Week 3 Term 3: Teacher Practice: NCEA Level 1 English: 91924 Assessment Update (August 5 - August 9)

The journey so far 

In Term 2 I documented the journey that the English Department took with the new assessment (91924: Demonstrate understanding of how context shapes verbal language use). You can see the reflections that I wrote for the process on how we approached this new assessment here: 

Alby's Blog Post Entry (19/05/24) - An overview of our Term 2 unit 'Our Stories and Our Histories (through poetry)'.

Alby's Blog Post Entry (09/06/24) - Reading No.1 - Jacinda goes to the Pacific Forum in Tuvalu and my family colonizes her house

Alby's Blog Post Entry (16/06/24) - Reading No.2 + Reading No.3 - BLM and Covid in the time of Priminiscinda

Alby's Blog Post Entry (23/06/24) - Reading No.4 - Massacre + the reading log

Since the last post, we have covered 4 texts from our text study (Tusiata Avia's 'The Savage Colonizer Book'). The students and I worked through the first three texts together (reading through the text and going through the reading log) for: 

1. Jacinda goes the Pacific Forum in Tuvalu and my family colonizes her house
2. BLM
3. Covid in the time of Priminiscinda

From here the students were given the fourth text 'Massacre' to read through on their and complete the reading log independently. Now I am going to outline the assessment which is the last phase of the unit 'Our Stories + Our Histories (through poetry)'. I will outline the assessment that has come from the unit and how the students have done so far with the assessment. 

91924: Outline of the assessment

The focus for the assessment is to get the students to write a report on the context of the poem that they have chosen (in this case - Massacre) and explain how the context has influenced and shaped the verbal language used. 

Task One: Author + Context

TASK ONE: The students will write about the author (doing their own research) on who Tusiata Avia is. They will then do some research on the context around the text that they are focusing. By this stage, they should have finished the reading log for their fourth text so they can pull what they have done in the reading log and use it for Task One. 

Task Two: Introduction + Context

TASK TWO: For the introduction the students will provide a summary of the text they have chosen from 'The Savage Colonizer Book'. They will also write who Tusiata Avia is and give an in depth insight into the context surrounding the text and what the context is telling us about society at the time it was written. Again, the information that they have collated through the reading log for their fourth text can be used for introduction and context paragraph for the assessment. 

Task Three: Language Features

TASK THREE: A big focus for the reading logs is identifying language features that are effective in the text. For this part of the assessment, the students will talk about four verbal language techniques from the text, why they were effective in the overall messaging of the text and how they connect or relate to the context. The conclusion follows from here. 

How is it going so far?

STRENGTHS: The students have responded well to the assessment. They are particularly strong in identifying the language features and explaining why the features are effective. For example: 

"The first technique Listing is a technique that is used to list down key points of a topic down for easier access to the information. An example of this may be listing every cupcake on a tray fresh out of the oven, basically meaning summing up the total of something into a presented list.

The second Technique I will explore is Repetition- This is when a single word or phrase is used multiple times in a successful effort to get a point across, for example “I have to practice so I can get better, I have to practice so I can get better.”

Listing, this is a language feature that is used on a daily such as counting the roll in class for the amount of students or listing who is going to a birthday party, this technique specifically is effective in the massacre poem as it was used to list the ages of 8 of the 51 victims that passed that day one of them being only 3 years old very simple but useful technique."

AREAS FOR IMPROVEMENT: Understanding what the context is and being able to articulate the context is an area that my students have struggled with. I know that I probably need to provide more pre-reading exercises that talk about the context around Avia's 'Massacre' (The Christchurch shooting 2019) and go through this with the students prior to them reading the text. Just as we have done so with the three other poems, I feel that the students need the same scaffolding and direction with the fourth text. I assumed that they were able to get through it on their own as we had covered so much during our intensive reading period. One of my colleagues shared an article from The Guardian which is a good resource that I'd like to integrate into the pre-reading for Massacre - see the link here The Guardian: Exclusive: Racism, homophobia fuelling thousands of crimes in New Zealand each year, figures show

The assessment is one where the students have to think beyond the text and really understand the context both social and political contexts, that surrounds the text. It requires the students to inquire and research into what is happening before, during and after the text. The prior assessment work such as the reading logs and working through this as a class is important as it helps the students to gauge the context. I know that I need to continue this even when the students are working on their independent inquiry with their chosen text, I need to help guide the understanding and learning of the context. 

NEXT STEPS

• Work through the final phase of the assessment with the students
• Share the article to students who are struggling to connect/identify the context
• Get the assessment done by Week 6 Term 3