Task Fulfilment Versus Language Quality in an Opinion Essay
In the written production section, students write a 150-180-word opinion essay: 'Should secondary schools ban smartphones during the school day?' The rubric awards 10 points across three criteria: task achievement (4), organisation (3), and language range and accuracy (3). Script A is 195 words, uses conditionals and passive voice accurately, and is coherently organised, but never mentions schools: it argues that social media harms teenagers and should be restricted at home. Script B is 148 words, uses mostly simple present and 'because' clauses, makes four subject-verb agreement errors, but states a clear position on school bans, gives two reasons and closes with a recommendation. Two teachers must agree a mark. One argues that Script A should win because its language is superior; the other says Script B fulfils the task.
1. Award a band or mark to each script and justify the decision with reference to the criteria.
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Script A: task achievement 1/4 - the prompt asks about schools and a school-day ban, and the script never addresses either; organisation 3/3; language 3/3; total 7/10. Script B: task achievement 4/4; organisation 2/3 (clear but formulaic); language 1/3 (limited range plus repeated agreement errors); total 7/10. On these numbers the scripts tie, which is itself the lesson: strong language cannot fully compensate for an off-task essay, but it is not worth zero either. If the department wants a single winner, the tie-break should be task achievement, because the task is the reason for writing. The important point for markers is that task achievement is a threshold criterion: a script that answers a different question has not done the job, however elegant the grammar.
2. What feedback would you give Script A, and what would you ask the student to keep?
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Start with the task, not the grammar. Point to the prompt's two key elements - 'secondary schools' and 'during the school day' - and show that neither appears in the thesis or the conclusion. Ask the student to rewrite only the thesis and the topic sentences so that they take a position on a school ban; the existing body paragraph on social media can be retained as a supporting reason if it is reframed as evidence about school hours. Then praise what should be kept: the conditional structures and the passive voice are accurate and appropriate, and the paragraphing is clear. The message is that the linguistic resources are an asset once they are deployed on the right question. This avoids the common feedback error of burying an off-task writer in grammar corrections.
3. Script A is 195 words against a 150-180 limit. Should length be penalised?
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Not mechanically. The limit is a guide to scope, and 15 words over is not a serious breach; penalising it would distract from the real problem, which is relevance. A defensible policy is: do not deduct for length alone; deduct under task achievement only if the extra length shows the writer has drifted from the question or has failed to select and organise material. Here the overshoot is not the cause of the off-task content, so the mark should rest on relevance. The same principle applies in reverse: a 140-word script that answers the question should not be rewarded for brevity, and a 220-word script that repeats itself should lose organisation marks, not language marks. State this in the rubric so that two markers do not invent different length penalties.