Here’s what you could have won! Feeding back Literature

I find how people approach feedback really interesting. I have known one school to release one marked exam question at a time when feeding back. I have known of others who rely on codes and extra sheets.  There’s no right or wrong of going about it. However, the complexity of English Literature doesn’t alway fit into the ways of feeding back we’d normally use for English Language exams. In Literature, there’s so many ways and ideas to come up with for one simple exam question. Feeding back from a Literature exam needs to factor in that idea. There’s more than one way to crack the question. 

For every Literature question in mocks I produce the following document. I, generally, have a word document open as I mark. 

The feedback then focuses on the answers given. We highlight which ideas sound better than others. We then look at links between them. What choice would you use to support idea A?  How does that link to the context and the society at that time? 

The plurality of ideas is key for students. When we trot out a really good example, there’s a good chance that students will miss out that there are several different routes to that one answer. Sadly, placing the emphasis on that one good example turns Literature into a binary exam right and wrong. This piece,here, is right. My writing is wrong because I didn’t get the same mark. Next time, I need to include the things the student mentioned in the good example. 

An insistence on formulaic writing and tick boxes has meant that the breadth of ideas and choices is never explored or revealed to students. The texts are so rich with ideas and choices that students need constant reminding that they can mention them. They need to hear ideas constantly in the classroom so they can absorb them. They need to see numerous choices made by various writers so they can see how they link to ideas. 

Why start everything with a blank slate?  The great thing is that over time I have amassed a number of these so that when we look at the text, when teaching, I am able to use them as a starting point. Look at all the different things you can say about death in the text. Which do you agree with?

Students need the building blocks for writing essays and largely everything is treated as an unseen test. There's only one real time things should be unseen and that's the final exam. Everything until then should be supporting that one moment and not a repetition of it. We told our students that the mock exam would be one of three characters or one of three themes.  

Thanks for reading, 

Xris