ASSESSMENT AND SUPPORT

Using 3rd person limited narrative voice

Assessment Criteria and What A Good One Looks Like

Below you will find the Skill Check assessment criteria for this skill, and underneath you will find an example of what a good one looks like, with a brief explanation of how it fits the criteria.

Assessment Criteria for Using 3rd person limited narrative voice

minus
any of these things

Uses 1st or 2nd person narrative voice

Includes the thoughts/feelings of two or more characters

Lots of accuracy errors in the transcription of the text

Makes unnecessary content changes to the supplied text

equals (just) to plus (secure)
all of these things

Uses 3rd person narrative voice throughout

Limits the thoughts/feelings to one character

star
all of these things

All the = criteria

Shows the thoughts/feelings of the other characters in a well-written and effective way

Successfully uses free indirect narration at some point in the response

What a good one looks like

Example task

Read the passage below and complete the task underneath.

Maddie had been waiting at the station now for nearly an hour, and it was starting to get dark. ‘Why are there no trains?’ she wondered. Being the middle of nowhere, there was no electronic board with times – just a faded paper timetable. On the other platform, across the tracks, there was a shabbily dressed man in a green hat. He wasn’t worried about the train being late, though. He loved train stations!

Rewrite the passage so that it uses a 3rd person limited narrative voice, ideally with free indirect narration. Use ‘show don’t tell’ where required. Don’t make unnecessary changes – you only need to change the parts which are not in 3rd person limited – keep the rest the same.

Example response

Maddie had been waiting at the station now for nearly an hour, and it was starting to get dark. Why were there no trains? Being the middle of nowhere, there was no electronic board with times – just a faded paper timetable. On the other platform, across the tracks, there was a shabbily dressed man in a green hat. He looked weirdly happy, despite the lack of trains. He was smiling broadly — unsettlingly, Maddie thought — as if he just loved being at a train station, even when there weren’t any actual trains.

Notes on this response

  • Things have only been changed when they needed to be to fix the narrative voice - the rest has stayed the same

  • The direct thought at the start has been changed to free indirect narration, with the required tense change (Why were there no trains?)

  • The perspective has been changed to just Maddie - we no longer get the man in the hat’s thoughts

  • Instead of the man’s thoughts we are ‘shown’ his feelings through description, and through Maddie’s perspective of him

  • The phrase “as if” is used to help portray the thoughts of the man in the hat