Episode 72: Why A-Grade Exemplars Aren't All That 

TRANSCRIPT:

You’re listening to the Parents of Hardworking Teens Podcast, episode 72. 
All about A-Grade Exemplars. Those top mark essays or high achieving assignments - and what they can do and what they DON’T do in terms of helping your teen when they’re trying to achieve similar results for themselves. 

Hello Very Important Parents. How’s things? 
I hope you’re well and all's going great for you and your teen or teens.

I hope you’ve joined in the action that’s happening over on our Rock Solid Study Facebook and Instagram pages. It’s been so awesome to see so many of you over there grabbing the free resources I gave away last week. Resources like my 2-step ‘Topic + Focus’ essay system, and my 6 Time-Saving Google Hacks for research. So if you haven’t been and done that yet, then go check out the week of posts from Mon 9th to Fri 13th October and find the 5 gift posts and comment below them - yes you can totally be greedy and grab all 5,  as one parent put it. In my book, that’s not being greedy, that’s being smart. But if you do feel like you should do something good in return, then the best thing you can do is to tag friends or family in those post comments and pay it forward so they can get the freebies too.

AND - quick reminder - we have our monthly Live Open Q&A session happening on the Facebook page tomorrow evening in relation to when this episode drops - so that’s Wed 18th Oct and it’s going to be a bit of an exam special. So definitely come join me for that. 

In the mean time, or if you’re listening to this afterwards, to bring all of this back around to this week’s podcast episode, you can go onto the Facebook or Instagram pages and find the post that I shared recently about A-grade exemplars. You’ll easily find it because I added an image to it with one of those amusing ‘nailed it’ photos - what the amazing cake was supposed to look like, and then what someone’s home attempt looked like. OMG, my guilty pleasure is those ‘nailed it’ cake photos. I don’t know why, but they just literally make me laugh out loud. I laughed SO much the first time I saw one years ago.  And by the way, I’m certain that any attempt I was ever to make, which is highly unlikely, would likely be right up there with the disasters. So, I’m laughing with them, not at them. Well a little bit at them. But anyway, the whole point of that post was to demonstrate the difference between seeing and understanding an A-Grade piece, and producing an A-Grade piece. Often, two very different things. 

I thought it might be helpful to share my thoughts and experience around this, because over the years, I’ve had so many students either ask me if they can see an A grade exemplar for whatever it is they’re working on or tell me that they’ve been given a model answer for a similar project or question to help them. Maybe an A grade Romeo and Juliet essay, or a top mark science report.

Often students think that if they can see how an A-grade student writes or what they write, then they’ll be clearer on what’s involved, what’s required. And teachers think that this will give students the template or know-how to be able to do it for themselves. 
And I think there probably is something in that. I know that often the rubrics and success criteria are worded pretty vaguely so having something tangible could be useful. And I do think that familiarising yourself or immersing yourself in high quality writing or content can be helpful in terms of having more of it to draw on or having it feel more familiar and doable, BUT I also think there is a LOT that is actually required in order to produce a top quality essay or report, that can’t be gained just by seeing or reading these exemplars.

First of all let’s talk about the possible problems with students being given A-grade exemplars. And just to be clear, I’m not saying they shouldn’t be, I’m just saying that justseeing them or reading them or having them is only touching the tip of the iceberg. 

So, the first potential problem is overwhelm. When the content or style of writing makes your teen think something like ‘I could never produce anything like that.’
Or, perhaps it’s a task that is similar in genre but the topic or content includes subject matter or analysis that just feels way above their head.  And so, it feels out of reach and therefore rather than being useful and constructive, it can instead be demoralising. 

Secondly, I think sometimes these things are treated like they’re supposed to be inspiring. A source of inspiration or aspiration: look at what another student produced. Here’s something to aim for. However, I think that an exemplar should be used not so much for inspiration, but as education and understanding. So it actually has instructional value rather than inspirational value, i.e. it educates your teen in how to do this for themselves. Using exemplars should be useful, actionable. Not just inspirational. 

And thirdly, I think that sometimes it can do the opposite of those two issues, and instead, might, to your teen, not look or feel as impressive as they expected. And although that can be positive in terms of their confidence, it can also lead to a false sense of security. If a student is already at a high level and isn’t overwhelmed by the piece, and actually thinks, ‘hey, I could totally do that’ then although a boost of confidence isn’t a bad thing, it might be setting them up for disappointment. Because the key is - what is it in that piece that’s actually getting the top marks? If it’s an essay, maybe they’re thinking, yes, I know those quotes from the text, or I know how to use those writing techniques or devices, I write well and have high quality written communication.  But, is it those things which are responsible for the A grade or the 25 out of 25 mark? Partly. But moreover, it will be the linkages they’ve made in their analysis, the trigger words they’ve used in their comparison, the way they’ve used the linking sentence in each paragraph to directly relate back to the question or their thesis statement and not just the next paragraph. And these things aren’t always as easy or obvious to see as a student. 

THIS is where the gold is. It’s in dissecting the response and aligning every element with the mark scheme. And sidenote… you don’t always need to use an A-grade exemplar to do that. 

When I was teaching in Sydney, I had a Y11 Society and Culture class and they’d completed a practice exam paper which included an essay question at the end.  And after I’d marked them, we spent a whole double lesson dissecting some of the real responses they’d written for that essay question. Here’s exactly what we did. (By the way, I don’t remember every lesson I’ve ever taught in this amount of detail I can tell you. But you’ll find out in a moment why this lesson has stuck in my memory so well.)

So, I’d strategically selected and anonymised 3 essays that they’d written, photocopied them for each student and then we went through, with a fine-toothed comb what got marks, what didn’t, what met a criteria here and why it didn’t there. Now, I’ll be honest, it was a fairly dry lesson in terms of there weren’t lots of interactive activities or exciting resources. But I broke everything down into mini segments and tasks and guidance. It wasn’t a case of what I often see happen, which is students are just told ‘go through this example’  or ‘okay - now peer mark with a friend’. Or simply, they just read it. 

We actually separated out specific criteria in the syllabus, matched them up with specific descriptors - that was a sub-task. We broke down the wording of the A grade descriptors, vs the B grade vs the C grade and determined exactly what the difference was and what that actually looked like or included (or didn’t include) in an actual response. And then they had to specifically see where paragraph 1B one had it - that would be anonymised essay B, body paragraph 1 - and where paragraph 2C had it - and why - specifically what told the marker that yes, they hit the criteria. Or what needed to be done instead if it didn’t. 

We pulled it ALL apart - and then put it back together in our brains in a way that totally made sense. So they knew exactly where each mark had been allocated and why and how this related to their own writing. It took a lot of prep beforehand by me - to consider what the best examples of each of the criteria were and how to share these with the students. But I knew it would be really worthwhile if they could really get all of this insight and build all of these skills in dissection and detective work for themselves. 
Because… and this is another issue to consider… they were of course, never going to get that exact same question ever again! So they needed to know HOW to respond AT a certain level IN a particular way. Not just learn a perfect answer to a particular question.

And I was lucky. It was a good class and it was a relatively small class size, I think only about 13 or 14 students. And of course, they’d chosen the subject. All of which, in my opinion at least, help. But I was still a bit worried that they’d find it all a bit dull - getting stuck in among the weeds as we were. I mean I know I love this stuff, but I’m never gonna kid myself that students are going to be as excited about mark schemes and the wording of questions and sometimes dissecting specific words in sentences as I am.
So given that this wasn’t the most fun, singing and dancing lesson I’d ever planned, I wasn’t sure how it would go.

As we got about three quarters of the way through the lesson and the different actions and activities, one girl put down her highlighter and slapped both her hands down flat on the desk!

I looked across and paused, waiting to see what version of ‘oh my gosh, this is SO boring’ or ‘this is so pointless’ I might be about to hear. And she just said:

“Miss, this is GOLD.”

I will never forget it. I mean total magic teacher moment or what? Dramatic hands on desk. “Miss this is GOLD.” Followed by, and honestly I’m not making this up. She followed it by:

“This is so useful.”

You can see why it’s imprinted on my memory, right?

After silently letting out a tiny breath of relief, I replied with something like “I know!”
I don’t know if that was actually what I said, I think I was still in dramatic relief mode. But it was super-awesome to know they were really taking it all in, and could see that it really was as helpful and USEFUL as I knew it could be. And of course, not gonna lie, it’s always nice to get some genuine positivity and appreciation back from students.

So it’s not that exemplars aren’t useful at all. I think they can be really useful. A grade or otherwise. It’s just that they’re not all that by themselves. 

To make them USEFUL and to give your teen ways to benefit from the content for themselves, in a way that dosn’t rely on them regurgitating the same stuff or relying on the almost exact same Q coming up, they need to know WHY that example got an A or top marks and HOW they can achieve those criteria themselves for a different assignment or different question. 

Those are the two critical questions of successful study.
How and Why. 
I discussed them in detail in podcast episode 35 - Questions That Create Success, so you can go check that out if you’d like more on that.

But in the case of using exemplars - your teen needs to know HOW they can do this for themselves, but more specifically they therefore need to figure out WHY this response or this answer of this essay or assignment got that mark. 

What about it hit the criteria? And I mean exactly what sentence, or what word. 

It can’t just be ‘oh, they had detailed explanations.’ Show me a detailed explanation. What made it detailed as opposed to just ‘clear’? Or if they see that ‘they used good examples’ - cool - Identify a good example. Why is this a good example and compared to what? What might’ve been an OKAY example - and WHY? What might be an even better example and WHY?

Or, ‘they linked the texts really well’. Where? Show me places where they made links and exactly what made them high quality links? What wording or selections in their writing directly correlates with the criteria.
 
If you’re thinking that this sounds pretty tricky and really, really detailed, you’re right. 
It is, which is why it’s so valuable to have expert guidance in doing it. To have help breaking everything down - both the criteria AND the response which is why we do a lot of that in my advanced trainings and on coaching calls.  But what I hope you can get from this podcast episode, is what are some of the things to actually look for, some of the ways to really dissect and pull things apart, rather than just reading the essay or the report or the exam response as a whole.

Because I can tell, you, that yes as markers we do consider a response as a whole. We consider the flow of ideas and how they build and connect, and whether a thesis is supported and sustained all the way through and if a high quality of written communication is maintained throughout. But we absolutely also go into nitty gritty detail on specific sentences, links, even individual words sometimes that determine whether the top criteria has been met, or really it’s the one below that best matches - and yep we have to be able to justify those decisions - we have to be able to explain the WHY. Explain our judgements with evidence from what’s on the page. So the more skilled your teen becomes in being able to do this for themselves, the more valuable an A-grade - or any other grade exemplar will be and the more likely they’ll be able to put it into practise and do it successfully and confidently for themselves.

Thanks so much for listening, I appreciate you being here and I’ll see you back here on the podcast next week. 
Have a great week.