Assessment

Prior to designing an assessment task for any area of study in Units 1 and 2, teachers should consider the following:

• The scope of the area of study and approaches that take into consideration the student cohort
• Selection of the key knowledge and key skills to be formally assessed through the task, and how these will be mapped to the outcome statement (note: key knowledge and key skills that are not included in the formal assessment should be built into teaching and learning activities and achievement can  be determined through observation and discussion)
• Choosing the most appropriate task for the outcome. For example, a close analysis task would best fit Unit 1, Outcome 1.
• Careful attention is needed when setting creative responses, for example, Unit 2, Outcome 1 (Voices of Country) might raise issues of cultural appropriation if assessed as a creative response.  

Unit 1, Outcome 1: Reading practices

‘ … the student should be able to respond to a range of texts through close analysis.’

Examples of assessment tasks:

• Students prepare and present a reflective close analysis oral presentation.
• Students select one text, or extract from a text analysed in class, to present both a close analysis and a reflective commentary.
• Students consider their own views and values as well as another interpretation (peer, author and/or critic) that helped form this analysis.

Unit 1, Outcome 2: Exploration of literary movements and genres

‘ … the student should be able to explore conventions common to a selected movement or genre, and engage with the ideas, concerns and representations from at least one complete text alongside multiple examples of other texts considered characteristic of the selected movement or genre.’

Examples of assessment tasks:

• Students produce a creative response, written in the style of one of the texts explored in class.
• Students develop their creative responses from a character or event in this text.

Unit 2, Outcome 1: Voices of Country

‘ … the student should be able to explore and reflect on the voices, perspectives and knowledge in the texts of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander authors and creators.’
Example of an assessment task:

• Using a film text, students produce a visual essay in response to a selected specific focus explored in the classroom. The focus, drawn from the studied texts, could include: 
• ways in which Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples are presented
• ways in which racism is explored
• relationship of people to a landscape
• significance of family
• importance of story and storytelling. 
• Students submit a series of screen shots from the film text paired with quotations from the film and from other texts.
• Students annotate and analyse their selected images and quotes in light of an identified focus.

Unit 2, Outcome 2: The text in its context

‘ … the student should be able to analyse and respond to the representation of a specific time period and / or culture explored in a text and reflect or comment on the ideas and concerns of individuals and groups in that context.’

Example of an assessment task:

• Students select a part of a text, or a complete poem, studied in class.

They analyse the ideas and concerns of the text in its context, and form a plausible interpretation by making explicit connections to the text’s context.

Each SAC task must meet the VCE Assessment Principles, allow students to demonstrate their highest level of performance and allow for student work to be authenticated as their own. Students should be familiar with, and understand the meaning of the common terms embedded in the outcomes of the study design and each of the designated SAC task types. Each task has different cognitive requirements that assess different key knowledge and key skills, which should be explicitly taught and embedded in learning activities throughout the course of study. In this way, students will have the opportunity to practise and demonstrate a range of responses using the language of the study design.

To assess a student’s level of performance, the VCAA Performance descriptors can be used and adapted to the specifics of each SAC task, or a school-specific marking guide can be developed. The assessment instrument (performance descriptors, rubric and / or marking guide) should reflect the outcome, key knowledge and key skills. The SAC task and assessment instrument should be explained to students before they commence the task.

SAC tasks must be a part of the regular curriculum and assessment program and must not unduly add to the workload associated with that program. They should be completed mainly in class and under supervision. Variation in those conditions requires teachers to consider ethnical scholarship and authentication.

Teachers must consider the conditions in which the SAC task is completed and the authentication strategies relevant for each assessment task. Information regarding VCAA authentication rules can be found in the VCAA VCE and VCAL Administrative Handbook section: Scored assessment: School-based Assessment.

Students should be provided with clear written instructions about conditions of each SAC task. These instructions should include the specific key knowledge skills that will be assessed in the task, how the task will be structured and any materials or resources that will be allowed when completing the assessment task.

Unit 3, Outcome 1: Adaptations and transformations

Outcome statement – Analyse aspects of a text, drawing on close analysis of textual detail, and then discuss the extent to which meaning changes when that text is adapted to a different form.

Assessment mandated in the Study Design – A written interpretation of a text, supported by close textual analysis, using a key passage.

and

An analysis of how textual form influences meaning.

Students may:

• compare a dramatised version of a scene or scenes from a text with the original text
• compare a print text with the text’s adaptation into another form.

Sample approaches

Close analysis.

Close analysis of a passage from the selected text.

Comparative response exploring the ways meaning changes when the text form changes.

Example 1

The comparative response can invite students to explore a central concern of the texts. For example:

‘Austen’s actively critiques the limitations of class in Persuasion while the 2022 adaption of Persuasion (dir. Carrie Cracknell) is only really interested in mining class for comedy.’

How far do you agree?

Example 2

The comparative response can frame the exploration through a set of passages, or one passage, taken from the original text and compared with the comparable scene or section from the adapted text.

Unit 3, Outcome 2: Developing interpretations

Outcome statement - Develop interpretations of a set text informed by the ideas, views and values of the set text and a supplementary reading.

Assessment mandated in the Study Design – Part A: An initial interpretation of the text’s views and values within its historical, social and cultural context.

Part B: A written response that compares/interweaves and analyses an initial interpretation with a subsequent interpretation, using a key moment from the text

Sample approaches

Example 1

Part A and Part B are assessed in separate tasks.

Part A is assessed after sustained study of the set text. Students are invited to explore a key idea or value in the text and consider how the text has presented and represented that concern or value. They could, for example, explore the ways a text has presented and represented isolation or power or marriage.

Part B is assessed after students consider the supplementary reading. Students revisit the key concern or value through a passage from the set text and provide an enhanced interpretation informed by the supplementary reading.

Example 2

Part A and Part B are assessed as one task.

At the conclusion of teaching and learning, students are provided with a passage from the set text and a specific question that relates to one of text’s key ideas. Students engage with a close reading of the passage based on the key idea, offering an interpretation drawn from the language of the text and from the views and values of the text. They then build on that initial interpretation by engaging with the ideas and/or position they have considered through the supplementary reading.

Example 3

Part A and Part B are assessed as separate tasks.

Part A is assessed through a reading journal; students produce a reading journal with an agreed number of sustained entries about key concerns, values and/or ideas drawn from the text. The reading journal can be kept in class and teachers can complete authentication checks on student work.

Part B is undertaken under examination conditions and students respond closely to a passage from the set text. Students write an enhanced interpretation of the passage developed from both their close reading of the set text, developing their initial ideas from their reading journal, and from the supplementary reading.

Example 4

Part A and Part B are assessed as separate tasks

Part A forms an introduction to the area of study. Students are provided a passage from the text and respond to this passage through close analysis, offering an interpretation drawn from the language of the text expressing the student’s initial response to the text.

Part B takes place after teaching and learning, including close reading of the text and consideration of a supplementary reading. Students return to the same passage and respond with an enhanced understanding of the passage and the text, presenting a developed interpretation that considers the concerns, views and values of the text.

Unit 4, Outcome 1: Creative responses to texts

Outcome statement - Respond creatively to a text and comment critically on both the original text and the creative response.

Assessment mandated in the Study Design – A creative response to a text.

Students may:

• submit an original piece of writing, presented in a manner consistent with the style and context of the original text
• recreate or rework an aspect of the text, such as adding to the text, recasting a part of the text in another setting or form, or presenting an episode in the text from another point of view.

and

A close analysis of a key passage from the original text, which includes reflections on connections between the creative response and the original text.

Sample approaches

Creative response to a set text

Example 1

Invite students to engage with an under-represented voice in the text and to use that voice to narrate a key scene from the selected text.

Example 2

Invite students to write a scene missing from the selected text.

Example 3

Invite students to consider elements of textual structure of the selected text, and to experiment with that structure in their own work, adhering to or subverting the context from the selected text.

Close analysis

Close analysis of a passage from the selected text that informed the student’s creative response – reference is made to the creative response developed by the student in the response.

Unit 4, Outcome 2: Close analysis of texts

Outcome statement - Analyse literary forms, features and language to present a coherent view of a whole text.

Assessment mandated in the Study Design – A close analysis of a text, supported by an examination of textual details, based on a selection of passages.

Sample approaches

Close analysis of three passages from the selected text.

The end of year examination can offer some guidance with this assessment task. The prompt to write in Section B of the examination has remained largely unchanged through multiple study designs and invites students to ‘use … set passages as the basis for a discussion of [set text]. Teachers can employ some version of this invitation and can be guided by the length of the passages set in the external examination in their own selections for internal assessment. Note that the order of the passages set in the examination is always sequential according to the text from which they have been selected.

It is important to always modify any examination material for internal assessment tasks in order to maintain the integrity of the assessment task and to provide fair and equitable conditions for students.

General advice

The VCAA publishes performance descriptors for each outcome in Units 3 and 4. These performance descriptors are advice only and provide a guide to developing an assessment tool when assessing the outcomes of each area of study. The performance descriptors can be adapted and customised by teachers in consideration of their context and cohort, and to complement existing assessment procedures in line with the VCE Administrative Handbook and the VCE assessment principles.

Performance descriptors can assist teachers in moderating student work, in making consistent assessment, in helping determine student point of readiness (zone of proximal development) and in providing more detailed information for reporting purposes. Using performance descriptors can assist students by providing them with informed, detailed feedback and by showing them what improvement looks like.

Teachers should note that, in modifying or developing unique performance descriptors, they should work from the study design and draw from the key areas of outcome statements, key knowledge and key skills. Not all key knowledge and key skills will or can be formally assessed in an assessment task – some key knowledge and key skills are observable in classroom engagement and learning – but all descriptors in any assessment tool must be drawn directly from the study design.

Performance descriptors are developed for each outcome statement and reflect the key skills that underpin that outcome statement. Key skills are allocated a row and each row describes five progressively higher levels of performance for that key skill. Teachers can infer an increase in progressively higher difficulty by reading the performance descriptors left to right, but not a similarity of difficulty reading the performance descriptors top to bottom.

		Increasing levels of difficulty and complexity
Outcome	Key skill	Expected quality of performance	Expected quality of performance	Expected quality of performance	Expected quality of performance	Expected quality of performance	Expected quality of performance
	Key skill	Expected quality of performance	Expected quality of performance	Expected quality of performance	Expected quality of performance	Expected quality of performance	Expected quality of performance

Performance descriptors and mandated assessment tasks

In designing School-assessed Coursework assessment tasks, teachers should adapt these performance descriptors by selecting the rows that are most appropriate to assess the outcome, key knowledge and key skills. For example, in Unit 4, Outcome 1, students complete two tasks. The performance descriptors for this outcome statement includes key skills for both tasks; teachers should select only those key skills applicable to the task being assessed.

In addition, it is a requirement in the study design that at least one assessment task in either Unit 3 or Unit 4 must include the language modes of speaking and listening. As this decision is school based, each performance descriptor includes the key skill of applying and exploring the conventions of presentation, discussion and / or debate. This key skill should only be included when appropriate for the task.

In designing School-assessed Coursework assessment tasks, teachers can adapt these performance descriptors. Performance descriptors should be able to capture the skill level of every student being assessed and will help provide the allocation of a range of marks. Thus, the lowest quality performance should be something most or all students can do, and the highest quality performance should be something that extends the most able students within the parameters of the outcome statement. These descriptors can also serve as a guide for how to describe student performance.

• Unit 3, Outcome 1
  
• Unit 3, Outcome 2
  
• Unit 4, Outcome 1
  
• Unit 4, Outcome 2