ASSESSMENT AND SUPPORT

Identifying relevant, meaningful evidence

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.

equals
all of these things

At least one piece of the evidence is relevant to the point and explainable, or analysable

At least one piece of evidence is of an acceptable length to embed

[For year 8 onwards] There is at least one method that could be analysed

Assessment Criteria for Identifying relevant, meaningful evidence

minus
any of these things

Basic task instructions have not been followed

Only poor evidence identified, which has nothing much to explain or analyse

All quotations are too long to embed (more than about 10 words)

plus
all of these things

All the evidence is relevant to the point and explainable or analysable

All the evidence is of an acceptable length to embed

[For year 8 onwards] There is at least one meaningful method that could be analysed

star
all of these things

All the evidence is well chosen, with the more meaningful sections of the passage included

Evidence is sufficiently distinct and doesn’t just show exactly the same thing

Evidence is chronological within the passage

[For year 8 onwards] There is at least one meaningful method that could be analysed

What a good one looks like

Example task

The following extract is the opening of ‘1984’ by George Orwell.

It was a bright cold day in April, and the clocks were striking thirteen. Winston Smith, his chin nuzzled into his breast in an effort to escape the vile wind, slipped quickly through the glass doors of Victory Mansions, though not quickly enough to prevent a swirl of gritty dust from entering along with him.

The hallway smelt of boiled cabbage and old rag mats. At one end of it a coloured poster, too large for indoor display, had been tacked to the wall. It depicted simply an enormous face, more than a metre wide: the face of a man of about forty-five, with a heavy black moustache and ruggedly handsome features. Winston made for the stairs. It was no use trying the lift. Even at the best of times it was seldom working, and at present the electric current was cut off during daylight hours. It was part of the economy drive in preparation for Hate Week. The flat was seven flights up, and Winston, who was thirty-nine and had a varicose ulcer above his right ankle, went slowly, resting several times on the way. 

Imagine you were writing a PEAEA paragraph with the following point: At the start of the novel Orwell presents the world as run-down and miserable.Which quotations from this extract would you include in each bit of Evidence? Write ‘1’ and ‘2’ in the margin, and next to each number write the quotation(s) which would be included in that bit of Evidence.

Example response

  1. “escape the vile wind”

  2. “boiled cabbage and old rag mats”

Notes on this response

  • Quotations are short and ideal for embedding in a context setting sentence

  • Quotations are in chronological order in the passage

  • Both are relevant to the point about how the world is run-down (one idea) and miserable (another related idea)

  • Both allow for inferences to be made about the world

  • [For Year 8 onwards] the first piece of evidence allows for methods to be analysed (both the verb ‘escape’ and the connotations of ‘vile’ which create a kind of personification of the wind.