EDEN 100 ASSIGNMENT 1 – TEMPLATE FOR ESSAY AND ANALYSIS

Individual interpretative essay: (800 words) ‘Analyse language samples to identify and evaluate language development with reference to key theories’.

Student name and student number:_____________________________

Use this page and the next to write your essay, following the format (e.g., paragraphing, font size, spacing)
and referencing conventions of the sample essay. Include the texts and the completed analysis as Appendices, following your essay.
 EDEN 100 ASSIGNMENT 1 – TEMPLATE FOR ESSAY AND ANALYSIS

APPENDIX 1 (texts)

Text 1. Transcript of a Year 2 classroom interaction (an information report that Text 2. Written Student text responding to the prompt “How
identifies and describes features in two images of snails). did carnivores hunt?” (excerpt), Independent construction

T: So, if you look at those two images, a and b, which one do you think would
belong to a scientific information text
S1: The real one
T: Why would you say that?
S1: Because its a real one // because there is an eye // and there wouldn’t normally
be an eye
S2: The shell with all those colours.. You don’t have a //…Normally snails don’t
have a green shell // but they have a brown shell like the other one
S3: I think// it is a) //because this one looks like how snails really look// and the
other one has a green shell //and that doesn’t make sense. Have you ever seen a
snail with a green shell?
S4: I thought a) because it looks more like a picture and that looks more like a
drawing
T Everything that you have told me is really really important. So could we say that
a scientific information image tells us about real things in more detail? So what
do we know about snails from this picture?
S3: Snails are different from us because they have eyes here
T: So.. they have eyes on their antennae.
S4: They do like to live in the dirt…..
(Typed version of student writing)
some of the smaller meat eating dinosaurs ate lizards, small
animals or eggs. others hunted in a pack // to hunt bigger animals
such as the velociraptor and the Coelophysis. today wolves still
hunted in packs.
 EDEN 100 ASSIGNMENT 1 – TEMPLATE FOR ESSAY AND ANALYSIS

APPENDIX 2: Preparation for essay: analysis of texts (Individual or groups).

Names/student numbers of students in group: ___________________________________________________________________________________

Use the questions in Column 1 to guide you in analysing the two texts. The analysis itself will not be marked. You will use this analysis as evidence for the
points you make in your essay.

Probe Questions Link to readings and Analysis and examples from the text/s you have analysed
(structure for essay) theory
Text 1 (Spoken) Text 2 (written)
GENRE and REGISTER (FIELD, TENOR, MODE) Information report (comparative) Information report (descriptive)
briefly for introduction (100 words)

Situating the texts along the mode continuum

Dimensions:
- spontaneous or planned?
- dialogic or monologic?
- processlike or productlike?
- embedded in or independent of a context? (e.g. are
other modes needed to make sense of the text?)
Grammar and vocabulary (compare only
highlighted sentences of texts)
How can you tell if the texts are:
- More lexically dense or less lexically dense?
- Grammatically less or more intricate?

Implication for teaching: Metalinguistic

awareness (brief conclusion – 50 words)
Why might understandings of the mode continuum
be important for teachers in supporting students’
language development?
EDEN 100 ASSIGNMENT 1 – TEMPLATE FOR ESSAY AND ANALYSIS