Last week I filled in forms to examine for next summer's GCSEs. At the 'Choose subject'  box I hesitated - should I put down English Language as my first choice of paper to mark, or English Literature? Having marked GCSE English Literature in the past, this would be the easier task - on the other hand, would it not perhaps be useful for myself, more in accordance with the teaching I do over the year, to opt to mark English Language? I didn't spend long deciding: and chose English Literature. 

I have long had misgivings about what  the GCSE English language exam requires from students in terms of their reading, thinking and writing about everyday texts. These surface almost every time I open a GCSE English textbook, and look for worthwhile exercises to set. The emphasis page after page on a microscopic scrutiny of  language devices and media techniques employed in such prosaic forms as the informative website, the glossy advertisement or the newspaper editorial, dampens my spirits - and I would imagine, must equally depress many students and their teachers. Surely the study and practice of English for public examination at 16 need not be as arid as this? 

To illustrate what I mean, here is detail of an exercise in analysing a letter of argument to a newspaper. The textbook from which it is taken was published by a leading examination board in 2010. The argument advanced is that motorists should drive with more thought for cyclists - a good and relevant  topic for teenagers.  However, the associated task does not  lead to any discussion of issues and experiences ; instead it has the student focus on rhetorical analysis: matching certain phrases in the letter, such as -  It makes me so cross  - My husband is a keen cyclist who has been riding bikes for many years   - just a few cuts and bruises - It happens all too often - Some cyclists may be putting themselves in danger -  to comment statements, such as - implies a criticism by asking a question rather than directly attacking - shows that she has a knowledge of the subject - states her feelings in a very measured way - understates any possibly 'dramatic' information - recognises there are two sides to a problem.  ... and so on. 

The sample given is incomplete, so I don't recommend trying it:  but the point is, how can this type of exercise be expected to appeal to 16-year-olds aspiring to become more articulate?  To me it seems a quite perverse approach to the exploration and cultivation of language. Get the students rather to express their opinions and tell their stories: on the 'cyclist versus the motorist' as on all other topical issues ,  let us have tasks more engaging to the imagination.    

Perhaps as the GCSE is phased out and the English Baccalaureate is phased in, some of this will naturally be swept away. We shall see.  

But in the mean time, if I am to be an examiner next summer, I hope I get my first choice - to mark the Literature paper.      

           

'Controlled Assessments'  have now largely replaced the  'Coursework' component in GCSE subjects. Controlled Assessments (CAs) are considered a fairer measure of student performance, being less open to contributions from substitutes (family members, tutors, or online sources etc).    

To me the  CA  looks like  an adaptation for schools of the old 'open-book' style of exam, once restricted to  some higher education courses. The paper is given out a week or so before the day  when all candidates gather to sit the exam. Students therefore have an opportunity to thoroughly prepare their answers - though not to the extent of bringing finished essays into the hall and copying them out.   

Going through higher education years ago, I considered myself lucky never to have this particular examination torture instrument inflicted on me - for it seemed to me then that, far from easing the nervous pressure of a conventional unseen exam, the 'open-book'  formula could unite the different demands and stresses of term essay-writing and examination hall performing. Because they were such different arts - normal essay-writing being leisurely and perfectable,  and exam-writing, intense and improvisatory - the probability in the open-book exam  of falling between stools, neither digesting questions  adequately, nor answering them spontaneously, must be  high for many candidates. And to have the worry extended over several days beforehand ... 

My sympathies are  therefore now with Year 10 & 11 students who have been bringing in notes and draughts  for CAs this week on, for instance,  Romeo and Juliet and Pride and Prejudice. The essay questions and instructions they have to work to are clear - but the length and conditions of the challenge are formidable: 1200 words in 4 hours over 4 days seems typical.
 
If we have sufficient time at the Centre, I try to get students to break down the task ahead of them into as many parts as there are days or sessions for the CA, and then define a clear, distinct sub-theme for each day. This we can then further subdivide into a sequence of 3 or 4 paragraphs - each with its own identifiable topic of points and supporting quotations. A painstaking student can then go into the CA equipped with a detailed template for whichever stage lies ahead of him or her on the day, and be able to build up a body of argument, which doesn't repeat or lose thread, and is reasonably polished.
 
           

It is one of the pleasures of half term to have time to choose one's reading, and over the last few days I have been spending some leisure on Jane Austen's  Northanger Abbey

For those not familiar with it, Northanger Abbey is basically the story of a young person's education,  Catherine Morland's, beginning when she is seventeen and introduced to society at Bath, and ending about a year later with her marriage to Henry Tilney. Part of the process is through her widening acquaintance with people in society, and part is through the painful yet comic corrections of her ideas - ideas she has been uncritically drinking in as truths from Ann Radcliffe's popular romantic novels.
 
Catherine is not depicted as a bright girl - Austen always keeps the reader ahead of her heroine in understanding where she is wrong or blind - but as simply honest, well-meaning and open to learning from friends and mistakes. One instance (Chapter 14)  in which she is pulled up occurs in a conversation where she unthinkingly uses or over-uses the word 'nice' : she is referring to her favourite Radcliffe book. 'But now, really, do not you think "Udolpho" the nicest book in the world?'  

Her partner in this critical exchange is Henry Tilney, whom she will eventually marry. 'The nicest (he repeats) - by which I suppose you mean the neatest. That must depend upon the binding.'  

At this point Henry's sister intervenes to alert Catherine to her brother's habit of 'finding fault with some incorrectness of language ... the word "nicest," did not suit him; and you had better change it...' 

But Catherine sticks her ground: 'I did not mean to say anything wrong; but it is  a nice book, and why should I not call it so?' 

Henry answers by launching into the English lesson on lazy usage that is taught in every school, year after year, generation after generation:  'Very true, and this is a very nice day; and we are taking a very nice walk; and you are two very nice young ladies. Oh, it is a very nice word, indeed; it does for everything .... every commendation on every subject is comprised in that one word.'  

Who can disagree? Only nowadays, perhaps, the message may not be delivered with quite the same chauvinistic sarcasm.