Assessment Type 1: Responding to Texts

For a 10‑credit subject, students complete one written response to texts and one oral response to texts. At least one response must be to a literary text.

For a 20‑credit subject, students complete two written responses to texts and two oral responses to texts. At least two responses must be to literary texts.

Students read and view a variety of texts, including literary, media, and everyday texts, such as novels, plays, poetry, short stories, biographies, films, documentaries, web texts, social networking texts, and the everyday texts of work, family, and community life. Whole texts or parts of texts may be studied. Examples of texts suitable for the study of English as an Additional Language are intended to stimulate thinking about teaching. 

A suggested text list is available on the subject minisite.

Students can work individually or in groups.

Written responses to texts could include, but are not limited to:

• a narrative (e.g. from the point of view of a character in the text)
• a creative text on a theme from a studied text (e.g. a shared experience, a memoir)
• an essay
• a class publication (e.g. a magazine or newspaper)
• an online blog or interaction
• a letter of appreciation to a specific audience
• a review for a specific publication
• an email
• a multimodal article.

A written response should be a maximum of 600 words.

Oral responses to texts could include, but are not limited to a:

• discussion on a reading or recording (e.g. of a poem/short narrative) in an online video
• podcast
• précis of a short story
• group play or role play
• multimodal presentation
• recorded radio program
• class or group debate.

An oral response should be a maximum of 5 minutes.

For this assessment type, students provide evidence of their learning primarily in relation to the following assessment design criteria:

• communication
• comprehension
• application.