A Five-Mark Letter Where Format, Content and Register Fight Each Other
A zilla parishad school in Solapur sets a 5-mark letter for the Class 9 Telugu L2 terminal exam: 'Write a letter to your Headmaster requesting three new Telugu books for the library.' The scheme gives format 2, content 2, language 1. Three scripts are on the teacher's desk.
Draft 1: 190 words; no sender address and no date; opens with నమస్కారం; uses the essay headings ప్రవేశిక and ముగింపు; but the request and all three book titles are clear and the Telugu is accurate.
Draft 2: 95 words; all seven format elements present, but the Headmaster is addressed as 'డియర్ ఫ్రెండ్' and the letter ends 'బై'; the request is clear.
Draft 3: 128 words; format complete and register polite, but two of its four paragraphs complain about the canteen and the playground, and the books appear in a single line.
Six other students overshot the 100–120 word limit by 40–70 words, and the teacher must decide how strictly to enforce it.
1. Award Draft 1 out of 5, showing which marks survive and which do not.
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Award 3/5: format 1, content 2, language 1 - but check the scheme's wording on format first.
- Format (1 of 2): the salutation and subscription are present and the letter is laid out as a letter, but a formal letter to a Headmaster needs the sender's address and the date. Losing two elements of seven is not a total format failure, so half marks are defensible if the scheme treats format holistically. If the scheme lists seven discrete elements at roughly 0.3 each, the arithmetic gives about 1.4 and rounds to 1.
- Content (2 of 2): the three titles and the purpose are exactly what was asked. Essay headings do not damage the content.
- Language (1 of 1): accurate Telugu.
What must not happen: zeroing format because the student used ప్రవేశిక and ముగింపు. Those headings are a genre error, worth a pointed comment, but the letter's machinery is largely there. Record the arithmetic you used so the next marker reaches the same total.
2. Draft 2 has perfect format and wrong register. Draft 3 has perfect register and padded content. Which is the stronger answer in this exam's terms?
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Draft 3 scores higher, and the reasoning should be stated explicitly.
Draft 2: format 2, content 1 (the request is there but the addressee is wrong, which weakens the content), language 1 = 4/5, and the marker should be uneasy. 'డియర్ ఫ్రెండ్' and 'బై' prove the student has transferred an English informal template onto a Telugu formal letter - the seven boxes are ticked but the communication would fail with a real Headmaster.
Draft 3: format 2, content 1 (two of four paragraphs are off-task), language 1 = 4/5 as well, but its defect is padding, which the word limit already controls.
On the scheme as printed both land on 4. The honest resolution is to make the scoring distinguish them rather than to adjust totals silently: content 2 should be reserved for requests that stay on task, and Draft 3's canteen paragraphs must cost that mark. Then Draft 2 = 4 and Draft 3 = 4 with different comments - which is a signal that the scheme needs a register criterion before the next exam.
3. How strictly should the 100–120 word limit be enforced for the six students who overshot by 40–70 words?
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Enforce it as a stated deduction, applied uniformly, and say so before returning scripts.
The limit exists to test precis-like control, so ignoring it makes the constraint meaningless; but penalising only some overshoots makes the marking indefensible in a parent meeting. The choices are:
- No penalty - defensible only if the scheme never mentions the limit. Here it does, so this is out.
- Flat deduction of the language mark (1) for any overshoot beyond 10 words - simple, uniform, harsh at 190 words but workable.
- Ceiling rule: total capped at 4/5 regardless of quality once the script exceeds 140 words - better, because it separates the 130-word script from the 190-word one.
Recommend option 3, but the decisive point is procedural: announce the rule, apply it to all six, and write the applied rule on every script. Since the six overshoots range 40–70 words, a single band hides real differences; a two-band rule (110–140 / above 140) is fairer and still easy to apply across a class of 40.