ASSESSMENT CRITERIA FOR COMPOSITIONS AT THE LOWER SECONDARY LEVEL

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to explore the criteria for scoring and the standards for attainment for compositions at the Lower Secondary Level. Official scoring guides were collected and texts from various schools analyzed. It was found that schools independently developed their criteria for assessment. A survey of process approaches where they occur in the texts collected was then provided, but the main thrust was on demonstrating the application of a Systemic Functional Grammar framework to composition assessment Analysis under the framework yielded several important conclusions pertaining to how having even a basic Systemic Functional Grammar framework in mind when approaching texts led to a heightened sense of linguistic awareness: focus was explicitly centred on meaning away from surface errors; the discourse patterns of the written form of language in their generic structure were then given sufficient weight; and vague comments given were actually related to linguistic specifics.