Assignment 1

• Assignment 1 is a piece of directed writing responding to a text or texts (chosen by your teacher, or by you with approval).
• It's marked out of 30 total: 15 marks for Reading, 15 marks for Writing.
• Reading marks come from how well you select, evaluate, and comment on the ideas/opinions/arguments in the text(s) — including spotting bias and inconsistencies.
• Writing marks come from your style, structure, and technical accuracy (spelling/grammar/punctuation).
• The three main forms you can write in: letter, speech, or article.
• You must always adapt your language and tone to suit your specific audience and purpose (explain / argue / persuade).
• Your source texts should be non-literature, sensible in length, and rich in opinions to engage with.
• A copy of every text used must go in your portfolio — and you cannot use exam-paper texts/tasks for your actual coursework.

The task itself

Think of Assignment 1 like this: your teacher (or you, with approval) picks a text — usually a newspaper or magazine article, sometimes a speech transcript or travel writing — that's packed with opinions. Your job is to read it closely, figure out what the writer thinks and why, decide what you think about it, and then write a response. That response is usually a letter back to the author, but it can just as easily be a speech you'd give to an audience, or an article for a magazine or newspaper.

The key phrase examiners use is that you must "select and evaluate facts, opinions and arguments" from the text(s). That means you can't just summarise what the text says — you have to actively judge it: is this opinion convincing? Is there bias here? Does this fact actually support the argument, or is it just there to sound impressive?

How the 30 marks break down

What "evaluate" actually means in practice

Whatever form you choose, examiners want to see four specific moves happening in your writing:

1. Give an overview
2. Comment on specific ideas