Assessment of literature in Punggol Secondary School

The assessment of literature in Punggol Secondary School uses a combination of both formative and summative assessments. There will be 1 common test per term, whereby students will be tested on what they have learnt during the term. However, the questions in the common test are mostly short-answer questions about characterization, setting and plot. Students will only be tested on essay writing during the mid-year examination.

My CT places a large emphasis on formative assessments. She gives students assignments such as journal writing  (e.g. writing an entry from the perspective of a character in the novel), presentation of group work, sketching of a character, drama performance and writing creative pieces. One thing good about the assessment of literature in my school is that the marks for these assignments share equal weight as the common test for the CA results. However, marking such assignments is more difficult as it is more subjective. Therefore, one of the ways that my CT does is that she will make sure she tells the students the marks allocated for each component of the assignment and what she is looking out for before students embark on their work. In this way, students will know exactly what the teacher is looking out for and thus, it makes grading a little fairer.

Personally, I feel that the emphasis on formative assessments is a good decision made by the school. It stretches students’ creativity and it also helps them to like literature because the teacher does not always get them to focus on the written test.