Fifteen Marks of Composition: A Letter That Loses Its Frame
The composition section (fifteen marks) offers a choice: (i) a letter to a friend describing the school's annual function, or (ii) a paragraph on «أثَرُ القراءةِ في حياةِ الطالب». A candidate chooses the letter and writes the body well, but opens with «بسم الله الرحمن الرحيم» and moves straight to «أخي العزيز، تحية طيبة وبعد،», closes with «والسلام عليكم ورحمة الله وبركاته. المخلص: محمد», and supplies no date, no sender line and no city. Within the body, three sentences of advice about prayer and punctuality interrupt the description of the function, and the address shifts from أنتَ to حضرتك to أنتم inside two paragraphs. The scheme allots: format 4, content and relevance 5, language and connectors 4, neatness 2. A second candidate writes the paragraph in nine short sentences, every one of them beginning with «إنّ», joined only by و. The teacher must choose between 8/15 and 12/15 for the first script and give the second candidate a rewrite rule.
1. Settle the mark for the first script and justify each component.
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Award: 10 out of 15 - neither 8 nor 12.
- Format: 2/4. The salutation and the closing formula are present, which is worth something, but a letter without a date, a sender line and a place is incomplete in the board's convention, and the «بسم الله» opening followed directly by the salutation shows the candidate has confused a letter with an essay. Two marks, not one, because the candidate clearly knows a letter has a frame - the frame is just under-built.
- Content and relevance: 3/5. The annual function is described, so the topic is addressed; but three sentences of unrelated moral advice break relevance. Relevance is a content criterion, not a language one, and the deduction belongs here.
- Language and connectors: 3/4. The Arabic is fluent and the body reads well; the fault is the pronoun shift أنتَ ← حضرتك ← أنتم inside two paragraphs, which is an agreement fault at the level of address, plus thin use of connectors.
- Neatness: 2/2. No complaint recorded.
Why not 8: 8 would treat the pronoun inconsistency and the digression as major errors; they are real but local. Why not 12: 12 would forgive a missing frame and an off-topic digression, and would signal to the cohort that format marks are automatic. The defensible line is: full marks where the criterion is met, half where the feature exists but is malformed, zero where it is absent.
2. Give the correct Arabic frame for this letter, with the phrases a candidate should reproduce.
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A workable board-standard frame:
التاريخ: 15 مارس 2025
من: محمد أحمد، الصف الثاني عشر، مدرسة …
إلى: صديقي العزيز سلمان
تحية طيبة وبعد،
أقبلتُ على كتابة هذه الرسالة لأخبرك عن …
(الفقرة الأولى: متى أقيم الحفل، وأين، ومن حضره)
(الفقرة الثانية: فقرات الحفل وأثرها في النفس)
(الفقرة الثالثة: دعوة قصيرة أو ختام لطيف)
والسلام عليكم ورحمة الله وبركاته.
المخلص: محمد
What each element earns: date (shows the letter belongs to a moment); sender line with class and school; addressee line; the paired salutation «تحية طيبة وبعد»; the body in two or three paragraphs, each with one job; the closing formula; the signature. The «بسم الله الرحمن الرحيم» is not wrong in itself, but it must be followed by the frame, not substituted for it.
The address rule to state once and enforce everywhere: choose أحد الأسلوبين - «أنتَ» throughout for a close friend, or «حضرتك» throughout for an elder - and never mix them in the same letter. The same rule covers أنتم: a letter to one friend is singular from first line to last.
3. The second candidate wrote nine sentences all opening with «إنّ». Write the rewrite rule and a two-line demonstration.
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Rule: vary the opener and join with connectors - a paragraph is judged on how its sentences hold together, not on how many it contains.
- Do not repeat one opener. Nine sentences beginning with «إنّ» turn an argument into a list, and «إنّ» loses its emphatic force by the third repetition.
- Use a connector ladder: «أولاً … ثانياً … ثم … بالإضافة إلى ذلك … كما أنّ … ومن ثَمَّ … ختاماً». Two or three per paragraph is enough; ten is mechanical.
- Vary the sentence type: nominal, verbal, a question, a short concessive («ومع أنّ …»), and one sentence with the subject delayed.
Demonstration (opening of the paragraph): «القراءةُ غذاءُ العقلِ وربةُ اللسان. فأولاً توسّع القراءةُ دائرةَ المفردات عند الطالب، ثم تُعوِّده على التركيز والانضباط. وبالإضافة إلى ذلك فهي تفتح أمامه تجاربَ الأمم السابقة، ومن ثَمَّ تصبح نظرته إلى الحياة أعمق. وختاماً، لا يُتصوَّر طالبٌ متفوقٌ بغير مكتبةٍ يأوي إليها.»
Note the moves demonstrated: a nominal opening without «إنّ», the connector ladder, a concessive or descriptive clause, and a closing sentence that names the conclusion.