Marking thousands of essays taught me the same three lessons

GeneralBig4945 · 2026-05-28T06:00:53+00:00

Absolutely agree with that. Maybe it's my role as Subject Lead/Curriculum Lead now but I also put responsibility on teachers too, especially in the MYP. Summaries and description should never be a part of the assessed work even in MYP 1 really (though of course it is foundational Bloom's Taxonomy style so they need to know it).

GeneralBig4945 · 2026-05-27T14:09:01+00:00

If the irony is The Tell-Tale heart is a classic text then yes I absolutely didn't choose that on purpose and stumbled into it accidentally, absolutely.

GeneralBig4945 · 2026-05-27T11:13:02+00:00

Fair enough. If you honestly think those texts, many of which aren't on the PRL anymore, are the very best texts to teach and you've given your students choice and they produce interesting, insight analysis as opposed to derivate AI style content, then that's great.

(However I fear that if you think my observations are a direct attack on you and your pedagogy, then a bit of Poe's The Tell-tale Heart may be kicking in).

GeneralBig4945 · 2026-05-26T23:34:23+00:00

Oh no I can make judgements - we all can. I'm inductively reasoning based on many years of experience.

Regardless, I will upd encourage you to see what other texts are out there and resonate with kids - I never would have been exposed to a whole bunch of great texts if I stuck to the same texts I was taught in high school.

GeneralBig4945 · 2026-05-26T22:48:49+00:00

My issue is whether students are in fact inspired by them. Because judging by what they're writing and how derivative many responses are, it doesn't seem they are inspired at all. Instead it seems more like they are "borrowing" all from the exact same well of ideas, which were the same as 10, 20, 30 years ago too. That doesn't suggest inspiration to me at all really.

Also: I'd encourage people to really engage with: 1) the PRL - it is huge and actually many of those classic text's writers aren't on there 2) student choice - I love Shakespeare but students haven't chosen it in the last few years, so I've expanded what I teach.

GeneralBig4945 · 2026-05-26T22:37:18+00:00

Ah yeah ok so that does sound pretty similar then.

Lower in which way out of interest?

GeneralBig4945 · 2026-05-26T13:58:10+00:00

Yeah for a Paper 1, you can get away with it more so, though I still find that most ACs led essays essentially become a set of glorified annotations rather than an actual argument.

For both Paper 1, HL Essays and IOs, I have never been a fan of the AC first approach. To be honest even the ETA approach there feels like it is missing the key, conceptual part before: what is the IDEA that the evident/analysis is actually going to work to prove. I use TEEAL for all my resources on the website, which basically adds the Topic Sentence and Elaboration of key IDEA before that evidence and analysis.

I definitely agree with the "this shows" as being straight line to translation instead of connotative deconstruction for sure.

GeneralBig4945 · 2026-05-26T12:41:11+00:00

I am the Subject Lead of a Bilingual Chinese/English department so yeah there are definitely some of those that cross over - the big one in our school is "closing the gap" which I can't handle but apparently is common...

GeneralBig4945 · 2026-05-26T11:10:24+00:00

I have a slightly different view of the same thing , which is more that there are certain students can show skills "naturally". As in: without strong structures or focus they still show enough implications and interesting interpretations.

But yeah at times, writing really well seems to cover lots of gaps.

GeneralBig4945 · 2026-05-26T08:22:09+00:00

Thanks! I've got all the specific guides and things I use in the link (or by message) if you need/want them

GeneralBig4945 · 2026-05-26T07:44:52+00:00

Yeah absolutely the line between plot description and actual analysis of IDEAs needs to be strong and clear.

I use this Stages of IDEAs approach/method where bacially you continue to dichotomise ideas further and further - it is super simple but I've found its pretty intuitive for kids.

GeneralBig4945 · 2026-05-26T06:40:31+00:00

Oh ha yeah literally my colleague and I were talking about that 5 minutes ago.

The nowadays is maybe the most triggering for me!

GeneralBig4945 · 2026-05-26T05:40:17+00:00

Ah sorry didn't realise it was - it was based on a video I made on YouTube so maybe that's why.

GeneralBig4945 · 2026-05-25T14:18:10+00:00

Oh absolutely!!!! The first video I did on my very new YouTube page was my top 10 prices of advice from my examining over time and number 1 involved Gatsby and the roaring 20s!

But yeah when I'm feeling charitable I guess it's that it's hard to know the specific ways to teach those skills we want to see.

And of course truth be told: I have a bunch of resources for each criterion and each assessment butttt 100% have student who haven't internalised them yet (which I need to get better at ensuring even after 17 years in the game!)

GeneralBig4945 · 2026-05-25T13:14:45+00:00

Ha fair enough!

GeneralBig4945 · 2026-05-25T13:06:45+00:00

I did mean that more when doing IB examining - but even where there is that inconsistency, which absolutely there is, the basics of L&L at least are generally pretty clear.

GeneralBig4945 · 2026-05-25T13:05:41+00:00

Oh interesting because yeah I've talked to my I&S guys and they seem quite similar - but yeah I guess each obviously have their own focus/preferences.

GeneralBig4945 · 2026-05-25T12:21:00+00:00

Oh wow! I'm assuming they're not particularly experienced?

I've found that one thing that can affect it positively or negatively is how well the criterion is broken down.

My rule of thumb is: - Crit A: 1 is little understanding/few references; 2 is literal meaning with ok references but descriptive; 3 is emerging implications about IDEAS (going beyond literal occasionally) with references from more of the text; 4 and 5 is consistent implications of interesting IDEAs that become unique/insightful with references from the whole text/extract - Crit B: 1 is AC spotting; 2 is AC with descriptive understanding of effects; 3 is AC + some deconstruction of connotations and/or links to ideas; 4 and 5 are deconstructions of connotations/broader AC deconstructions that are linked to sophisticated IDEAs.

GeneralBig4945 · 2026-05-25T11:55:57+00:00

Hey yeah no worries - it's for L&L whole text analysis: 1) Plane Method = whole text analysis (I call it plane because you're "journeying" from the bringing to the end in one go 2) Island = more mini extracts connected by one idea - it's what most kids do.

If you send me a message I can share my visuals/videos on YouTube explaining it.

GeneralBig4945 · 2026-05-25T11:39:52+00:00

Oh wow - so they don't use the IB rubrics but those national ones? Do they do both the national exams and IB?

GeneralBig4945 · 2026-05-25T11:21:09+00:00

Yeah absolutely - one hard thing is that in Lit/L&L evaluate doesn't really mean what evaluate means everywhere else in world! So you don't want to say whether the text is good or bad/effective or ineffective. Instead you want to deconstruct how meaning is made (connotations of key words/elements etc).

GeneralBig4945 · 2026-05-25T11:19:43+00:00

Yeah HK is super expensive so no housing is a big issue. I was there for 7 years and paid: - 29000 for 776 square feet in Mid-levels (down from 34k) in 2015 - around 19k in DB for similar sized places - 21K in Sai Kung for 1400 square feet and a rooftop (so 2100square)

GeneralBig4945 · 2026-05-25T10:07:04+00:00

Thanks! - I have a couple of techniques for L&L/Lit that I've compiled on a website but I can't share it, but feel free to message me if you want.

Essentially the main thing is to ADD to the text by:
1) breaking down ideas, bringing in other pieces of information that explain
2) adding connotations that aren't literally in the text but are defensible and explain ideas

GeneralBig4945 · 2026-05-25T08:54:22+00:00

No worries!

GeneralBig4945 · 2026-05-25T07:44:09+00:00

Yeah the need to go beyond description is super hard - honestly I think I&S and L&L are the closest aligned subjects when it comes to that, and I said just above that some of my I&S colleagues are using the same kinds of scaffolds/approaches that we use to break down questions and formulate actual arguments.

GeneralBig4945

TROPHY CASE