Internal Assessment Resource

Achievement Standard English 91106: Form developed personal responses to independently read texts, supported by evidence

Resource reference: English 2.9B

Resource title: Boldly go where you have never gone before...

Credits: 4

Achievement / Achievement with Merit / Achievement with Excellence /
Form developed personal responses to independently read texts, supported by evidence. / Form developed, convincing personal responses to independently read texts, supported by evidence. / Form developed, perceptive personal responses to independently read texts, supported by evidence.

Texts should not be taken from those studied directly as part of a student's literature study.

Students need to form developed personal responses to each of the texts and support these with evidence. Of the six texts selected, at least four must be written texts, two of which must be extended texts. The remaining two texts can be visual, oral, or written.

Possible texts include novels, graphic novels, biographies, autobiographies, films, dramas, short stories, poetry, short films, song lyrics, blogs, feature magazine articles, or newspaper columns.

Teachers will need to give clear guidance to students about the suitability of texts they select for this assessment task. Texts must be suitable for level 7 of the curriculum and the age of the students, i.e. texts have a rating that does not prohibit their use for Level 2 NCEA students.

Teachers could encourage students to log individual entries about each text, and to make connections between the texts, in order to develop perceptive personal responses.

Teachers need to:

require students to select independently and read texts

provide opportunities for discussion with students about their personal responses to the texts, including links between the texts and themselves and/or the world

model possible progress logs for the reading process

specify a format for delivery of the personal responses – written and/or oral.

Resource requirements

Student access to a range of suitable texts from which to select, for example: home, English department resources, school or public libraries, Kindle eBooks, iBooks.

Student instructions

Introduction

This activity works closely with your research project ‘Analyse significant connections across texts’

91104 2.7b

Requirements

You must choose independently and read at least six texts based on a common theme.

By now you will have had a suitable introduction to the 5 themes that relate to the overarching idea of the Human Condition (human nature) that threads through the year long course.

You should have also picked one to be the basis of your research.

Task

You must form developed personal responses to each of your selected texts and support these with evidence.

To gain the 4 credits you must provide certain information on each text, there is a template to help you. If you are interested in aiming for Merit or above, there is a slightly different template as the requirements are more probing.

You need to keep a record of your reading.

You will need to meet the checkpoints set out on the cover sheet.

Timescale

The year planner outlines the expectation regarding reading time for each text. The gauge is about three weeks for each draft write up. The research is due by the end of term 1, but you have the rest of term 2 to finish these logs and read the rest of the texts in full.

Some ideas for the theme and text choices available

Empathy

In Real life: religion, unfortunate circumstances (illness, disability, physical deformity, poverty)

A Few Famous Texts that Feature Empathy

A Man Called Horse Dorothy M. Johnson

Dances with Wolves Michael Blake

Schindler’s Ark Thomas Keneally / Schindler’s List Steven Spielberg

Down and Out in Paris and London George Orwell

Great Expectations Charles Dickens

Man’s Search for Meaning Viktor E Frankl

My Sister's Keeper Jodi Picoult

Send Patty Blount

Thirteen Reasons Why Jay Asher

Sarah's Key Tatiana de Rosnay

The Help Kathryn Stockett

My Life Next Door Huntley Fitzpatrick

The Memory Keeper's Daughter Kim Edwards

The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time Mark Haddon

Courage

In Real life: physically brave vs standing up for what's morally right, War heroes, freedom riders, Rosa Parks, Nelson Mandella

A Few Famous Texts that Feature Courage

Charge of the Light - Brigade Alfred Tenyson

V for Vendetta (film & graphic novel) Alan Moore / James McTeigue (film)

A Scanner Darkly - Philip K. Dick

The Help - Kathryn Stockett

Freedom Writers - Erin Gruwell

Wool - Hugh Howey
The Power of One - Courtenay, Bryce -
Walk in my shoes - Evans, Alwyn
Peeling the Onion - Orr, Wendy
Stone Cold - Swindells, Robert
Soldier X - Wulffson, Don
The flight of Burl Crow - Wynne-Jones, Tim -

Refugee boy - Zephaniah, Benjamin

The Truman Show - Peter Weir

Schindler’s Ark – Thomas Keneally

The Book Thief – Markus Zusak

The Kite Runner Khaled Hosseini

Samphire Patrick O’Brien (short story)

Dumb Martian – John Wyndham (short story)

Dead Poets society – Peter Weir

My Sister’s Keeper - Jodi Picoult

Coming of Age

In Real life: loss of innocence, voyage of self-discovery, child birth, marriage, adolescence/puberty, death, rite of passage

Some Texts that Feature Coming of Age

Perks of Being a Wallflower Stephen Chbobsky

Catcher in the Rye J D Salinger

Atonement Ian McEwan

Paper Towns John Green,

Gathering Blue Lois Lowry

Into the Wild Jon Krakauer

Wanderlove Kirsten Hubbard

A Hundred Secret Senses Amy Tan

The Book Thief Markus Zusak

A Respectable Girl Fluer Beale

Juno Jason Reitman

The Secret Garden Frances Hodgson

The Giver Lois Lowry

The Road To Perdition Sam Mendes

Great Expectations Charles Dickens

David Copperfield Charles Dickens

Racism & Tolerance

In Real life: WWII, civil rights movement in USA, apartheid in South Africa, caste system (British and/or Indian), Hutu vs Tutsi in Rwanda

A Few Famous Texts that Feature Racism and Tolerance

Chinua Achebe Anthills of the Savannah

Kathryn Stockett The Help

Alice Walker The Colour Purple

Harper Lee To Kill a Mockingbird

Collier, Kristi: Jericho Walls
Rai, Bali: the Last Taboo
Rai, Bali: What’s Your Problem?. Quick reader about the only Asian boy in an English village.
Brown, Eric: British Front Science Fiction. Two teenagers time-travel to 2055 and an Quick reader.
Cheng, Christopher W.: My Australian Story: New Gold Mountain
A Chinese miner’s experience on the Australian goldfields in 1860.
Fox, Paula: The Slave Dancer
A boy is press-ganged and forced to help transport slaves from Africa to America in the 1840s.
Godden, Rumer: The Diddakoi c1960s England. Good story about bullying faced by a gypsey girl.
Taylor, Mildred D.: Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry
First book of a series, about prejudice faced by a black farming family in dustbowl America during the Great Depression. Newbery Medal winner.
Hendry, Frances Mary: Chains
England, 1794. Juliet discovers the truth about her comfortable lifestyle: it’s built on the slave trade.
Hesse, Karen: Witness
Vermont, USA, 1924. The Ku Klux Klan moves into a small town. Newbery Medal winner.
Tlali, Miriam: Soweto Stories
Short stories from apartheid-era South Africa. Aimed at adult readers.
Lester, Julius: Day of Tears
Nagelkerke, Bill: My Story: Sitting on the Fence
1980s NZ. One family’s experience of the Springbok Tour and the protests against it.
Blackman, Malorie: Noughts and Crosses
Taylor, Theodore: The Cay
Zephaniah, Benjamin: Refugee Boy
Hoffman, Mary & Caroline Binch: Amazing Grace
Ross, Stewart: Greed, seeds & slavery
Riordan, James: Rebel cargo
Darke, Malorie: The first of midnight
Hatt, Christine: Slavery: from Africa to the Americas
Williams, S I: Jupiter Williams
Griffin, John Howard: Black like me
Kidd, Sue Monk: The secret life of bees
Nelson, Vaunda Micheaux: Beyond Mayfield
Murphy, Rita: Black Angels

SHORT STORIES
Skin deep by Tony Bradman
Somehow tenderness survives edited by Hazel Rochman
Examples are: Life unbroken by Henry Scott Holland;
Epitaph on a friend by Robert Burns
The thoughts of Nanushka by Nan Witcomb.
Out of bounds by Beverley Naidoo

John Wyndham – short story Dumb Martian

POEMS
Half-caste and other poems by John Agard.

Strength of women

In Real life: women's vote, equal pay/equal rights, feminist movements

A Few Famous Texts that Feature the “Strength of Women”

Dumb Martian John Wyndham – short story

Samphire Patrick O’Brian – short story

Anthills of the Savannah Chinua Achebe

Made in Dagenham, Nigel Cole - film

Erin Brockovich Steven Soderbergh – film

Kill Bill Quentin Tarentino Film

Shakespeare in Love Tom Stoppard Film

V for Vendetta James McTuige

The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency Alexander McCall Smith.

Gathering Blue by Lois Lowry,

The Tiger's Wife Téa Obreh

The Help Kathryn Stockett

Pride and Prejudice Jane Austin

Hush Hush series, Becca Fitzpatrick

The Colour Purple Alice Walker

Jane Eyre, Jane Eyre

The Canterbury Tales The Wife of Bath

Éowyn, The Lord of the Rings trilogy

Their Eyes Were Watching God Janie Crawford

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo Lisbeth Salander,

'The Secret Life of Bees' by Sue Monk Kidd

'Angry Housewives Eating Bon Bons' by Lorna Landvik

Farewell speech by Rachel McAlpine – a novel on Ada Wells, Kate Sheppard, and other early Christchurch feminists.
A Question of Courage Marjorie Darke

The Bell Jar Sylvia Plath’s semi-autobiographical novel

Chosen Theme:
Author / Name of text / Type of text e.g. Novel, Film, Poem, / Reason Chosen

Use these templates as a starting point to organise your ideas about each text. They are designed so that you cover all the necessary points.

You will need to log individual entries for each of the six texts. Explain:

how and why you responded to each text

You are encouraged to:

demonstrate significant personal understandings of, engagement with, and viewpoints on the texts

make connections between texts and themes in the texts

make clear personal connections between the text and your personal experiences and prior understandings

make clear connections between the social, cultural, literary, political, or historical contexts within the texts and the wider world

show some insight or originality in your thought or reflection.

You can present your responses in a written or oral format or a combination of both.

You should choose a form of presentation that will provide you with the opportunity to achieve the standard at every level: some forms may encourage superficial responses that will not assist you to achieve some grades.

Your teacher will guide you; ask for advice.

Exemplar Low Excellence

The standard requires the following to meet Excellence:

·  Form developed, perceptive personal responses to independently read texts, supported by evidence.

This response demonstrates a developed, insightful understanding of the issue of depression which is supported by evidence:

I learned how Melinda feels that nobody will care about what she is feeling and what is on her mind, even if she were to tell people. This resonated deeply for me as I saw all Melinda wanted was for someone to listen to her. If those around a person like Melinda were to open their minds …

It cannot be assumed that your pain and thoughts are being picked up by the people around you, because what is clear to you may not be clear to others. You must speak.

There is a reasoned and clear expression of a viewpoint about other characters' behaviour:

I felt this was an injustice to her. Characters in this text judge Melinda’s muteness as rude and rebellious, and do not see it at a means of her coping with her depression. Mr. Neck, one of her teachers, is the personification of judgment… Instead of discussing with her why she refuses to do the speech and being a listening ear, he becomes agitated …

It is people like this that further put people into depression, as they will further feel as though they are misunderstood…

The response to the link between the text and the world demonstrates a significant understanding of the issue of depression in a New Zealand context:

in our society, the silence behind mental health must also be broken.

To meet Excellence more securely, the student could:

·  develop the link between text and the social context by expanding on the ways that depression is understood and dealt with in our society.

Click here for the full transcription.

http://www.nzqa.govt.nz/assets/qualifications-and-standards/qualifications/ncea/NCEA-subject-resources/English/91106-B/91106-expB-student1.pdf

HIGH MERIT

The standard requires the following to meet Merit:

·  Form developed, convincing personal responses to independently read texts, supported by evidence.

The response demonstrates a significant understanding of the different viewpoints about the interpretation of the animals' behaviour in this novel. These reasoned and clear viewpoints are supported by integrated evidence. There is a developed understanding of the levels of interpretation available:

He tells of his extraordinary story yet the executives do not believe him. Pi then offers and alternate story… I found this explanation that Pi gave to the executives extremely enthralling because it made me look at the whole novel in a totally different light. Throughout the novel the animals on the lifeboat were just that; they behaved just as you would expect a wild animal to act in a distressing situation. The hyena kills and eats both the zebra and orang-utan… I found this unsurprising…

However when it was revealed that each animal had a human counterpart I was shocked that people would act in such a way. However, after some thought I did not find it too unreasonable that the cook had killed and cannibalised the sailor and Pi’s mother.

Significant understandings that begin to show insight are demonstrated:

I think we underestimate and downplay the animalistic qualities that people have. Humans try to separate themselves from animals; say that they are more civilised and intelligent. However, when put in an extreme situation…

Cannibalism is seen by western society to be taboo.

To meet Excellence, the student could:

further develop the viewpoint about what we might do when confronted by the unthinkable.

Click here for the full transcription.

http://www.nzqa.govt.nz/assets/qualifications-and-standards/qualifications/ncea/NCEA-subject-resources/English/91106-B/91106-expB-student2.pdf

LOW MERIT

This response just sufficiently expresses a reasoned and clear viewpoint about Milo's behaviour. It is supported by integrated supporting evidence: