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Examiners say some students wrote extremely violent content
Examiners have raised concerns over the amount of "sickeningly violent" content in students' creative coursework for their English GCSEs.
An examiners report from the Edexcel board said one of the most frequently used titles for creative writing coursework was "The Assassin".
It comes amid national alarm over a spate of murders and attacks involving young people.
The report also questioned high marks given for poor quality work.
Examiners said some students were producing thinly plotted and extremely violent content in their stories.
'Violent atmosphere'
"The Assassin' again figured frequently as a title," the report said.
"This facilitated candidates to write in their own voice but within a very limiting framework, which allowed them to create and maintain a (sometimes sickeningly violent) atmosphere but provided few opportunities for character or plot development.
Ian McNeilly, from the National Association for the Teaching of English, said teachers should be concerned by examples of violent writing.
"Any teacher presented with a script which manages, in the examiners' words, to maintain a 'sickening' level of violence should be concerned," he said.
"We have got enough assassins walking the streets, unfortunately, without giving them time in the classroom," he said.
The report also said some teachers were giving their students "incomprehensibly high marks" for "quantity rather than quality".
"Some work, which was riddled with spelling, punctuation and grammar mistakes, was awarded incomprehensibly high marks."
The report added that schools should also remain aware of the "pervasive issue" of plagiarism.
"The evidence of the folders suggests that centres (schools and colleges) take this very seriously and impose whatever controls they can to ensure student work is authentic," the report said.
Isn't the pen mightier than the sword? If you think of all the violent deaths in detective novels, as far as I know, the authors have not gone out to demonstrate violence in order to write their novels. While I am not doubting it, I think we should try and get a sense of perspective here
When we throw our hands up in horror over a few deaths close to home but seem quite comfortable that we can't even count the civilian men, women and childen killed in Iraq is it any wonder
I wouldn't be so worried if there were only a few incidents, but it it's that noticeable it does make you wonder.
We do see a lot of violence going on in any city centre, and if the students think that is a standard to produce in their written illustrations then they are going to think it's okay elsewhere. They aren't going to neccesarily consider that when they see that out in the everyday world it isn't acceptable.
Call me old fashioned, but sickening violence like they are probably describing is happening regularly in city areas.
Are they so lacking in imagination that they can't produce anything more original.
I live in a city so hear reports of this type of stuff-not everyday admittedly.
I would like to know what percentage this covered.
How stupid! They should be more concerned about the quality of the writing than what these students have written. Why have they been given such high marks if their stuff is so bad? Seems a bit odd.
Is it because it is so prevalent in the news that it is the subject of more stories? Or is it that the children relish the violence? I suppose it could be a bit of both. It would be interesting to find out why they wrote what they did, instead of jumping to conclusions that our teens are turning into psychos.
If there's a significant rise in the amount of people writing about violent things I suppose it's worth investigating but I would imagine that anything thought to be violent, shocking or blood thirsty would be a popular subject with teens.
It shouldn't affect their grades though. Just because their topic is shocking to some doesn't mean it cant be well written.
Violence is not just prevalent in the news and in our towns, unfortunately, but most films on TV appear to be violent. Most omputer games are also usually very violent. People take a lot of convincing that what is seen in cinemas and on TV screens influences behaviour, but I'm convinced.
I also believe that exams, like TV programmes, have been dumbed down, sadly. Having been withou TV for three months, I found this very noticeable.
Humans have always been violent. Nothing has changed. If movies and computer games were having an influence on behaviour that would imply that before they existed we were all good peaceful folks, but that isn't so. When people get scared they like to blame someone, or something. That's why they get hysterical and start screaming 'ban the movie, ban the book.' These kids are only writing about violence they're not actually harming anyone. It's no big deal.
Perhaps it comes down to lack of original thought, and writing about 'what you know' in their case.
But I do agree that the high marking for poor standards is not good.
I think the lack of originality, as well as a drop in standards, is due to children being taught to pass exams, not being taught how to learn and progress at the individuals natural pace and method.
There shouldnt be an issue over the marking of coursework. The criteria for assessment are very clear. What is more, the exam boards adjust the marks if they consider a school is marking either too high or too low. If schools are trying to inflate marks I see it as another symptom of government pressure for good statistics.
Scenes and ideas from films in particular have always appeared in pupils writing. When ET came out extra terrestrial stories were popular (how innocent!) Im sure the increase in violence reflects modern cinema and computer games. Ive seen quite bloody displays in primary schools of children responding to traditional fairy tales which can be quite violent. If a secondary teacher sets an essay called The Assassin its inviting an element of violence in the response. In fact, a typical set of broad criteria for assessment at GCSE would not exclude graphic violence:
Articulate experience and express what is thought, felt and imagined.
Understand and use a range of appropriate vocabulary
Use language and register appropriate to audience and context
Make accurate and effective use of paragraphs, grammatical structures, sentences, punctuation and spelling.
The way round it is to set a story called the Assassin suitable for the school (or other) magazine!
I share some of your cynicism CH! Successive governments have found themselves in the same dilemma when the results come out; they want to say standards are improving to show their initiatives are working, yet they want to say standards have dropped so that they have a reason to apply even more pressure on schools and authorities.
Hold up a minute!! We are talking about GCSE level here.
I don't know about you but I was brought up on stories about wolves eating grannies, pigs leading wolves down chimney-pots into boiling cauldrons, Hansel & Gretl being fattened up to be eaten, Snow White eating poisoned apples from wicked witch of a so-called Queen .... etc. etc.
Then, children today in their teens and taking GCSEs, read stories about 11-yr-olds being shot in the UK by a teenager on a passing bike. As well as constantly learning about deaths in Iraq for our soldiers and contant death threats and security problems in the UK.
Is it really any wonder that violence comes out in their essays? Or are we going to be naive about all this?
I agree with TT. I think it's glib to blame computer games or films when we live in a society that's saturated with propaganda about terrorism and mired in questionable wars abroad.
In "Bowling for Columbine", Michael Moore spent some time digging into the background of the Columbine killers, whose motivation was said to have come from listening to records by Marilyn Manson. He remarked on the bitter irony that for some reason, the fact that the kids grew up in a town where nuclear missiles were transported through the streets at night was not deemed to have had any psychological effect at all...
Comments
GCSE essays 'sickeningly violent'
Examiners say some students wrote extremely violent content
Examiners have raised concerns over the amount of "sickeningly violent" content in students' creative coursework for their English GCSEs.
An examiners report from the Edexcel board said one of the most frequently used titles for creative writing coursework was "The Assassin".
It comes amid national alarm over a spate of murders and attacks involving young people.
The report also questioned high marks given for poor quality work.
Examiners said some students were producing thinly plotted and extremely violent content in their stories.
'Violent atmosphere'
"The Assassin' again figured frequently as a title," the report said.
"This facilitated candidates to write in their own voice but within a very limiting framework, which allowed them to create and maintain a (sometimes sickeningly violent) atmosphere but provided few opportunities for character or plot development.
Ian McNeilly, from the National Association for the Teaching of English, said teachers should be concerned by examples of violent writing.
"Any teacher presented with a script which manages, in the examiners' words, to maintain a 'sickening' level of violence should be concerned," he said.
"We have got enough assassins walking the streets, unfortunately, without giving them time in the classroom," he said.
The report also said some teachers were giving their students "incomprehensibly high marks" for "quantity rather than quality".
"Some work, which was riddled with spelling, punctuation and grammar mistakes, was awarded incomprehensibly high marks."
The report added that schools should also remain aware of the "pervasive issue" of plagiarism.
"The evidence of the folders suggests that centres (schools and colleges) take this very seriously and impose whatever controls they can to ensure student work is authentic," the report said.
We do see a lot of violence going on in any city centre, and if the students think that is a standard to produce in their written illustrations then they are going to think it's okay elsewhere. They aren't going to neccesarily consider that when they see that out in the everyday world it isn't acceptable.
Call me old fashioned, but sickening violence like they are probably describing is happening regularly in city areas.
Are they so lacking in imagination that they can't produce anything more original.
I live in a city so hear reports of this type of stuff-not everyday admittedly.
I would like to know what percentage this covered.
It shouldn't affect their grades though. Just because their topic is shocking to some doesn't mean it cant be well written.
I also believe that exams, like TV programmes, have been dumbed down, sadly. Having been withou TV for three months, I found this very noticeable.
But I do agree that the high marking for poor standards is not good.
I think the lack of originality, as well as a drop in standards, is due to children being taught to pass exams, not being taught how to learn and progress at the individuals natural pace and method.
Scenes and ideas from films in particular have always appeared in pupils writing. When ET came out extra terrestrial stories were popular (how innocent!) Im sure the increase in violence reflects modern cinema and computer games. Ive seen quite bloody displays in primary schools of children responding to traditional fairy tales which can be quite violent. If a secondary teacher sets an essay called The Assassin its inviting an element of violence in the response. In fact, a typical set of broad criteria for assessment at GCSE would not exclude graphic violence:
Articulate experience and express what is thought, felt and imagined.
Understand and use a range of appropriate vocabulary
Use language and register appropriate to audience and context
Make accurate and effective use of paragraphs, grammatical structures, sentences, punctuation and spelling.
The way round it is to set a story called the Assassin suitable for the school (or other) magazine!
I don't know about you but I was brought up on stories about wolves eating grannies, pigs leading wolves down chimney-pots into boiling cauldrons, Hansel & Gretl being fattened up to be eaten, Snow White eating poisoned apples from wicked witch of a so-called Queen .... etc. etc.
Then, children today in their teens and taking GCSEs, read stories about 11-yr-olds being shot in the UK by a teenager on a passing bike. As well as constantly learning about deaths in Iraq for our soldiers and contant death threats and security problems in the UK.
Is it really any wonder that violence comes out in their essays? Or are we going to be naive about all this?
In "Bowling for Columbine", Michael Moore spent some time digging into the background of the Columbine killers, whose motivation was said to have come from listening to records by Marilyn Manson. He remarked on the bitter irony that for some reason, the fact that the kids grew up in a town where nuclear missiles were transported through the streets at night was not deemed to have had any psychological effect at all...