Whose Voice Is It?
A 210-page prescribed novel is taught in six periods. Students answer a 200-word question: 'How does the narrator's attitude to the village change?' The mark scheme awards 4 marks for two stages with textual evidence, 2 for comment on narrative voice, and 2 for expression. Of 24 scripts, 15 retell the plot without naming a change, 9 write 'the author hates the village' after quoting the narrator's sarcasm, and 5 ignore the final chapter, where the narrator returns. One revision period remains. A sample script reads: 'At first the narrator calls the village dull and says nothing ever happens. Later he says he misses the noise. This shows the author hates the village but pretends to like it. The final chapter is not important because nothing happens.'
1. Mark the sample script out of 8 and justify each sub-mark.
Read the worked answer
Content: 2/4. The script names two attitudes - dullness and missing the noise - and gives a phrase of evidence for each, so it has two stages. But it does not explain the change as a change, and it dismisses the final chapter, which is where the return is completed. Analysis of voice: 0/2. 'This shows the author hates the village' conflates narrator and author. The script notices the sarcasm but misreads it as the author's own view; there is no comment on why the narrator speaks this way. Expression: 1/2. The sentences are clear, but the answer is short, and the claim about the final chapter is self-contradictory after the second stage. Total 3/8. The mark is not 0: two stages are present. It is not 4: the voice mark is the discriminating mark and the script does not earn it.
2. Plan a 10-minute board activity that targets the narrator/author confusion. Explain the sequence.
Read the worked answer
Draw two columns: 'What the narrator says' and 'What the author shows'. Put the sarcastic line in the first column. Ask: who is speaking? Then ask: what does the author want us to notice about this speaker? Use a simple analogy: a character in a play can say 'I hate this town' without the playwright hating it. Add a second line where the narrator contradicts himself, and ask which column it belongs to. Then give students one sentence frame: 'The narrator's sarcasm suggests..., but the author...' Pairs complete it for the final chapter. Take two responses and test them against the text. The sequence moves from identification (who speaks) to function (why the author gives this voice) to transfer (students write the frame themselves). Ten minutes is enough because the activity uses one line and one frame, not a lecture on point of view.
3. Decide whether to keep the question as it is or change it to a two-part question. Justify the trade-off.
Read the worked answer
Change it to a two-part question: (a) trace two stages in the narrator's attitude, with evidence; (b) explain how the final chapter qualifies or completes that change. Keep the same mark scheme. The original question is valid, but five students ignored the final chapter and nine confused narrator and author; a two-part stem signals that the ending is part of the change without telling students what the ending says. This improves fairness and construct validity: the test still asks for change and voice, but it no longer hides a major requirement in an open instruction. The trade-off is that a two-part question gives more scaffolding and may reduce the demand for independent structure. That is acceptable here because the discriminating mark is the voice comment, not the ability to guess which chapters count. If the teacher keeps the original, she must at least add 'refer to the first and final chapters' to the rubric.