. Repetitive.

Comment [26]:An attempt to use an English idiom, ‘spread like wildfire’.

Comment [27]:Enhances vocabulary range, but detracts from vocabulary control.

Comment [28]:Nice use of vocabulary to create an appropriate phrase.

Comment [29]:An attempt at creative use of vocabulary.

Comment [30]:Incorrect use of some words, but this does not interfere with comprehension.

Comment [31]:Play’s field shows a logical use of the possessive morpheme -’s, permitting comprehension by English speakers even though the use of the term on the playing field or simply on the field would have been more accurate.

Comment [32]:‘better educational system’ is more appropriate here.

Comment [33]:Enhances vocabulary range.

Comment [34]:Not sure what is meant here.

Comment [35]:‘rush’ is used inappropriately here.

Comment [36]:Very general. Would benefit by more vocabulary words that are more precise.

SAMPLE ESSAYRead the following essay. For the stimulus and prompt, refer to Appendix B. How effective is it in terms of Vocabulary Range and Control?

Types of entermaint events with large audience are very easy to start a fight—for example theater productions musical performances and sports events.

This happens because a big number of people with different way of thinking and different educational combine each other. It is a very big problem when a fight starts within a big number of public because it can spread like a fire. I claimed the different way of thinking like a serious reason because the behavior problems start from an early age where family is the source where people learn good behavior. So if they didn’t learn to respect the others belongings they will do it when they grow up.

This kind of things happen in the stadium where some people broke the chair and they throw them in play’s flield. One way that can stop this behavior is a better school and family values. Also the stadiums must build dettes so people are better organized and the police can rush their movement’s better.

We all condem this things that happen in the stadiums and in the places where many people meet.

ANALYSIS OF VOCABULARY RANGE AND CONTROLThe student copies directly from the text of the question at the beginning of the essay, resulting in a very weak start. In addition, there is too much repetition in the use of some words (different, big). The student attempts to use complicated forms such as idioms, and should be credited for the attempts to broaden range even when not completely successful in terms of control. Overall, though, this essay would fail in terms of Vocabulary Range and Control.

PASS OR FAIL FOR VOCABULARY RANGE AND CONTROL?This essay would receive a Fail in terms of Vocabulary Range and Control. While there are indications of vocabulary range (spread like a fire; claimed; behavior problems start from an early age; family values; rush; condemn), many of these terms are used inappropriately.

ACTIVITYBelow is a revised version of the sample essay. It meets the criteria for Vocabulary Range and Control. Why? How is it different from the essay that does not meet the criteria for that descriptor? Why don’t the errors matter in terms of comprehension (for example, why is the meaning of play’s field understandable even though it is an incorrect term?)?

Keep in mind the following features that determine a Pass in terms of Vocabulary Range and Control:

• Uses a variety of vocabulary that contributes to comprehension of the text• Aims for precision• Avoids repetition by employing alternative ways of saying the same thing


REVISED ESSAYTypes of entermaint events with large audience are very easy to start a fight—for example theater productions, concerts, and football matches.

This happens because many people with other way of thinking and different educational combine each other. It is a very big problem when a fight starts within a large number of public because it can spread like wildfire. I believe the different way of thinking like a serious reason because the behavior problems start from an early age where family is the source where people learn good behavior. So if they didn’t learn to respect the others belongings they will do it when they grow up.

This kind of things happen in the stadium where some people broke the chair and they throw them in play’s flield. One way that can stop this behavior is a better educational system and family values. Also the stadiums must build dettes so people are better organized and the police can rush their movment’s better.

We all condem this things that happen in the stadiums and concert halls and theaters.

COMMUNICATIVE EFFECT

UNDERSTANDING THE DESCRIPTORThe last of the descriptors on the ECCE Scoring Criteria for ECCE Writing Section is Communicative Effect (refer to Appendix A). This refers to how well the communicative goals of the task are achieved. The student should focus on making the content relevant and appropriate to the audience specified in the task. The register should be appropriate – showing that the student is aware of how formal the writing should be and who the likely readers will be.

The other major contributing factor to communicative effect includes the degree to which the establishment of context by the student contributes to or hinders comprehension of the text. Based on the assigned task, the student should give examples of the problem, and these should provide a context that supports the stated solution. The reader should be able to easily understand what is being proposed and why.

WRITING A LETTERThe task of writing a letter to an editor should show awareness that getting the correspondence published is based on a competition against all the other letters the editor has received. Therefore, it should be brief and to the point. The letter should be focused on the particular issue, and not have a long or rambling introduction. The sentences and paragraphs should be directly relevant to the stated goal of the letter. As the intended audience includes newspaper readers, the letter could be less formal than an academic essay. The stated task calls for the expression of a convincing point of view on the subject of violence at sporting events, and the inclusion of succinctly stated solutions to the problem. There should also be an expressed awareness of who the appropriate authorities are in this situation. The editor and the newspaper have no responsibility for solving the problem and the students should indicate who they are calling upon for a resolution.

SAMPLE LETTER Read the following letter. For the stimulus and prompt, refer to Appendix B. How effective is it in terms of Communicative Effect?

Dear Editor

Violence at sporting events is very often situation. The most common sport that the spectatos use violence is football. I think this happend because football is the most popular and famous sport in the world. There are a lot of violence examples that I have heard and seen but one is the most violence. I remember when I was going to football stadium, I saw hooligans from two opposites teams fighting in front of stadium. They were fighting for almost ten minutes without anyone do something, no police were there. After when I get home I heard from the TV that was one dead person and eleven injuted. This new make me sad.

As a result of this I’m writing you some actions that you could take to prevent future violence. The first thing is to use new technology to spy the stadium and the

Comment [37]:The first line in a letter to the editor should clearly indicate what issue will be addressed. This introduction is somewhat unclear.

Comment [38]:nice attempt to make the issue personal – always more compelling

Comment [39]:not appropriate – the editor isn’t responsible for solving this problem

places near there. With this they can stop any violence immidiadly without late. New technology as cameras. One very important is to identify the hooligans and keep them out of stadium. That was my first actions that comming, in my mind.

ANALYSIS OF COMMUNICATIVE EFFECTThe student tied violence as a concept to football, citing the sport’s popularity and fame as cause of this connection. However, the reasons behind this association are unclear, and as a result, unconvincing. The student did provide a compelling and effective example of the potential results of sports-related violence with a cited example of a tragic event that he or she witnessed. However, the suggestion of actions you could take seemed to place the responsibility for solutions on the editor, showing a lack of awareness of audience and proper register.

PASS OR FAIL FOR COMMUNICATIVE EFFECT?The communicative goals of this letter were not sufficiently achieved. The responsibility for finding a solution appears to be with the editor rather than with the authorities. In addition, the association between violence and football remains unconvincing. The letter, therefore, would receive a Fail in this category.

ACTIVITYLook at the letter below. It meets the criteria for Communicative Effect. Why? How is it different from a letter that does meet the criteria for this descriptor? What in the writing indicates that it is meant to be a letter to the editor? Who is the student’s intended audience and how is that made clear? How could this letter have been written to be more enticing to publish? Keep in mind the following features that determine a Pass in terms of Communicative Effect:

• Makes clear who the intended reader is• States at the beginning the purpose of the writing• Summarizes at the end essential message of the writing• Uses an appropriate register• In the case of a letter, has a formal opening and closing

When you finish, compare your analysis of this letter with the one in Appendix C.

REVISED LETTER

Dear Editor

I read in your newspaper about the fight at Victory Stadium last night. It is not unusual. I have seen it many times and I want to say ways to stop it.

Violence at sporting events is very often situation. The most common sport that the spectatos use violence is football. I think this happend because football is the most popular and famous sport in the world. There are a lot of violence examples that I have heard and seen but one is the most violence. I remember when I was going to football stadium, I saw hooligans from two opposites teams fighting in front of stadium. They

Comment [40]:The writer does not include an appropriate closure in this essay. This is not consistent with a letter format.

Comment [41]:Opening sentence redundant and does not include sufficient context.

Comment [42]:Even with the misspelling of “passion” the writer makes his or her meaning clear and gives details addressing the essay task.

Comment [43]:As described in the prompt for this task, the writer has broadened the scope of the essay, including musical performances as places where violence can also occur.

Comment [44]:Even though the grammar is problematic in this sentence, the meaning is clear and the writer fulfils the need to de-scribe the cause of violence.

were fighting for almost ten minutes without anyone do something, no police were there. After when I get home I heard from the TV that was one dead person and eleven injuted. This new make me sad.

As a result of this I’m writing you some actions that the authorities could take to prevent future violence. The first thing is to use new technology to spy the stadium and the places near there. With this they can stop any violence immidiadly without late. New technology as cameras. One very important is to identify the hooligans and keep them out of stadium. That was my first actions that comming, in my mind.

Technology can stop the violence at sporting events. I hope the authorities will do something.

Sincerely yours, Kostas

WRITING AN ESSAYThe essay task requires the students to specifically address the issue of violence at entertainment events. Students should include their opinions about what causes violence, and make a connection to the specific issue of how the problem relates to audiences. The establishment of context is critical to achieving the desired communicative effect, starting with a clear topic sentence that will set the background for the audience. An essay should reflect a more formal register than the above letter to the editor format.

SAMPLE ESSAY Read the following essay. For the stimulus and prompt, refer to Appendix B. How effective is it in terms of Communicative Effect?

This is an opportunity for me to write about my opinion for violent audiences. Many times I usually observe violent in sports events. I believe that people who are fun on sports they have pathion about them. This pathion interest always teams. Because of this pathion teams many times have more effort. So they want people with pathion to be fun of them. This is like a chain that keeps fun people in a team and always in the same team.

Obviously people that only watch sport games or sports generaly aren’t always fun of sports. Some of them they don’t like to watch sports because they can’t stand to observe violence or being part in a violent sport game with always bud results.

Otherwise musical performances are rately for enjoy. Sometimes many of the people that want to go to performance they couldn’t affort to do it. High prices avoid pure people to listen or enjoy music events. So they are often argue about this and try to go in the event with no ticket and the fight become. I believe if we have low prices in musical performances we will not have violence. Because music gives happiness to the people and entertainment too.

ANALYSIS OF COMMUNICATIVE EFFECTThis student clearly addresses the task. Although the first sentence is unnecessary, the student does specifically focus on audiences, and the reasons why they may become violent. In addition, the student has managed to describe sources for violent behavior in two very different venues – sports and musical performances – and gives details for each.

PASS OR FAIL FOR COMMUNICATIVE EFFECT?This essay would Pass in terms of Communicative Effect. The student starts off rather awkwardly because stating that one ‘plans’ to do something is always less effective than just doing it. However, the point of the essay is made clear at the beginning with the attribution of violence to pathion (passion). Although there are quite a few errors of vocabulary and spelling, the logical nature of how the student’s argument is constructed significantly contributes to comprehension. For example, the first three sentences in the second paragraph (This pathion interest always teams. Because of this pathion teams many times have more effort. So they want people with pathion to be fun of them) are logical and therefore work together to make the student’s meaning clearer.

The purpose for writing generally allows the reader to follow the text and there is adequate detail for the two different venues for the student to make his/her point.

INTERCONNECTION OF DESCRIPTORS

Up to now, we have looked at each descriptor of the Scoring Criteria for ECCE Writing Section in isolation to understand better what each means, and then applied this understanding to actual samples of writing. In reality, though, the situation is more complicated because the various descriptors interact with each other. In the case of Linguistic Range and Control, where we separated that criterion into two strands, Range and Control, the reason they are part of the same descriptor became clear. As a student attempts to vary sentence length with different types of clauses or conditional structures, the writing tends to exhibit less linguistic control, and vice-versa. Similarly, Linguistic Range and Control is likely to have an influence on Communicative Effect.

SAMPLE LETTERIn the sample letter that follows, note how content and development influence the overall communicative effect of the writing:

Dear editor

In todays world violence is around us very often. At the end or during a sporting event many times we have seen something like that.

Authorities can take action to prevent Future violence by educating people and provide the benefits of racing. Also they should start meating at schools or workplaces and using the media. In addition it’s not good to use volence to stop Fights but action before these happens.

There are some measures that the authorities can take to reduce violence but there are a lot others. Thank you for spending you time to reading my letter.

Sincerely, Stavroula

ANALYSIS OF INTERCONNECTION BETWEEN DESCRIPTORSThe student failed to give an example of violence at a sporting event, and only included a general statement that violence is seen ‘many times’. This lack of specificity adversely affects the appropriate register, and shows a failure to address the audience appropriately, as specific examples are more effective in convincing people to take action, as well as being required by the task statement. The student did make an attempt to explain some actions that could be taken to prevent violence, including government education programs at schools and workplaces, but the lack of context about what the educational program should include hindered the achievement of the stated communicative goals. The relevance of not using violence to stop fights could have been made clear, and would have been much more effective if tied into the student’s general argument.

ACTIVITYNow look at a revised version of the letter below. The changes made are indicated in italics. How have these additions enhanced the writing? What difference do the changes make to Content and Development? To Communicative Effect?


REVISED LETTERDear editor

In todays world violence is around us very often. At the end or during a sporting event many times we have seen something like that. For example, I recently was at a football match. The home team fans saw their team was losing. Some of them started throwing bottles and food onto the field. Some of them tried going onto the field. Things became violent.

Authorities can take action to prevent Future violence by educating people and provide the benefits of racing. They can teach children in school how to behave at a match. Also they should start meating at schools or workplaces and using the media to advertise the dangers of violence at football matches. In addition it’s not good to use volence to stop Fights but action before these happens.



THREE BENCHMARKED ESSAYS AND THREE BENCHMARKED LETTERS

Thus far in this book we have focused on descriptors in isolation. After discussing the features or characteristics of each descriptor from the Scoring Criteria for ECCE Writing Section, we analyzed writing samples to demonstrate how these descriptors could be applied to students’ writing. We also saw how descriptors interact with each other, one influencing the other. That was true for Linguistic Range and Accuracy, where increasing the range of grammar and vocabulary often led to a decrease in accuracy. It was also particularly true for Content and Development and Communicative Effect. Supporting details and examples lend credence to the student’s arguments and enhance the overall effect that letter or essay has on the reader.

At this stage, we move on to a more holistic approach, which is how the scoring rubric is actually used. Instead of assessing whether a piece of writing passes or fails based on individual descriptors, teachers need to look at the writing as a whole. They should consider each descriptor, but should not assign a Pass or Fail to each one and then try to add them up in some way.

The writing samples in this section (refer to Appendix B for stimulus and prompt) were particularly challenging to assign a Pass or Fail to because they exhibit strengths in some areas and weaknesses in other areas. They have been benchmarked and are included here for you to examine. We hope that they will raise awareness of the thought process that goes into determining whether or not a piece of writing receives an overall Pass or Fail. Though an analysis justifying the Pass or Fail follows each, you may want to do your own analysis first to see how you would rate each one.

Essay 1Generally, in these days people don’t have many free time. All of them work very hard to have all things which need for a good life. When they go out, their behavior is not normally. Many times they behaved very well, but other time they become violent. I believe this strange behavior create because these people do not receive warm feeling, love and support from their families.

Psychological reasons lead people to become violent when they go out for entertainment in the theater productions for example or in sports events. The audience, in my view, wants to be like stars who love one day, and so became fanatic audience in the end. Many people take drugs because of problems in their life, job or in their family and as I see is another good reason for somebody to become violent and to injure other fans. In our society there are much many problems who can lead young people to do disaster things and to have destroy behavior to other people.

People who does not take loving care during their childhood and also people who has many problems with their jobs or economical problems many times, and others who are disappointed with their life, are these who are prone to violent. Except for fans who became violent because for the huge love for the stars and teams who love.

Analysis of Essay 1Content and Development: Adequately develops an argument by mentioning the problem of violence and offering two reasons for it and attempts to offer some supporting detail to illustrate his/her opinion. This attempt falls short at times, however. In the concluding paragraph, the student reiterates the main points discussed in his/her essay and summarizes the reasons that may cause people to become violent.

Organization and Connection of Ideas: Ideas are clearly and adequately organized. In the introductory paragraph the student reiterates the topic and explains one of the reasons that s/he probably thinks of as the most important in the thesis statement. In the main body paragraph, the student states the two reasons that may lead people to violent behavior while attending entertaining events and attempts to explain those ideas further by adding some supporting detail. However, this essay would have been better if the student had organized those two ideas in two different paragraphs and if examples had been added to illustrate his/her point of view. Overall, this essay is relatively easy to follow.

Linguistic Range and Control: The student consistently attempts writing complex sentences (all the sentences contain at least an independent and subordinate clause). The grammatical mistakes in this essay - active voice used instead of passive, subject verb agreement, who instead of which, wrong word form: noun instead of adjective and some syntax problems - do not impede the reader’s comprehension. The range of vocabulary is sufficient and control over vocabulary seems to be sufficient as well. The student tries to avoid repeating the same words (strange behavior for violence, loving and care for support and warm feelings, huge love for fans for fanatic, prone to…, lead to…).

Communicative Effect: Adequate sense of audience and purpose for writing. The prompt asks for an answer to the question, ‘Why do some audiences become violent?” The student answers that question and attempts to provide some supporting detail to further explain why some audiences may become violent.

This essay is clearly a Pass, adequately meeting the criteria for all descriptors.

Essay 2Violence has always been an issue in the life of human being. It is very difficult to explain at last why people become violent. But we can notice what if too many people are concentrated in sports events or in musical performances, the probability of a fight breaking out is bigger.

Many psychoanalysts suggest that violence is a problem of culture because the people living in the civilization must suppress their destructive urges. But all the controlled thinks come back if they find space to explode.

Sure this thesis is not real for all the people. There are many people who can suppress their instincts and they behave very well. But often there are other people who do not have a very good education and this is maybe the reason for their not human behavior.I think that in order to reduce or prevent the violence it is necessary to have good education and other possibilities to express yourself freely.

Analysis of Essay 2Content and Development: Adequately develops an argument by mentioning the problem of violence and offering a reason for it. The student even attempts to offer some supporting detail to illustrate his opinion. The concluding paragraph is rather weak, as the student does not summarize the main points discussed in his essay. Instead, he introduces a new idea and tries to suggest a possible solution to the problem.

Organization and Connection of Ideas: Ideas are clearly and adequately organized. In the introductory paragraph, the student reiterates the topic without relying heavily on the prompt for linguistic input. In his main body paragraphs, the student states the reasons that may lead people to violent behavior while attending entertaining events and attempts to explain his ideas further by adding some supporting detail. Overall, this essay is relatively easy to follow.

Linguistic Range and Control: The student consistently attempts to write complex sentences (most of his sentences contain at least an independent and subordinate clause). The grammatical mistakes in this essay are not very frequent and do not impede the reader’s comprehension. The range of vocabulary is sufficient because the student tries to avoid repeating the same words, and at times even uses more advanced vocabulary (suppress their destructive urges… instincts, issue). However, control over vocabulary is not consistent throughout the essay (Use of thesis and concentrated is not appropriate).

Communicative Effect: Adequate sense of audience and purpose for writing. The prompt asks for an answer to the question, ‘Why do some audiences become violent?” The student answers that question and attempts to provide some supporting detail to further explain why some audiences may become violent.

This essay is clearly a Pass, adequately meeting the criteria for all descriptors.

Essay 3In recent time many entertainment events have audiences young people. Recently in musical events the young people behave with a violent way.

Many reasons can be the cause. One of them is the energie, the extreme behavior of the age. Some times the cause is the drugs or ekstasi pills, etc. Some times it is the emphasis to be presented in a very expensive event without paying. The result is the police arrives and it tries getting peace. The appearance of “the law” usually has the opposite result. Many of them are proponent the indivutual freedom and they want to be the generous.

The main reason for this is the way the society devellopes and creates people, The strict structure of the family and the school, the dissonant synthesis of the society etc.

To radiate joy all these events there must be first of all a different mentality of the government, of the society. The police has to found the way to increase its presence there and a lot of many other things.

Analysis of Essay 3Content and Development: Develops an argument by mentioning the problem of violence but does not provide supporting detail to illustrate his point further. Therefore, his ideas remain quite ambiguous and incomprehensible at times. The student even goes beyond and tries to suggest some solutions but he does so quite ineffectively in the concluding paragraph.

Organization and Connection of Ideas: Simple, basic organization of ideas. His introductory paragraph is rather weak as he only alludes to the topic but he fails to include his thesis statement in it. In his main body paragraph, the student states reasons that may lead people to violent behavior while attending entertaining events and attempts to explain his ideas further by adding some supporting detail. However, his attempt falls short at times as his ideas are not always clearly connected and do not follow a logical progression through the paragraphs (He begins the third paragraph with the sentence The main reason for this is the.... However, it is not clear what this refers to, making it difficult for the reader to understand the intended meaning. Overall, this essay is not easy to follow.

Linguistic Range and Control: The student attempts only a limited range of structures and they are not error free. Syntax at some points impedes the reader’s comprehension (Many of them are proponent the indivutual freedom and they want to be the generous). The range of vocabulary seems to be sufficient but control over vocabulary seems to be insufficient at times (the way radiant joy is used in this sentence is inappropriate).

Communicative Effect: Adequate sense of audience and purpose for writing. The prompt asks for an answer to the question, ‘Why do some audiences become violent?” The student answers that question.

This essay is clearly a Fail, falling short in all categories except Communicative Effect.

Letter 1

Dear Editor,

Football is the most famous sport in the world. Millions of people attend with fanatism every athletic team and often travel abroad to escort their favourite team in a match with another.

It seems like a small, easy revolution. Tickets are sold very quick sometimes in a few hours and some other are sold very expensive in a mythic price in the black forum.

The spectators seem to be soldiers, prepared for the war. They desire to conquest, to win to see their flat with their favorite colour to move in the sky or on the windows of a bus. The spectators creates a traffic and drive their cars very slowly to the central squares of the town. If they feel that they lost the result, try to do any damage. They spolt bottles of colour to the walls of some blocks of flats which are wetpainted and the worst broke with stones the glasses of many cars which were parked to the road.

Furthermore, many people injured because they began to hit each other with violence and screaming like woulfs. They put many fires in the middle of the roads and many was obliged to stop everywhere the drivers could, because they were in a danger.

I tried to call the police in order to prevent the violence and protect the innocent people. They promised that they would come as soon as possible they had to because there were to brave many serious facts in the town because of the result of the game.

Late in the night I watched at T.V. news that police got many of them to the court with heavy punishments of the law. Some other stayed at prison about a month but the most of them were free to back to their favorite habits.

It’s very easy for everyone to guess that agreessive is one of the basic elements of human life. The football is a very serious cause to create to the people the ancient need to fight each other. The civilization demands orders and rules but there are ways for people to express the angry side of the human nature.

Yours sincerely, Marios Stephanopoulos

Analysis of Letter 1Content and Development: Adequately develops an argument by mentioning the problem of violence and describing examples of violence the student has seen and by explaining what the police did or did not do to solve the problem. He does not rely on the prompt to provide examples and to explain his point of view. He brings his letter to a closure by accepting that violence is part of human nature and that civilization along with rules and orders can save humans from this ancient need to fight.

Organization and Connection of Ideas: Ideas are clearly and adequately organized. In the introductory paragraph, the student alludes to the problem of violence at sporting events by choosing a word that denotes strong emotions (fanatism). In his main body paragraphs, the student further explains the reasons that may lead sport spectators to violent behavior and uses words such as soldiers and crying wolfs to describe spectators better. Overall, this letter is relatively easy to follow.

Linguistic Range and Control: The student attempts to write complex sentences that contain at least an independent and subordinate clause and a conditional structure. The grammatical mistakes in this letter - wrong word form, subject verb agreement, tense aspect and some syntax problems- overall do not impede the reader’s comprehension. The range of vocabulary is sufficient but control over vocabulary seems to be inadequate at times. The student tries to avoid repeating the same words, but quite often uses a wrong word (flat instead of flag, spolt instead of spray).

Communicative Effect: Adequate sense of audience and purpose for writing. The prompt asks the student to provide examples of violence he has seen or heard about and explain what actions the authorities could take to prevent future violence. The student provides examples and tries to explain why spectators can become violent using quite descriptive language. This letter could have been better, however, if the student had suggested solutions to the problem of violence in a more direct way.

This letter is clearly a Pass, adequately meeting the criteria for most descriptors but Linguistic Range and Control as at times the reader may feel a bit uncertain about the intended meaning.

Letter 2

Dear Editor,

In our days, it’s usually fact the violence in games par examble in football, in basketball, etc. Many people go to the stadiums for break out.

This people are fans who screams about the result of game, speak with bad words for players, hit fans who support the other team. In the stadium you can see people who change completely. The worst is the children of this man who grow up idiots they like that this situation continue.

For examples, I listen a story for my brother who go to the game and a feel very bad for my country. In this game a father with his sun swear very very bad a player of the other team and a fan of the other team tell his “After the game I want see you out of stadium.” And after the game they hit each other and the little boy see this part and no one stop the guys.

I think it is shame and I must stop this situation in the game. The police must careful and the parents from their children that this violence can’t the solution. Sincerely yours, Vassili

Analysis of Letter 2Content and Development: Inadequate development of argument: the student only partially answers the task because he only provides some examples of violence. Only in the concluding paragraph does the student try to suggest a solution that is rather simplistic and ambiguous. What does he mean when he says The police must careful and the parents from their children that this violence can’t the solution? The police should actually do something or be careful, as they sometimes become victims of such violent behavior? What exactly does he mean by the parents from their children? Organization and Connection of Ideas: Organization of ideas is adequate although simple connectors are used (and). Ideas however flow and there is a thread running through this letter.

Linguistic Range and Control: This is a case where linguistic range is limited (uses game seven times, bad three times etc.). The grammatical mistakes in this letter are very frequent and basic and impede communication at times (The worst is the children of this man who grow up idiots they like that this situation continue).

Communicative Effect: Adequate sense of audience and purpose for writing. The reader can follow the student’s arguments overall, though one might have to infer intended meaning at times.

This letter is clearly a Fail, falling short in all categories except Communicative Effect.

Letter 3

Dear Editor,

Many times this year I’ve heard and I’ve seen on TV, about violence in football games.

For example, last week I saw on TV a young people who was bad injured after a football game. Some fan when the game finished fight the man who was enjoyed because his team won the game.

I think that must stop. I think that the government must take a lot of mesures for stopping the violence at a sporting event. Maybe, a lot of policemen must be in the stadium for taking care.

But the most important thing is the children in the schools must learn that the violence isn’t good and all of us have the right to be enjoyed or worried with our team situation, either win or losse.

Sincerely yours, Paulina

Analysis of Letter 3Content and Development: Inadequate development of argument: the student partly answers the task as he only provides a sketchy description of some examples of violence. His concluding paragraph is rather weak and incorrectly includes a new solution to the problem there. Organization and Connection of Ideas: Simple, basic organization of ideas. Simple connectors (but, for example) are inappropriately used and paragraphs are not always clearly connected.

Linguistic Range and Control: This is a case where linguistic range is limited. The vocabulary used and the grammatical mistakes in this letter are so frequent and basic that they either impede communication or render a sentence meaningless at times (Some fan when the game finished fight the man who was enjoyed because his team won the game).

Communicative Effect: The reader can follow the student’s arguments overall, though one might have to infer intended meaning at times and the lack of supporting detail leaves a lot to the reader’s imagination.

This letter is clearly a Fail, falling short in all categories except Communicative Effect.

SIX PRACTICE ESSAYS

The four essays and two letters that follow offer you the opportunity to apply what you have learned in this book. Having looked at and analyzed several samples of writing as well as having studied the benchmarked letters and essays, you should now be thoroughly familiar with the Scoring Criteria for ECCE Writing Section. Take what you have learned and apply it to the following writing samples. After you have finished, there is a key with an analysis of each one in Appendix D at the back of this book.

The first four essays use the following stimulus and prompt:

THE CITY TIMESTROUBLE AGAIN AT THE STADIUM

Police were called to Victory Stadium last night when a fight broke out during the game between a player and a fan. Other players and fans got involved, and at least 30 people were injured. This is the third time this month that there has been violence at a sporting event. The National Sports Association is considering a number of new measures to reduce violence at the games.

This writing prompt and task have been taken from the University of Michigan May-June 2007 ECCE past examination.

Task 1: LetterViolence at sporting events is often caused by the spectators who are there. Write a letter to the editor giving examples of violence you have seen or heard about at sporting events and explain what actions the authorities could take to prevent future violence. Start your letter, “Dear Editor.”

Task 2: EssayMany types of entertainment events have large audiences—for example, theater productions, musical performances, and sports events. Usually the audiences are well behaved, but sometimes they become violent. Why do some audiences become violent? Explain, giving specific details to support your view.

Essay 1Nowadays we are listening more and more people getting involved in fights at the studiums. Usually violence take part more at sports events than other events. Unfortunately this is a phenomenon of this decade I could say. Younger than older people usually participate to fights. This is sad because give a wrong image of the young people.

My opinion is that violence exist not only because of the unemployment but also because we don’t have the right education at schools and especially in the family. Teacher and parents should give more intention to children and learn them to have a good behavour.

From the other hand goverment should take action to reduce this problem putting cameras at the stadiums for example.

To sum up violence at the sports events is a big problem not only in my country but all over the world but we can change that if we change ourselves and our children.

Essay 2Nowadays, there are large audiences in the entertainment events like theater productions, musical performances and specifically in sports events. However, sometimes the audiences become violent in case that the spectators cause problems at that events.

To start with the case that a number of spectators disagree with the changing of players at a sporting event. Sometimes during the game the fans go into stadium and fight with the football players and coach.

In the theater productions there are problems when the spectators don’t like the actors or the way they act. In this case the spectators are screaming or throw things. As a result, the audiences take them away by force.

To sum up, the audiences become violent in the cases that problems with the spectators are big.

Essay 3Nowadays, violence is phenomenon that we often meet in our society and it increases dramatically. It is a basic problem that exists mainly at sports events such as football games. But what are the reasons that lead in violence?

At my personal opinion, the main reason is the difficulties that faces people today such as economic problems or social problems our life, especially in big cities because day by day wilder and people are looking for a way to show their anger and their unsatisfaction. For example, in Greece very often we watch on TV violent facts during a football match. I believe that people with low educational level is easier to use violence.

Furthermore, another basic reason that leads in violence is that the audience of a specific entertainment event is not happy with what it see. So the actors of a theater show or the players of a football game must be carefull to make happy their fans.

In conclusion, I would say that there is a strong link between the spectators and those who are starring a sport event and both of them must be carefull not to broke it.

Essay 4Theater productions, musical performances and sports events are the usual types of entertainment that many people choose to spend their time. The feeling in each type of these entertainment events is totally different. That means that every person expresses in his own way his opinion about what he sees. According to that, sometimes they appear a violent behavior which doesn’t fit with the specific atmosphere of the event.

We have many examples of violence that show what fanatic audiences can do. Some of these examples are ordinary, like drawing graffiti or throwing paint on the walls. But we have many other examples of fighting in the streets or car breaking, even killings that should make all of us think about the future of our society.

There is an opinion that this violence is the main product of our society. The rhythms of our live is very fast and all we care about is the materials so we forgot the quality of our time. As a result we are very supprest and we don’t express our real feelings. And this is the reason why many people become violent. They want to express their anger, their opinion about life, about how things should be. Sometimes they just identify with the hero of a play or a musical, but usually the fans of a team or the audiences in sports events get involved in violent situations. It is sure that the authorities should reconsider the actions with which they will prevent future violence and the society should care about offering a life quality.

The last two essays use the following stimulus and prompt:

NO GIFTS FOR TEACHERS

Recently, a teacher at Elementary School 14 received an expensive present from one of her students: two airplane tickets to Kenya. In reaction, the school officials announced that they will no longer allow teachers to accept any gifts from students. Some parents and teachers oppose the new policy and are planning a public meeting to discuss it. The City Times wants to know how its readers feel about this issue.

This writing prompt and task have been taken from the November-December 2006 University of Michigan ECCE past examination.

Task 1: Letter Do you support the new policy at City Elementary School? Write a letter to the editor explaining your view. Give specific examples of how this policy could be beneficial or harmful. Start your letter, “Dear Editor.”

Task 2: Essay In many places, it is common for students to give their teachers gifts. Should this be allowed? How might it affect students, teachers, and parents? Discuss this issue using specific examples to illustrate and to support your view.

Essay 5FLOWERS FOR TEACHERS

In my country, it is common for students to give their teachers gifts. Giving gifts to somebody around us is very important and wonderful. These are very close person for us. For example, friends, relatives and our teachers. We must be very careful about choosing the gifts. The teachers are very important for students. It is good behaviour remembering them at their special days, like birthday, wedding day…

Firstly, all gifts are for remembering. Expensive present is not suitable for teachers. Flowers are very beautiful gifts for teachers. All parents can teach their children which kind of gifts are suitable for teachers.

Secondly, kinds of gifts are important. I believe that books and flowers are good presents. Giving and taking gifts gives everybody good feelings. If we remember our teachers in their special days with a gift, they feel themselves very good.

In conclusion, teachers, students and parents must be agree about this kind of gifts.

Essay 6Giving gifts to teachers is the easy way that the parents and the students found to pass the exams. This way is not good for both kids and teachers.

The way of giving gifts to the teachers is bad for the students because they know they will pass and they are not studying. That means that when the time comes they will have in their hand a license that will mean nothing. Since they wont know anything.

This way may not affect the teachers since the will get their standar payment plus the gifts that could be money, airplane tickets or some other expensive stuffs. But the truth is that if the police learn what is going on the teacher is going to lose his job and probably will have to pay the parents and the school back. Since he was not doing his job well.

Giving gifts is the easy solution for the students to pass the exams. This is not good for both students and teachers since students are not going to learn anything and teachers may loose their jobs. The best way to solve this problem is that both students and teachers wont give or accept any gift.

APPENDIX A

SCORING CRITERIA FOR ECCE WRITING SECTION

SCORING CRITERIA FOR ECCE WRITING SECTION

CONTENT ANd dEvElOpmENT• Relevanceofcontenttotask

• Qualityofideasusedtodeveloptheresponse

ORGANIzATION ANd CONNECTION OF IdEAS• Arrangementofcontent• Howlanguageisusedtolinkideas

lINGuISTIC RANGE ANd CONTROl• Varietyandprecisionofgrammarandvocabulary

COmmuNICATIvE EFFECT• Howwellcommunicativegoalsareachieved

A

Richlydevelopsanargumentwithoriginalsupportingdetails.

Smooth,effectivearrangementandconnectionofideas.Avarietyofcohesivedevicesareusedeffectively.

Broadrangeofgrammarandvocabularyusedaccurately.Ifanyerrorsarepresenttheyareminorandinsignificant.

Appropriateregister,awarenessofaudience,andestablishmentofcontextfullyenhancetheintendedeffectonthereader.

B

Fullydevelopsanargumentwithappropriatesupportingdetails.

Appropriateandclearorganizationandconnectionofideas.Transitionmarkersusedappropriatelyandnotmechanically.

Goodrangeofgrammarandvocabulary;mostlyaccuratewithonlyoccasionalerrors.

Appropriateregister,awarenessofaudience,andestablishmentofcontexthelpthereadertofollowthetext.

C

Adequatelydevelopsanargument.Mayrelyonpromptforcontent.

Ideasclearlyandadequatelyorganized.Standardconnectorsusedappropriatelybutsomewhatmechanically.

Sufficientrangeofgrammarandvocabularytofulfillthetask.Errorsingrammarandvocabularydonotinterferewithreader’scomprehension.

Adequatesenseofaudienceandpurposeforwritinggenerallyallowthereadertofollowthetext.

d

Inadequatedevelopmentofargument.Contentmaybelimitedorprimarilybasedonprompt.Somecontentmaybeirrelevanttothetopic.

Simple,basicorganizationofideas.Althoughstandardconnectorsmaybepresent,ideasthemselvesarenotalwaysconnected.

Arangeofstructuresmaybeattempted,butgrammarandvocabularyerrorsarefrequentandinterferewithreader’scomprehension.

Somemisunderstandingofaudienceandpurposeandinappropriateregistermayhaveanegativeeffectandhinderthereader’scomprehensionofthetext.

E

Littleornodevelopmentofargument.Contentisirrelevantortakendirectlyfromtheprompt.

Minimalornoorganization.Connectorsmaybeinappropriatelyused.Connectionmaynotbeapparent.

Grammarandvocabularyerrorspredominateandcausesignificantconfusion.

Lacksaudienceawarenessandpurposeforwriting.

Ex

CE

Ed

S S

TAN

dA

Rd

STA

Nd

AR

dB

ElO

W S

TAN

dA

Rd

(Retrieved from http://www.lsa.umich.edu/UMICH/eli/)

APPENDIX B

STIMULUS AND PROMPT FOR TOPIC ABOUT VIOLENCE

THE CITY TIMESTROUBLE AGAIN AT THE STADIUM

Police were called to Victory Stadium last night when a fight broke out during the game between a player and a fan. Other players and fans got involved, and at least 30 people were injured. This is the third time this month that there has been violence at a sporting event. The National Sports Association is considering a number of new measures to reduce violence at the games.

This writing prompt and task have been taken from the University of Michigan May-June 2007 ECCE past examination.

Task 1: LetterViolence at sporting events is often caused by the spectators who are there. Write a letter to the editor giving examples of violence you have seen or heard about at sporting events and explain what actions the authorities could take to prevent future violence. Start your letter, “Dear Editor.”

Task 2: EssayMany types of entertainment events have large audiences—for example, theater productions, musical performances, and sports events. Usually the audiences are well behaved, but sometimes they become violent. Why do some audiences become violent? Explain, giving specific details to support your view.

STIMULUS AND PROMPT FOR TOPIC ABOUT GIFTS FOR TEACHERS

NO GIFTS FOR TEACHERSRecently, a teacher at Elementary School 14 received an expensive present from one of her students: two airplane tickets to Kenya. In reaction, the school officials announced that they will no longer allow teachers to accept any gifts from students. Some parents and teachers oppose the new policy and are planning a public meeting to discuss it. The City Times wants to know how its readers feel about this issue.

This writing prompt and task have been taken from the University of Michigan November-December 2006 ECCE past examination.

Task 1: LetterDo you support the new policy at City Elementary School? Write a letter to the editor explaining your view. Give specific examples of how this policy could be beneficial or harmful. Start your letter, “Dear Editor.”

Task 1: EssayIn many places, it is common for students to give their teachers gifts. Should this be allowed? How might it affect students, teachers, and parents? Discuss this issue using specific examples to illustrate and to support your view.

APPENDIX C

KEY

Analysis of Content and DevelopmentThe media is report more incidence of violence where there are large audiences, like football matches, concerts, plays. The public wonder why, so this essay gives several reasons to explain it.

Few groups with fans who have prepared to involved in troubles become violent. They are mostly young people who wants to give vent to their energy with that negative way. For example, the violence at recent match between Olympiakos and Panathenaikos involve mostly young men. Most are school leavers who cannot find work and sit home to feel bored. They haven’t way to show their frustration and so one bad referee decision become an excuse to vent their energy.

The violence is not only at football matches and not only from young men. At the Jay Lo concert, people were angry that they paid much money for tickets and she only sung for fifty minute. They didn’t think that they got what they paid, so they start to throw things to the stage.

These examples show that people have to be treated fair, in the case of young men, to be given jobs to earn a living and in case of angry Jay Lo fans, to get what they paid. If people treated fair, then they don’t react with many violences at public events.

Analysis of Organization and Connection of IdeasThere are a lot of times that audiences become violent, especially at sports events as football and concerts in big opened places. This is a problem that we have to look at to find a solution. In my opinion, the two main reasons for the violence are drugs and alcohol, and obsessive fans.

There is the problem with drugs and alcohol that makes more complicated the behavior of a fan who thinks that the team disappointed him. What do I mean by ‘complicated behavior of fans’? I mean that drugs and alcohol prevent them from think carefully about everything they do. These things make them to do things they do not usually do. For example, maybe the fans throw things like food or stones, or perhaps they try to move to where the players are. Even if the reason for a violent situation is without meaning to most of us, a drug addict or drunk can do a murder for a seat or something totally useless.

There are reasons for violence other than drugs and alcohol. Some people are obsessed with their team and follow them everywhere. They are aggressive with the players to the other team. Many times they use violence, injuring other people.

In my opinion, drugs and alcohol, as well as obsessive fans, are the reasons for violence at football games. If these things are controled, the level of violence will be less.

Comment [50]:This essay states the purpose of writing: looking at the prob-lem of violent audiences and trying to find a solution. The writer then directs the reader to what is coming next: two reasons for violence: drugs/alcohol and obsessive fans.

Comment [45]:This introductory paragraph provides the reason behind the essay: media reports of violence where there are large audiences. It also mentions what the reader should expect: several reasons to explain this violent behavior.

Comment [46]:The original essay refers to ‘a small number of fans’ and asks ‘I wonder who they are?’. The information in this version is more specific about who these people are.

Comment [47]:More detail has been given here: an example of a violent incident that really occurred and an explanation why.

Comment [48]:A second example, this time from a concert. A brief mention of the incident and an explanation for the violence provide a nice contrast to the Olympiakos/Panathenaikos incident.

Comment [49]:This conclusion refers to both the football match and the Jay Lo concert. The last sentence offers a personal commentary on how to prevent future violence.

Comment [51]:The writer explains what this obscure phrase means.

Comment [52]:By stating that what’s coming next is an example of things that fans do not normally do, the writer is orienting the reader to what follows.

Comment [53]:By adding this phrase the writer distinguishes between the majority and those drug addicts or drunks who act violently.

Comment [54]:This is a transitional sentence. It says, “I am now moving from violence caused by drugs and alcohol to another cause.”

Comment [55]: The essay restates, in a succinct way, what the writer believes to be the two main causes of violence at enter-tainment events.

Analysis of Grammatical ControlLetter 1

The underlined sections indicate what has been corrected. Note how comprehensibility is significantly improved as a result.

Dear Editor,


First of all, a lot of times I see many different violent happenings at the stadiums (1). Last week two of the most succeed teams in Greece Panathinaikos and Olympiakos played a game. In middle of game two fans were starting to fight while the players playing. Little minutes later all the stadium was involved. The disaster was enormous and some fans were (2) injured very serious.

Secondly, it is very important the government to take (3) some measures to stop these actions. The good behavior is a kind of civilization. A well-behaved person is welcome in all the places. So, the government must make new laws to stop (4, 5) all those bad behaviors. The people who make vulgarities must be (6, 7) sent to the prison and all the fans must be controlled by a closed circuit television (8).

To conclude, the society is everyone of us. We are the society (9), so we must do something quickly to stop the violence in all the places.


Comments:1. inappropriate noun modified with an inappropriate and incorrectly formed modifier

(adjective) has been replaced appropriately 2. correct verb construction (passive) created by inserting the correct form of verb “to

be” now makes recipients (i.e., victims) of action clear3. word order has been corrected so that subject and predicate are now clearly known4/5. noun phrase is now properly constructed with appropriate and correctly formed

verbs6/7. inappropriate expression has been replaced by appropriate one with correctly

formed passive structure8. technical terminology is corrected and completed with insertion of appropriate noun

word order has been corrected

Letter 2

Dear editor,

I am writing this letter about your editorial in the newspaper.

Once more time I heard a news that some “spectators” which they have been waching a local game got angry and tried to act as the ancient Neardendal during the hunting. I supose that 30 casual victims are equal with 15 days of war at Iraq field. The news that I heard before was that two Greek teams Panathinaikos and Olympiakos played a game. Two fans were starting to fight and all the stadium was involved. Some fans were injured very serious.

I thing that it is time the National Sport Association to take measures against the “spectators” who brake the law and also trice hardered to the players which they involved at violence event.

We, as a community, suggest a number of hard measures which is the following.a. In case that a player or a fan involv in a violence event inside or outside (near) at a

place of game event those people whill be …. Permanent.b. The NSA must order the teams to develop catalogs in which they will write all the

fans whith all the personal facts (names, adres etc.)c. The NSA must take measures to avoid the mix of the opposition fans during the

game.

Finally is strong recommend to the police to do all the things I wrote above and to focus as the prevention of violence events.

Sincerely, Maria Apostolou

Comment [56]:Numerous, though minor, grammatical errors in this sentence do not seriously affect reader comprehension.

Comment [57]:Significant errors here that do adversely affect comprehension.

Comment [58]:The seriousness of both the grammar and mechanical (spelling) errors here severely affects comprehension. In fact, the meaning is entirely lost.

Comment [59]:Here, the severity of the grammar error is compounded by the fact that the thought is incomplete which severely affects comprehension.

Comment [60]:Structural errors here are not as severe as in the previous sentences, but, still significant enough, especially in establishing proper reference, to adversely affect comprehension.

Comment [61]:Grammatical errors here (improper word forms – noun form used in place of the predicate form) can affect comprehension.

Comment [62]:Use of incorrect preposition really does adversely affect comprehension.

Analysis of Grammatical Range

Dear Editor,


A few days ago I was in a football stadium in which the match was stopped because broke out violent events between fans. Some people are obsessed with football and many times behave wild and violent when their team loses.

An important role in stopping the violence can be played by the government and the presidents of the sport clubs. One solution is to illegal the fans clubs of the team that usually starts the fight during sports events. Another solution is for the policemen to search the fans, who sometimes have baseball bats and knives! Additionally in the stadium cameras must be used which can see who is involved in a fight. Especially the stadium can be protected by police or securities. Finally a good solution is to write on the ticket the surname and first name of the owner so that the fans can be afraid of being caught by the police.

All these suggestions can prevent future violence. In the future I hope trouble will not exist in the stadium. As a result, families and children can watch matches without being afraid.

Yours sincerely, Lina Kosmas

Comment [63]:The addition of the preposition and the use of the passive form clarify the meaning.

Comment [64]:Adding ‘can be played by’ clarifies the meaning.

Comment [65]:Here only the form of the passive has been corrected. It would be even better if standard word order were used, that is, ‘…cameras must be used in the stadium….’

Comment [66]:‘Afraid’ changed to ‘be afraid’.

Comment [67]:Corrected by using the passive form of the gerund.

Comment [68]:Corrected by using the gerund form of B E.

Analysis of Vocabulary Range and Control

Letter

Dear Editor, I would like to write you about the violence at sporting events in Greece especially in football games. In Greece I have seen the really violence many times before, during and after the matches on the roads. The hooligans usually use the vulgar language and they some times throw stones or wood pieces to the players or to the other club fans. This create danger to the normal fans. Families stop to go to the stadiums long time ago. I usually go to the stadium to see my favourite team Panathinakes and always choose ticket in the gates farway of the overenthusiastic people. I avoid to go to the stadium when my favourite team plays with a rival team.


In the last years Greek government tried to take measures for eliminate the violence in the stadiums. One of them is to avoid to give tickets to the guest team fans. This measure is not good for the guest team players because they don’t have the support from the crowd in the stadium. I believe that the problem is different. The rest of these fans are with out academic education, with poor backround knowledges and bad family environment.

Best regards

Essay Types of entermaint events with large audience are very easy to start a fight —for example theater productions, concerts, and football matches.

This happens because many people with other way of thinking and different education combine each other. It is a very big problem when a fight starts within a large number of public because it can spread like wildfire. I believe the different way of thinking like a serious reason because the behavior problems start from an early age where family is the source where people learn values for life. So if they didn’t learn to respect the others belongings they will do it when they grow up.

This kind of things happen in the stadium where some people broke the chair and they throw them in play’s flield. One way that can stop this behavior is a better educational system and family values. Also the stadiums must build dettes so people are better organized and the police can rush their movment’s better.

We all condem this things that happen in the stadiums and concert halls and theaters.

Comment [69]:Note how three instances of ‘football’ have been eliminated.

Comment [70]:Since ‘hooligans’ tend to be associated with fanatic behavior, ‘fanatic’ has been eliminated.

Comment [71]:‘club’ in this context implies ‘football club’.

Comment [72]:Replaces ‘football club’

Comment [73]:Capitalized.

Comment [74]:Replaces ‘fanatic fans’

Comment [75]:Clarifies what the writer prob-ably meant by ‘derby’.

Comment [76]:Eliminating the possessive adjective does not affect the meaning in any significant way.

Comment [77]:No longer copied directly from the prompt.

Comment [78]:Use of a synonym for ‘big’ reduces repetitivenessreduces repetitiveness.

Comment [79]:Correct use of idiom.

Comment [80]:An improvement of ‘good behavior’.

Comment [81]:More appropriate than ‘better school’.

Comment [82]:More precise than ‘places where many people meet’.

Analysis of Communicative Effect

Dear Editor

I read in your newspaper about the fight at Victory Stadium last night. It is not unusual. I have seen it many times and I want to say ways to stop it.

Violence at sporting events is very often situation. The most common sport that the spectatos use violence is football. I think this happend because football is the most popular and famous sport in the world. There are a lot of violence examples that I have heard and seen but one is the most violence. I remember when I was going to football stadium, I saw hooligans from two opposites teams fighting in front of stadium. They were fighting for almost ten minutes without anyone do something, no police were there. After when I get home I heard from the TV that was one dead person and eleven injuted. This new make me sad.

As a result of this I’m writing you some actions that the authorities could take to prevent future violence. The first thing is to use new technology to spy the stadium and the places near there. With this they can stop any violence immidiadly without late. New technology as cameras. One very important is to identify the hooligans and keep them out of stadium. That was my first actions that comming, in my mind.

Technology can stop the violence at sporting events. I hope the authorities will do something.

Sincerely yours, Kostas

Comment [83]:This first paragraph sets the writing in a context. The reader now knows why the individual is writing and to whom.

Comment [84]:‘You’ has been changed to ‘the authorities’. This is who the writer should address his/her suggestions to, not the editor.

Comment [85]:These two sentences reinforce the reason for writing and strengthen the writer’s message.

Analysis of Interconnection between Descriptors

Dear editor

In todays world violence is around us very often. At the end or during a sporting event many times we have seen something like that. For example, I recently was at a football match. The home team fans saw their team was losing. Some of them started throwing bottles and food onto the field. Some of them tried going onto the field. Things became violent.

Authorities can take action to prevent Future violence by educating people and provide the benefits of racing. They can teach children in school how to behave at a match. Also they should start meeting at schools or workplaces and using the media to advertise the dangers of violence at football matches. In addition it’s not good to use volence to stop Fights but action before these happens.



The lack of specificity in the original letter affects Content and Development, but as we have seen, it also downgrades the quality of the writing in terms of Communicative Effect. What this means in practice is that a piece of writing has to be looked at holistically in order to effectively assess whether it is a Pass or Fail. What it also means is that the descriptor of Communicative Effect, the most global of all the criteria, should probably be considered first. That is, read the essay or letter to get an overall impression of its quality, and then look at the other descriptors to analyze what it is about the writing that leaves the reader with that general impression.

Comment [86]:The ‘something like that’ at the end of the preced-ing sentence is made more concrete through a specific example from the writer’s own experience. This gives more credibility to the statement: ‘…many times we have seen something like that’.

Comment [87]:Adding this content enhances communicative effect because the reader understands what the writer means by ‘educating people’.

Comment [88]:This addition explains how to use the media, thus enhancing the writer’s suggestion and improving the overall communicative effect.

APPENDIX D

SIX PRACTICE ESSAYS

Analysis of Essay 1Content and Development: Adequately develops an argument by mentioning the problem of violence and offering two reasons for it, as well as two possible solutions. The conclusion, however, is weak because it seems as though the student has been talking about violence not only in Greece, but all over the world as well, which is not the case. The student also mentions the idea that we can change ourselves for the first time in the conclusion.

Organization and Connection of Ideas: Ideas are clearly and adequately organized. There is an introduction of the problem, two reasons given for it, what teachers and parents should do, what the government should do, and a conclusion. The student uses from the other hand instead of on the other hand and could have made the connection of ideas here stronger by adding, On the other hand, teachers and parents should not be the only ones to have to reduce the violence. The government should also take action…, but overall the essay is relatively easy to follow.

Linguistic Range and Control: Sufficient range of grammar (two not only…but also… structures; should give and should take action). The range of vocabulary is limited. (right education instead of, for example, suitable or decent; good behavior could have been behave appropriately; …but we can change that if we change ourselves… instead of perhaps replacing the first change with correct or fix. Control over vocabulary is also limited (listening instead of hearing about; take part instead of take place; participate to instead of participate in; learn them instead of teach them; intention instead of attention) and these mistakes tend to interfere with the reader’s comprehension more than the grammar mistakes (violence take instead of violence takes; because give a wrong image instead of because it gives a wrong image).

Communicative Effect: Adequate sense of audience and purpose for writing. The prompt asks for an answer to the question, ‘Why do some audiences become violent?” The student answers that question in a basic way and goes further by offering possible solutions.

This essay is clearly a Pass, adequately meeting all the criteria except Linguistic Control.

Analysis of Essay 2Content and Development: Inadequate development of argument (the first paragraph is largely copied from the prompt; the conclusion lacks substance: audiences become violent where there are big problems with the audience; the student does manage to offer two reasons for violence at events with large audiences, though).

Organization and Connection of Ideas: Simple, basic organization of ideas (to start with; as a result; to sum up); not all ideas are connected well. For example, the second paragraph could be significantly improved by strengthening the connection between the first and second sentence: …spectators disagree with the changing of players at a sporting event. As a result of their unhappiness with the change, the fans go into stadium and fight with the football players and coach. Connecting the third paragraph with the second by adding a phrase such as This violence that takes place during football matches also occurs at the theater would enhance the quality of this essay.

Linguistic Range and Control: This is a case where linguistic range is limited (uses case four times; spectators and theater productions are taken from the prompt; two adverb clauses, but little else that demonstrates a range of grammar) and, as a result, accuracy is good. In fact, the mistakes that are there do not interfere with the reader’s comprehension.

Communicative Effect: Adequate sense of audience and purpose for writing. The reader can follow the student’s arguments fairly easily, though one might wonder if the single reason given for violence in each case is too simplistic.

This essay is clearly a Fail, falling short in all categories except Linguistic Control and Communicative Effect.

Analysis of Essay 3Content and Development: The topic is developed. The student answers the question, ‘Why do some audiences become violent?’ by offering two reasons: economic/social problems and dissatisfaction with the way the event is carried out. The student could elaborate more, however, by giving examples of specific events where the audience was not satisfied with the theater performance,

Organization and Connection of Ideas: The organization is adequate: the topic, the question to be answered, two reasons for violence at sports events, and a conclusion. In the sentence, Furthermore, another basic reason that leads in violence is that the audience of a specific entertainment event is not satisfied with what it see, the transition marker furthermore is not needed because another basic reason provides an effective connection between the first of the student’s reasons and the second. A more serious problem occurs with the following: …because day by day wilder and people are looking for a way to show their anger and frustration. What does wilder mean here?

Linguistic Range and Control: Limited range of vocabulary and grammar: Student does use adjective clauses (that we then meet, that exists), but vocabulary tends to be limited (show anger instead of express anger; theater show instead of theatrical production; make happy instead of satisfy). Dramatically, mainly, and strong link are notable exceptions. Concerning Control, the following can be noted: there are frequent grammar mistakes (tense: increases instead of has increased or has been increasing, must be carefull not to broke it instead of break it; agreement: people is, what it see). There are also frequent vocabulary mistakes: lead in instead of lead to; At my personal opinion instead of In my opinion; unsatisfaction instead of dissatisfaction; violent facts instead of violent events, starring a sport event instead of participating in). Several of these mistakes affect comprehension (e.g., social problems our life and wilder and people).

Communicative Effect: In the first paragraph, the student establishes context by indicating to the reader what the essay is about: it will answer the question, ‘What are the reasons that lead to violence [at sports events]? That said, however, in the remainder of the essay the student’s arguments are not clearly stated (particularly in the second paragraph). The reader can generally follow the purpose of the writing, though with some difficulty.

This essay is only adequate in terms of Organization and Connection of Ideas and Communicative Effect. It fails in terms of the other criteria. It would likely receive a marginal Pass because of the strength of the first paragraph and the effect that paragraph has on the overall Communicative Effect.

Analysis of Essay 4Content and Development: Adequate development of argument. The task asks for reasons for the violence. The first two paragraphs are an excessively long introduction, though the ideas are not off-topic. It is only in the third paragraph that the causes of violence are specifically addressed, and then only one reason for the violence is developed to any extent. The last sentence, which is meant to serve as a conclusion, mention that the authorities should reconsider the actions with which they will prevent future violence and the society should care about offering a life quality, but no mention has been made previously of any actions the authorities have considered. Besides that, this ‘conclusion’ does not summarize the student’s main point, except indirectly by mentioning the life quality that society should offer in contrast to the fast-paced and materialistic life it currently offers.

Organization and Connection of Ideas: The ideas in this essay are clearly and adequately organized. There are numerous examples of lexical cohesion: each type links this sentence to the usual types in the previous sentence; violence in one sentence links to violent behavior in the subsequent one; We have many examples of violence links to some of these examples in the next. Occasionally the cohesion is weak. When the student writes, And this is the reason why many people become violent. They want to express their anger, their opinion about life, about how things should be. Sometimes they just identify with the hero of a play or a musical, but usually the fans of a team or the audiences in sports events get involved in violent situations, the they who identify with the hero is not an effective pronoun because it refers back to many people in general, but here the student intends to compare people who attend plays or musicals with those who attend sports events.

Linguistic Range and Control: Sufficient range of grammar and vocabulary to fulfill the task. The student uses relative clauses (that should make all of us, with which…), shows knowledge of when the relative pronoun that can be omitted (all we care about), and demonstrates an understanding of rhetorical structure by mentioning three things that many people express: their anger, their opinions about life, [their opinions] about how they should be. Vocabulary range is good, too, with expresses…opinion, rhythms of our…, suppressed, identify, get involved in and offering.

The few grammar mistakes do not impede comprehension, except perhaps in the following: sometimes they appear a violent behavior which doesn’t fit with the specific atmosphere of the event.

Communicative Effect: Some misunderstanding of audience and purpose. The student takes two paragraphs to establish the context of violence and only gets around to offering detailed reasons for it —what the task asks for— in the third paragraph. This means that the reader goes on for too long without knowing the purpose of the essay, thus weakening the effect the student’s ideas have on the reader. More content should be developed around the reasons for the violence rather than providing background. The register is appropriate for an essay of this type.

This essay is a Pass in terms of Organization and Connection of Ideas, as well as in terms of Linguistic Range and Control. It is a borderline Pass in terms of Content and Development, but a Fail in terms of Communicative Effect. It would likely receive an overall Pass, despite the fact that the Communicative Effect does not come across well.

Analysis of Essay 5Content and Development: Little or no development of argument. The prompt, How might it affect students, teachers, and parents? is not answered. Instead, the essay focuses on why students give gifts to teachers and what gifts are suitable.

Organization and Connection of Ideas: Simple, basic organization of ideas. There are some connectors (For example; Firstly; Secondly; In conclusion), but they tend not to be used correctly. The student uses firstly and secondly to refer to the same issue: kinds of gifts that are appropriate. The conclusion, that teachers, students and parents must agree about gifts has not been discussed prior to this and therefore should not be part of the conclusion.

Linguistic Range and Control: The range of grammar and vocabulary is barely sufficient. While the student uses gerunds (Giving and taking gifts gives…) and an if-clause (If we remember our teachers in their special days with a gift, they feel themselves good), most of the sentences are simple sentences and most rely on a form of BE as the verb. Moreover, good is used three times, as is gift (the word present could have replaced it at least once). There are errors in grammar (These are very close persons for us; expensive present is not suitable for teachers; they feel themselves very good; must be agree), but these do not interfere with the reader’s comprehension.

Communicative Effect: This essay is supposed to be written for a newspaper, but the student’s writing does not indicate this in any way. It would have helped if the student had indicated the purpose for writing the essay in the first paragraph, connecting it to what happened at Elementary School 14. As a result it lacks audience awareness and purpose for writing.

This essay is clearly a Fail in all areas, though one might argue that it might receive a Pass for Linguistic Range and Control.

Analysis of Essay 6Content and Development: Adequately develops the argument. The student argues that giving gifts to teachers should not be allowed, and mentions how it might affect students and teachers, but does not discuss how it might affect parents.

Organization and Connection of Ideas: Ideas are clearly and adequately organized. It is easy to follow the student’s train of thought: Giving gifts is not good. It is bad for students. It is bad for teachers. Conclusion: It is bad for both. That said, though, there are not many connectors, other than but and and.

Linguistic Range and Control: A range of structures has been attempted (a time clause: when the time comes; causal clauses: because they know they will pass; since students are not going to learn anything; one gerund: Giving gifts to teachers is…), but problems with tense (…is the easy way that the parents and the students found to pass the exams; they know they will pass and they are not studying) and sentence fragments (Since they won’t know anything; And probably will have to pay; Since he was not doing his job well) occur as a result. In general, though, comprehension is not adversely affected. As for vocabulary, the range is limited (license, payment, pay back).

Communicative Effect: This essay lacks purpose for writing because the student does not mention what prompted him/her to write in the first place. Overall, though the arguments are adequately stated.

This essay would receive a Pass in all areas except Linguistic Range and Control. An overall Pass, then.

9 789608 331723

ISBN: 978-960-8331-72-3

Documents

Examination for the Certificate of Competency in English ......REVISED LETTER 31 WRITING AN ESSAY 32 SAMPLE ESSAY 32 ANALYSIS OF COMMUNICATIVE EFFECT 33 ... Alexander Papanikolaou