Internal Assessment
Your child would be required to pass the following internal assessments:
- Reading
- Listening
- Writing
- Talking
As at National 5, your child would have to submit a Writing Folio containing two pieces of work, and they will have to sit an external exam.
External Assessment
Folio
The folio is worth 30% of the grade and will contain two pieces of writing, planned and produced by your child. As well as working on these in class, your child may need to work on these at home and they must ensure that these pieces reflect their best work and are submitted on time. One piece of writing will be broadly creative, and the other will be broadly discursive. Neither piece should exceed the word count of 1,300 words.
Exam
In the exam, you child will be required to complete:
- A Reading for Understanding, Analysis and Evaluation paper (Close Reading) which will also be worth 30% of their grade. Whereas at National 5 pupils responded to questions on just one passage, at Higher there are two passages and a comparison question.
- A Critical Reading paper, in which they will need to write one Critical Essay, and complete a number of questions on a Scottish Set Text. These elements are worth 20 marks each and will make up the final 40% of your child’s overall grade.
Literature
For the Critical Essay your child may study poetry, prose or drama. Commonly taught texts are dramas such as ‘Othello’, ‘Romeo and Juliet’, ‘The Crucible’, ‘All My Sons’, and ‘A Doll’s House’; prose such as ‘The Changeling’, ‘The Great Gatsby’, ‘The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie’, ‘The Awakening’; and /or various poems, including the poetry of Edwin Muir, Emily Dickinson, Sylvia Plath, Dylan Thomas, Iain Crichton Smith, WB Yeats , Philip Larkin, Stevie Smith and more.
For the Set Text we choose from a range of writers and texts approved by the SQA. Commonly taught texts are the drama ‘Men Should Weep’; the short stories of Iain Crichton Smith; or poetry by Carol Ann Duffy, Liz Lochhead or Robert Burns.
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Higher English in a nutshell
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