Sample of a well-written text (with teacher comments) that shows how you can answer the long – answer part of the written exam.

The following text is written by my 16-year old student Camilla Lønningen, who is a student of general studies/studiespesialiserende.

She has kindly agreed to let me share her text for teaching purposes. She answered this task during her whole-day test / written mock-exam this semester. The whole-day test consisted of two tasks: one short answer task, and one long-answer task. Given that she only had 5-hours at her disposal, the ideas presented by her are very well-executed. I have placed the text into a table to show how the content has been organized. On the right-hand side, I have made some comments to provide an insight into what I think works in the text.

Here is the link to the text that Camilla Lønningen created, and which includes my comments.

The text that she wrote was a response to the following task which is what the students enrolled in Vg1 or Vg2English typically get for their written exam in English.

In literature and films, the main characters often take on a challenge. Compare and contrast two such characters you have studied in your English course and reflect upon the challenges they have met and how their actions and choices help us understand them and the world around us.

In your text, you should

·         in short, introduce the texts you have chosen and how you will answer the task

·         present the challenges of character one with examples

·         present the challenges of character two with examples

·         compare and contrast the two characters’ challenges in a discussion

·         conclude by summing up the main differences between the characters

    Give your text a suitable title.

If you are interested, you can check out this post here about how to prepare for you written whole-day test or written exam. 

On the blog you can also find an example of a well structured argumentative text with teacher comments.

Oral Presentation - Occupational Health and Safety.

In this video, you can see Chris Mestre present the topic of Occupational Health and Safety. Chris is a studying Automation at Sotra Vgs. The task can be found here.

In my opinion, this presentation stands out:

·        Because of the high quality of content as Chris covers the topic in its complexity.

·        Chris covers all parts of the task which can be found here.

·        Chris uses different tools to convey his content: he uses body language and  he writes and draws on the blackboard to emphasize parts of the content.

·        He is poised under pressure, uses formal language and maintains eye contact with the audience throughout the presentation. 

·        He does not read from a script which shows that he has understood the content and can produce sentences in English language on the spot.

·        His language is fluent as he communicates his content well using right technical vocabulary and the presentation flows well.

·        His language is also pretty accurate, and even though one can see some concord issues, they do not hinder communication and are not very frequent.

Here are some tips to improve the presentation even more.

·        Chris could have told the audience what exactly “long term health risks" mean. This is because it is easy to confuse long term health risks with long-term consequences. The former indicates a health issue that can come up if the working conditions are not optimal. For example, loss of eye sight over time due to poor lighting. The latter refers to a consequence of a health related issue and can also occur from a safety hazard. For example, you can break your leg if you slip and fall because of wet floor. The consequence is long-term even though it does not take place over time.

·        Chris should also discuss the prevention of the risks in-depth.

·        It is a good idea to say something more about the sources than just “here are my sources.” One can, for example, comment on why a certain source was used . One can also comment on the reliability and the credibility of the sources.

All in all, this is a brilliant presentation by Chris  which I am proud to share with you, with his permission of course. 

An example of a well structured argumentative text with teacher comments

Here is an example of a well written argumentative text with teacher comments. 
I have also included an excercise for pupils to work with and a checklist of how to structure paragraphs for argumentative texts.
Here is a power point discussing how to write argumentative texts.
Here are criteria that can be used for assessing argumentative texts.

Artikkel/Essay : Kjennetegn for måloppnåelse/Vurderingskriterier + Vurderingsskjema / Assessment Criteria + Form for Assessment

For å praktisere vurdering for læring i klasserommet, må elevene få:
1) Kjennetegn på måloppnåelse eller Vurderingskriterier på forhånd
2) En oppsumering om hvordan elevene har prestert
3) Framover melding dvs. råd til elevene om hvordan de kan forbedre seg

Vg1 elever må ofte skrive en artikkel eller et essay. 
Klikk her for Vurderingskriterier for Artikkel/Essay. Følgende skjema kan brukes til å gi elever vudering på hvordan de har prestert og hva de kan gjøre for å skrive bedre:Vurdering Skjema for en artikkel/ et essay. Jeg uthever det som gjelder eleven. Det går selvfølgelig an å utheve på datamaskin, men jeg foretrekker å skrive disse ut og bruke en markerings penn. 
Her kan dere se en eksempeloppgave på en artikkel som viser høy måloppnåelse samt lærerkommentarer om hva gjør den til en bra tekst. Her er en til slik oppgave. 

 
In order to use assessment to promote learning, the following steps need to be covered in a classroom.The pupils need to get:
1)  Assessment Criteria for written and oral assignments

2) Feedback that explains pupils'performance

3) Advice to pupils on how to improvetheir results

Here is a form for Assessment Criteria for an Article/Essay that can be used to present the pupils the criteria that are used to assess their written assignments and how they need to answer the tasks to acheive a certain result.  The following form can be used to give the pupils assessment about how they answered the task and what they need to work on: Assessment form for an article/essay. I highlight all that applies to the pupil with a highlighter. This can of course be done on the computer as well, however, I prefer to print these forms out and use a highlighter pen. Here is an example of a brilliantly written essay/objective article and my comments on what makes it such a good text. Here is one more such text.

Global English: En eksempeloppgave på en informativ artikkel som viser høy måloppnåelse samt lærerkommentarer om hva gjør den til en bra tekst - An objective article that shows a high degree of competence together with teacher comments.

Studiespesialiserende elever og yrkesfag elever må jobbe med følgende kompetansemål i engelsk:

Mål for opplæringen er at eleven skal kunne:  gjøre rede for bruken av engelsk som et

internasjonalt verdensspråk.
Tidligere skrev jeg et innlegg om hvordan vi jobbet med temaet. Det kan leses her.

Elevene skulle skrive en objektiv artikkel. Her kan dere lese om dokumentet vi brukte for å jobbe med hvordan skrive en objektiv artikkel.

Elevene fikk en 2 timers prøve der de svarte på følgende oppgaven:

Write an objective article where you discuss the spread of English.

Make sure you include the following:

Origin and Spread of English

Importance of English Today

Impact of English on Other Languages

The Future of English

Her kommer en eksemeptekst om en objektiv artikkel. Dette er en elevbesvarelse som jeg har modifisert slik at den viser høymåloppnåelse. Takk Åse Kumhle Palerud for at jeg fikk lov å bruke denne. Eksempeltekst.  
Her kan dere lese om en annen oppgave med lærerkommentarer. 

En eksempeloppgave på en veldig bra skrevet/strukturert essay/artikkel og lærerkommentarer - A very well written and structured essay /Objective article and teacher comments

       I følge NDLA er, "An article is a piece of writing on a particular subject which is written for publication in a magazine or newspaper. However, when asked to write an article at school or in an exam you are expected to write an essay or paper (in Norwegian, “a stil”) unless a particular type of article is specified e.g. a newspaper article"
       Her er en eksempeloppgave på en veldig bra skrevet essay/artikkel og mine kommentarer om hva som gjør den til en bra tekst. Dette er veldig nyttig for elevene som kan se oppbygging av teksten og se hvordan avsnitsstrukturen er med på å fremme innholdet. Klikk her for å laste ned eksempeloppgaven. Oppgaven som er besvart her er en eksamensoppgave fra faget Internasjonal Engelsk. 
Her er et eksempel på en til eksempeloppgave om en informativ artikkel fra studiespesialiserende som viser høy måloppnåelse samt lærerkommentarer om hva gjør den til en bra tekst. 

         According to NDLA, "An article is a piece of writing on a particular subject which is written for publication in a magazine or newspaper. However, when asked to write an article at school or in an exam you are expected to write an essay or paper (in Norwegian, “a stil”) unless a particular type of article is specified e.g. a newspaper article".
         Here is an example of a brilliantly written essay/objective article and my comments on what makes it such a good text. This is very useful for the students as they can see what teachers consider a well written text and how the paragraph structure can help bring the arguments across.Click here to download the text. The task that has been answered here is an examination question from International English. 
Here is another example of  objective article that shows a high degree of competence together with teacher comments.

En Usedvanlig God Gotisk Novelle / A Brilliant Gothic Story

På Vg2 i faget Internasjonal Engelsk skrev elevene en novelle i gotisk sjanger. Her er en usedvanlig god novelle. Klikk her: Everything Will be Alright. Blir så stolt av elevene når de produserer noe så utrolig flott. Vi brukte Prosessorientert skriving som arbeidsform.
Dere som kjenner til sjangeren kan se den fantastiske bra bruk av et litterært virkemiddel som heter Doubles.

One of my students wrote the following short story in the gothic genre. It is brilliant. You can read it here. Click here: Everything Will be Alright. My chest swells up with pride whenever any of my students produce something exceptional. We used the Process- Oriented Approach to Writing.
Those of you who are familiar with the genre will probably notice the superb use of a literary device called Doubles.