A 14-word application and a register problem across 29 scripts
Class X has a 10-mark Persian composition test: write an application to the Headmaster asking for three days' leave to attend a family function. The scheme gives 4 marks for format (date, addressee, subject line, salutation, closing, signature), 4 for language and register, and 2 for content and length (100-120 words). One candidate's draft reads: «سلام، من فردا مریض هستم، سه روز مرخصی بدهید. خداحافظ» - 14 words, no date, no signature, and two register slips (مریض for بیمار, بدهید for مرحمت فرمایید). Twenty-nine of 34 scripts use at least one spoken form such as میخوام or بدهید. You must return the scripts tomorrow with a model on the board, and the next period is 35 minutes. The school supplies a printed format sheet that candidates are expected to follow.
1. Award the 10 marks for the quoted draft by component, and justify the format mark even though a salutation is present.
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Format 0/4. The draft has a word of greeting but not a salutation in the required register, and it lacks date, addressee, subject line, closing formula and signature. The scheme's four marks are for the full layout on the printed sheet; one informal word cannot carry them. The candidate has not used the sheet. Language and register 0/4. «سلام»، «من ... هستم» and «بدهید» belong to speech, not to a petition; «مریض» is a register slip where بیمار is expected. Two sentences, both with errors of register. Content and length 0/2. Fourteen words against 100-120; the reason for leave is a passing illness, not the family function named in the task. Total 0/10 - with a note that the script is comprehensible and the mark is about task fulfilment, not intelligence. The same banding must be applied to every script missing the date and signature, or the 29 register errors will be marked inconsistently.
2. Rewrite the draft into formal Persian and explain the two formulas a candidate must control.
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Rewrite: «با سلام و احترام، به عرض میرساند این جانب به دلیل شرکت در مراسم خانوادگی، فردا نمیتوانم در مدرسه حاضر شوم. خواهشمند است دستور فرمایید سه روز مرخصی برای این جانب منظور گردد. با تشکر، امضا»
- به عرض میرساند opens a petition and places the writer as a humble servant addressing an authority; it is followed by the writer's business in the third person, not by «من».
- خواهشمند است دستور فرمایید ... منظور گردد is an honorific request: the Headmaster is asked to order, and the leave is granted to «این جانب». The passive «منظور گردد» keeps the writer out of the subject position.
Contrast to teach: «بدهید» is a command to an equal or inferior; «مرحمت فرمایید» or «دستور فرمایید» is the polite equivalent. «مریض» should be بیمار in written Persian. The rewrite is 35 words; students still need the date, subject line and signature to reach the format marks.
3. Plan the 35-minute lesson so that the 29 candidates who used spoken forms correct their own register, not just copy your model.
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- 5 min - sort. Board two columns: «گفتاری» and «نوشتاری». Cards or dictated phrases: میخوام / میخواهم، بدهید / مرحمت فرمایید، سلام / با سلام و احترام، مریض / بیمار. Students place them orally; the class judges.
- 8 min - model with colours. Put the model application on the board and colour-code the six format parts. Students copy only the colour key, not the text.
- 10 min - redraft two sentences. Each student takes their own worst sentence from the test script and rewrites it formally. Teacher circulates with the two weakest writers first.
- 8 min - peer checklist. Four boxes: date, addressee and salutation, polite request, signature. Partner ticks and returns.
- 4 min - exit. One formal sentence requesting leave, no names. The checklists are stapled to the scripts when returned.