Deciding whether a folio response meets the task requirements
A teacher is moderating a folio piece by Ana. The task asked students to write a 150-word email to a Spanish-speaking friend describing a recent school trip, using the preterite and imperfect, and including at least two opinions. Ana's response is 210 words. It describes the trip in detail, uses the preterite accurately throughout, includes three opinions, but uses the imperfect only twice, both in the phrase hacía sol. It also includes a paragraph about her future plans that is not relevant to the task. The teacher must decide whether to accept the piece as evidence for the folio or ask for a resubmission.
1. Evaluate Ana's response against the task requirements and recommend a decision.
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Against the requirements:
- Length: 210 words exceeds the 150-word target. In folio tasks, substantial overshoot can indicate the student did not address the task economically, but it is not automatically disqualifying.
- Preterite and imperfect: The preterite is used accurately, but the imperfect appears only twice and only in a set phrase (hacía sol). The task required use of both tenses; the evidence for the imperfect is thin and formulaic, so the piece does not fully demonstrate the intended capability.
- Opinions: Three opinions are included, exceeding the minimum of two - a strength.
- Relevance: The paragraph on future plans is off-task and adds length without addressing the requirement.
Recommendation: The piece is not a clean fit for the task as set. The teacher should either (a) ask for a resubmission that trims the off-task paragraph and uses the imperfect more substantively, or (b) accept it as partial evidence while noting the gap. Accepting it uncritically would weaken the defensibility of the folio judgement.
2. Explain how the teacher should document this decision so the school-assessed grade remains defensible under moderation.
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The teacher should record:
- The task requirements as issued (length, tenses, opinions, topic), so the standard is visible.
- The specific gap - that the imperfect is limited to a formulaic phrase and that an off-task paragraph inflates the length.
- The action taken - whether the piece was resubmitted, accepted with a caveat, or replaced by other evidence.
- The holistic judgement and how this piece contributed to it, with reference to the other folio pieces.
Documentation matters because moderation compares the teacher's judgement against the evidence, not against a raw score. If the teacher accepts a piece that does not meet the stated requirements, the judgement is vulnerable. If the teacher records the reasoning transparently, the judgement is defensible even if a moderator would have made a slightly different call.