St Teresa’s CollegeQCS: The Writing Task

Planning

Plan to succeed!

QCS Writing Task

When: Paper #1 Tuesday morning

Duration: 2 hours + 10min perusal

Task: 600 word written piece (story, essay, report, reflection) in response to stimulus

Contrib. to overall QCS grade: 29%

Equipment Allowed

Pens (BLACK ink) Pencil Sharper Eraser Correction Fluid / Liquid Paper

What do I have to do?

Respond to stimulus – use as inspiration Respond in any genre except poetry Brainstorm, plan, draft, edit, rewrite to

final copy standard Write one (1) text of about 600 words of

continuous prose

Planning to succeed

A range of rehearsed strategies will underpin success

Time management & writing process are vital Brainstorming, planning and time allocation

Writer’s block? You can plan your way out of it!

General feedback from mighty minds

1. Penalties occur when students write below 500 or over 750 words. All students should aim for 600 words. Work out how many words it will take to fill your task booklet.

Writing to page ratios

The writing booklet has 30 lines per page. A guideline of how many pages 600 words occupies, based on the number of words per line, is outlined below.

Number of w/p/l Approx pages required

6 3 ½

7 3

8 2 ½

9 2 ¼

10 2

11 1 2/3

12 1 1/3

Plan your paragraphs

“It is important that students set out their ideas clearly and express them in planned paragraphs.”

“Students need to be reminded that it is essential their written responses have a strong connection to the stimulus material.”

Plan your strategy

Plan to be familiar with at least two fairly different genres. Pick writing styles you have gained success with and are confident in and that you can complete in the 2 hours of the writing task.

Work on:

Responding to stimulus Tighter sentence structure, avoid too many

complex sentences Better use of paragraphing Spelling Punctuation Avoid slang and cliches Use your best vocabulary

Why plan a plan of attack?

One go at it… It works… Fail to plan, you plan to fail… It is a demanding task:

Flair and originality Reflects generic conventions Free of technical errors 2 hours No computer, dictionaries or help

Using Your Time Effectively

10 min : (Perusal) 20 min : Planning 30/30 min : Draft / edit 40 min : Final draft

Warnings : 30min prior to finish time

10min prior to finish time

How is my writing marked?

Trained and registered markers Mark according to standards developed for a set of

criteria Each response is marked at least three times by

different markers working independently There is a process for monitoring marker

consistency

Plan ahead

Read page 18 Review the TICGS scheme on page 19-

could this work for you? Use the TICGS format on page 19. Plan a

response to one of the two examples from page 11-14.

Drafting and Editing

Read page 20- highlight the key points or areas that you need to remind yourself of!!! (What are your weak points?)

The Power of Planning

Not even the most gifted writer can sit down and produce a flawless piece without planning

Writing - ALL writing - is a process consisting of: brainstorming planning drafting editing proofreading

Planning is the key to:

effective links to the theme and the stimulus piece

a plausible and logically structured response maintaining your sanity. Accepting responsibility for your efforts, this

is not a “luck” or personality test.

Therefore...

… you must allocate blocks of time to each phase of the writing process.

Last thoughts…

Support one another Work with the process of preparing for the writing

task Conquer it and develop a plan to manage the task No luck needed – you make your own good fortune

through diligence & preparation Prepare yourself mentally and physically

Take responsibility for your results!