Re-marking a passive-voice item: auxiliary versus subject
You are marking the half-yearly Elective Persian scripts for a Class IX group of 42 candidates. Item 4 asked candidates to turn four active sentences into the passive. The scheme allows ½ mark per sentence and states: award the mark only if the passive auxiliary is correct; do not penalise spelling unless meaning changes. The scripts show a repeated pattern: 27 candidates wrote نامه نوشته کرد for 'the letter was written', 19 wrote مرا دعوت شد for 'I was invited', and only 6 produced در باغ بسته گردید. Your head of department wants the item re-marked before marks are entered tomorrow morning. She has also asked you to run a 15-minute remedial slot in the next period using the same four sentences and no new vocabulary. You have the scripts, the scheme and a blackboard.
1. Which of the four candidate forms are acceptable, and what grammatical test separates them? Name the Persian terms you would write on the board.
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Test: a Persian passive is a صفت مفعولی (past participle) plus a form of شدن; the participle is invariable and شدن carries person and number.
- نامه نوشته شد - acceptable: نوشته + شد, and نامه is the promoted subject, third singular.
- نامه نوشته کرد - unacceptable: کردن is the transitive auxiliary of the active voice and cannot build a passive. The candidate has carried over the active auxiliary.
- در باغ بسته گردید - acceptable: گردید is a formal variant of شد and does not change the voice.
- مرا دعوت شد - unacceptable: مرا is the object form. In a passive the promoted object becomes the subject, so the required form is من دعوت شدم.
Board labels: صفت مفعولی + شدن، فعل گذرا/ناگذر، نهاد و مفعول. The separating rule is auxiliary plus subject marking, not word order.
2. Using the scheme as written, award a mark to each form and defend the mark you find hardest to justify.
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Award: (a) ½, (b) 0, (c) ½, (d) 0 with a written note.
- (a) and (b) are straightforward: the auxiliary is respectively right and wrong.
- (c) must not lose the mark merely because a key prints شد; گردید is an accepted formal alternative and the voice is correct.
- (d) is the hard one. The auxiliary شد is right, but مرا cannot be the subject of a passive, so the candidate has not produced the passive of the target sentence. Awarding ½ would reward an ungrammatical sentence and would teach the wrong model. The scheme's phrase 'only if the auxiliary is correct' is under-specified; I apply the construction-level reading consistently to all 42 scripts and flag the wording to the head of department for moderation.
Practical effect: 27 candidates lose ½ on (a); the (d) decision affects 19 and must be minuted so no parent query finds two different standards.
3. Outline the 15-minute remedial slot so that the 27 candidates who wrote the auxiliary wrong are forced to make the contrast themselves.
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- Contrast pair, 3 min. Write two sentences on the board: «او در را بست» / «در بسته شد». Ask: who does the action in each? Which word carries the tense? Elicit that بست is active and بسته شد is passive.
- Transformation grid, 5 min. Four rows, columns: active, participle, passive. Supply pronouns to force agreement: «او مرا دید» → «من دیده شدم»; «آنها نامه را نوشتند» → «نامه نوشته شد». Pairs complete two rows, then the board is filled by nomination.
- Error hunt, 5 min. Put the two wrong forms from the scripts on the board without names and ask pairs to correct and state the rule in one Persian sentence: «فعل مجهول با شدن ساخته میشود، نه با کردن».
- Exit ticket, 2 min. Three active sentences; students write only the passive auxiliary and the subject. Collect and use as the starter for the next lesson.