ELA 30-1 Diploma case studies
ELA 30-1 Diploma · Put your knowledge to work in context.
English Language Arts 30-1 is the Alberta Grade 12 English course typically taken by students heading to university, and the diploma exam is the provincial assessment attached to it. It sits inside the Grade 12 Diploma Examinations Program, which Alberta's education ministry describes as having three purposes: "to certify the level of individual student achievement in selected Grade 12 courses," "to ensure that provincewide standards of achievement are maintained," and "to report individual and group results." In practice, the ELA 30-1 exam asks you to read closely and write purposefully: you work through a reading section built on multiple-choice questions about unfamiliar texts, and you produce extended written responses judged against provincial scoring criteria. The ELA 30-1 Diploma case studies are 5 cases and about 3,392 words.
1Irony vs. Anger: Naming the Method, Not the Mood
A Grade 12 student is drafting a multiple-choice justification for an unseen editorial. The editorial opens: "What a triumph for the Riverside Arts Committee - after only eleven months, three public meetings, and 18,400 in fundraising, the town has successfully protected a blank wall from the corrupting influence of a painted heron." Later the writer observes that council "acted with the speed of a glacier and the courage of a smoke alarm." The student's working claim is "The writer is angry." Her teacher calls that too blunt to earn full credit.
702 words, about 4 min2Which Study Do You Trust? Weighing Conflicting Evidence
A student is comparing two passages about school phone bans. Passage A describes one school of 900 students where, after a ban, average marks rose 12% in one term; the figure comes from the principal's newsletter, which also announces the ban as "a resounding success." Passage B describes a district of 12,000 students where researchers found no statistically significant change in marks; it notes that the ban took effect in the same month the district switched to a new bell schedule and a later start time.
566 words, about 3 min3A Broken Clock: Choosing Between Two Readings of a Symbol
A student is answering a question on a short story excerpt. In the passage, a woman named Doreen has kept her late husband's stopped mantel clock on the kitchen shelf for nine years.
561 words, about 3 min4Cutting Plot Summary: Making a Personal Response Argue
A student has 35 minutes and a 500-word limit to write a personal response to a short text about a father teaching his daughter to repair a bicycle chain. He gets the tools out of the garage and puts newspaper down on the driveway.
762 words, about 4 min5Mandatory Volunteer Hours: Building a Case Without Overclaiming
A student is writing a persuasive essay arguing that mandatory volunteer hours should be removed from her school's graduation requirements. She has 40 minutes and must produce a controlled, defensible argument.
801 words, about 4 min