Format Marks and the Friendly Salutation in a Ten-Mark Letter
Composition carries 20 marks in the half-yearly paper: a 10-mark letter and a 10-mark essay. The letter question reads: 'Write a letter to your Headmaster asking for three days' leave to attend your sister's wedding in a village 40 km away. Give the dates and say who will accompany you.' Your mark scheme splits the letter 6 for content, 2 for format and 2 for language.
Lalrinpuii writes 110 words. She gives both dates, names her uncle as her escort, and asks for leave politely; all three content points are there and her sentences are clean. But she opens with an informal salutation meaning 'my friend', gives no sender's address and no date, and closes with an informal sign-off. In the corridor afterwards she argues that Hmar courtesy dislikes stiff formality and that a friendly tone should not cost her marks. Her overall Hmar total is 61, and she needs 65 to move up a section.
1. Mark the letter out of 10, and answer her argument.
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Content 6, format 0, language 2 - 8 out of 10. All three content points are present and the sentences are clean, so nothing comes off those columns. Format is a separate 2 marks and she has missed three of its elements: sender's address, date, and a salutation suited to a Headmaster. Her argument mixes two things. Hmar courtesy does favour warmth, and a letter that opens with a cold formula is not better Hmar; but the salutation is not where warmth lives - her body paragraph is already polite, and 'my friend' addressed to a Headmaster is not friendly-informal, it is a category error, like calling him by his surname. Say that once, show her a model letter, and do not move the mark.
2. What would you change in the paper or the scheme so this is not repeated?
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Two changes. First, break the scheme down so the candidate can see what format is worth: 4 for the three content points, 2 for the required format elements, 2 for salutation and closing, 2 for sentence control. Second, print the skeleton in the question itself - 'Address, date, salutation, body, closing, signature' - so the format mark tests whether she can use a structure, not whether she guessed it. Better still, teach one model letter a fortnight before the paper and mark it in class against the same scheme. A format mark nobody has taught is a trap, and it is the weakest writers who walk into it; stronger writers copy the shape of a letter by accident from things they have read. On the 61 and the section cut-off: resist finding the four marks in a column where they were not earned - that conversation is worse for her than the four marks.