Register and Format in a Formal Request
A Grade 11 learner submits a 180-word transactional letter to the principal asking to use the school hall for a cultural day. The mark scheme is format 5, register 5, content 10, language 5. The letter opens 'Hey Principal, what's up? We wanna use the hall on Friday.' There is no sender address and no date; the close is 'Cheers'. The content is complete: date, 14:00-17:00, 60 learners, two supervising teachers, two microphones, and a clean-up plan. Language is mostly accurate, but there are three contractions and two slang expressions. The learner has good ideas and has organised them logically. The teacher is unsure whether to place it in the 10-12 band or the 13-15 band out of 25. The department's policy says register and format are 'threshold' features: a script that fails both cannot enter the top two bands.
1. Place the script in a band and award marks by criterion.
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Band 10-12, not 13-15, because the threshold policy is explicit: a script that fails both register and format cannot enter the top two bands.
Criterion marks:
- Format 1/5: no sender address, no date, informal salutation and close, though the body is paragraphed.
- Register 1/5: 'Hey', 'what's up', 'wanna', 'Cheers' are consistently informal.
- Content 9/10: all required details are present and logically ordered, with only minor elaboration missing.
- Language 3/5: mostly accurate, but three contractions and two slang items are inappropriate, and there may be one or two sentence-boundary slips.
Total 14/25. The content is strong enough that a marker who reads only content would overrate the script; the threshold rule prevents that. The band is 10-12 because register and format are both failed, even though the arithmetic total is 14. This is a case where the band descriptor and the arithmetic must be reconciled explicitly.
2. Rewrite the opening and closing to make the register appropriate without changing the content.
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Opening: 'The Principal, Rundu Secondary School. Dear Sir/Madam, I am writing to request permission to use the school hall for a cultural day on Friday, 14 March, from 14:00 to 17:00.'
Closing: 'I would be grateful for your consideration. Yours faithfully, [Name], Grade 11.'
The content is unchanged: date, time, venue, purpose. The register shift is achieved by removing contractions and slang, using a formal salutation and close, and stating the request in a single sentence. Do not add new content; the task is register, not invention. The rewrite also repairs the missing address and date, which are format features.
3. What would you prioritise in feedback for this learner, and what would you not spend time on?
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Prioritise the threshold features: a five-minute model of a formal opening and close, then a rewrite of the first and last three lines. Do not spend time on the content, which is already strong, or on ambitious vocabulary, which is not the problem. The learner needs a routine - address, date, salutation, purpose, details, close - not more ideas.
Success criterion: in the next transactional task, format 4/5 and register 4/5, with no contractions. This focuses on the features that currently cap the band, rather than polishing what is already effective.