The Writing Task In the Writing Task you have to write about 600 words of continuous prose You are provided with a variety of stimulus material visual and written grouped around a themeissuetopicconcept ID: 550680
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Slide1
PKG
Writing TaskSlide2
The Writing Task
In the Writing Task you have to write about 600 words of continuous prose.
You are provided with a variety of stimulus material (visual and written) grouped around a theme/issue/topic/concept.Slide3
The Writing Task
You should focus on the theme and
select one or two
pieces of stimulus material for ideas and then write in any genre (form or style of writing) you like, other than poetry.
Your response can be an essay, a story, a script, a letter, a report, or anything else that seems
appropriate to your focus
.Slide4
Genre
The responses sampled this year and in the past raise concerns about students’ understanding of “genre”. Some responses were composed formulaically around the (supposed) structural components of a genre (often printed, dutifully, as a heading to the response).
QSA 2008 RetrospectiveSlide5
A Better Approach
In contrast to this approach, skilled writing focuses on a message, not on filling out or following a predetermined form. Skilled writers make language choices appropriate for the
context, purpose and audience.
QSA 2008 RetrospectiveSlide6
Consider Tone
When writing one must consider tone towards:
1.
Subject
The Exorcist is a menace, the most shocking major movie I have ever seen. Never before have I witnesses such a flagrant combination of perverse sex, brutal violence and abused religion
Ralph R
Greenson
, M.D.Slide7
Tone
2. Reader
Just as Parliament and the Courts are captured by the rich, so is the Church. The average parson does not teach honesty and equality in the village school: he teaches deference to the merely rich, and calls that loyalty and religion.
George Bernard ShawSlide8
Tone
3. Self
When I was a boy in school, reading my Latin texts with one finger on the word and one finger in the Notes, I did not get much fun out of it. Anyway they made us read the wrong sort of authors, respectable authors like Cicero and Livy and the dull parts of Virgil.
Sean O’FaolainSlide9
Special Tips
Always have a purpose in mind before you write. Keep your focus
directly related to the stimulus material.
Write in clear, effective prose.
Ensure that your central idea is clear and is soundly developed from start to finish.
Then
add the polish
and
make it error-free
.Slide10
An unedited responseSlide11
An edited responseSlide12
Criteria and Standards
Central Idea
Vocabulary
Responsiveness
Grammar, Punctuation and Spelling
Structuring and Sequencing
LengthSlide13
Central Idea
...clarity and development of the idea was lacking. This was particularly evident in scripts where students used
four or more stimulus items
....
The result was that many students wrote very generally about shapes, but neglected to develop a
specific argument
or
thesis
.
QSA 2006 RetrospectiveSlide14
Central Idea: Things to remember
Limit the number of stimulus items to one or two.
Make sure that you just don’t write
about
something:
develop
something
It is critical that you planSlide15
Vocabulary
It is more appropriate to choose
simple words for effect
than to use complex vocabulary in an unwieldy manner and interfere with the meaning....
QSA 2006 Retrospective
Slide16
Vocabulary: Things to remember
Avoid “overwriting”
Avoid overly simple terms such as “lots” or “a lot” written as one word
Avoid repetition
e.g. The use of the word “fantastic” again and again and again and again.
Slide17
Example of Unintentional Repetition
There are
lots of
excellent
shapes at the gallery. Inside, there are
lots of
excellent
paintings
. My favourite is an
excellent
one by Picasso. This man was an
excellent
painter
of
paintings
.
Lots
of
paintings
were there, but one particular
painting
,
Nude in a Garden,
uses
lots
of
excellent
shapes. It’s a really
excellent
painting
. Slide18
A better piece of writing?
There are many extraordinary shapes at the gallery. It contains countless first-class artworks. My favourite is a superb one by Picasso. This man was a genius, an excellent creator of original artwork. One particular painting,
Nude in a Garden,
uses a large number of original outlines. Now that’s what I call art.Slide19
Grammar, Punctuation and Spelling
It was disappointing to see how often scripts were pulled down by their grades in this criterion, especially when it seemed to be through the lack of redrafting and checking of scripts.
QSA 2006 Retrospective Slide20
GPS: Things to remember
Grammar is more important than punctuation and poor spelling attracts least penalty
Proof read
WHOLE ESSAYS ARE BEING WRITTEN IN CAPITAL LETTERS!
“
Don’t
use direct speech if you can’t punctuate,” yelled the frustrated teacher.
Slide21
How to use direct speechSlide22
How to use the ApostropheSlide23
There/Their/They’reSlide24
The Colon
Introduces a specification
The first principle from which Hitler started was a value judgement: the masses are utterly contemptible.
Aldous
Huxley
The first part generalises, the second is more specific Slide25
The Colon
Introduces a list
There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies and statistics
Benjamin Disraeli
Slide26
The Colon
Usually the specific follows the general
A once defeated demagogue trying for a comeback, he tried what other demagogues abroad had found a useful instrument: terror.
Wallace
Stenger
Slide27
The Colon
However, the general can follow the specific
Teaching: the act which precedes insanity.
Paul Gough
Notice in all these examples that it is not necessary that the construction following (or preceding) the colon be a complete clause.Slide28
The Semi-Colon
This has two functions:
1. To separate independent clauses
The cry was for economic reform; the administration settled for a handful palliatives.
Thurman Arnold
Slide29
The Semi-Colon
2. To distinguish the items/ideas in a list.
There were other factors too: the deadly tedium of small-town life, where any change was a relief; the nature of current Protestant theology, rooted in Fundamentalism and hot with bigotry; and, not least, a native American moralistic blood lust that is half historical determinism, and half Freud.
Robert Coughlin
Slide30
The Semi-Colon
Remember, dodge the “run-on” sentence where the semi-colon is omitted.
It was late, we went home.
It was late we went home.
It was late; we went home.
It was late,
so
we went home.Slide31
Structuring and Sequencing
The macro level of ordering – the order in which ideas are sequenced by logic or time or space: it is the order by which sentences and paragraphs are arranged and linked. Slide32
Structuring and Sequencing: Things to Remember
Paragraphing/sequencing and variety of sentences
Link paragraphs with cohesive ties (e.g. furthermore, firstly, secondly, later in the day)
Once again: planning is critical
Ability to use flashback, dual narrative successfully.Slide33
Use of Short sentences
Show understanding of recurrence and variety when writing.
Example 1:
The Art Cinema is a movie theatre in Hartford. Its speciality is showing uncensored films. The theatre is rated quite high as to the movies it shows. The movies are considered to be good art.
Does this writer understand
recurrence
and
variety?Slide34
Use of Short sentences
Example 2:
The Smith disclosures shocked President Harding not into political housecleaning but into personal reform. The White House poker parties were abandoned. He told his intimates that he was “off liquor”. Nan Britton, his mistress, had already been banished to Europe. His nerve was shaken. He lost his taste for revelry. The plans for the Alaska trip were radically revised. Instead of an itinerant whoopee, it was now to be a serious political mission.
Samuel Hopkins Adams
Does
this
writer understand
recurrence
and
variety?Slide35
Sentence Variation
The simplest kind of variation is changing sentence length and pattern:
We took a hair-raising taxi tide into the city.
The rush hour traffic of Bombay is a nightmare – not from dementia, as in Tokyo, not from exuberance, as in Rome; not from malice, as in Paris; it is a chaos rooted in years of practiced confusion, absent-mindedness, selfishness, inertia and an incomplete understanding of mechanics.
There are no discernible rules.
James Cameron
Slide36
Sentence Variations
Writers sometimes give paragraphs a
“short-long-short”
structure:
Always, from the very first sight of it, she hated the cottage.
She loathed the plain square red-brick box, its blue slate roof, the squalid confusion of currant bushes, black hen coops, falling fences and apple trees in sprawling decay that passed for a garden, the muddy pond at the foot of it and the three withered willows sticking nakedly up from the water, like grey arms caught and fossilised in the act of drowning.
Above all she hated the quiet clenching cold. Slide37
Length
Do not write short under any circumstances
Do not “tell” the marker that it is the incorrect length. Slide38
Word Length
about right
500–750 words
too long
750–1000 words
too short
400–500 words
far too long
Over 1000 words
far too short
Under 400 words