THE TEN NARRATIVE WRITING CRITERIA
Marking
criterion
Description
How-to guide!
The criterion of Audience addresses a student’s ability to control the reader/writer relationship, reveal attitudes and values,
establish narrator stance, subvert expectations, evoke an emotional response and/or encourage reflection.
Audience
The writer’s capacity to orient,
engage and affect the reader.
This criterion is all about a student’s ability to engage and influence the reader. Students should endeavor to achieve this through
narrative devices such as:
 Fantasy, humour, suspense; and
 Intertextual references.
TIPS:
Students should practice responding to an unseen stimulus and generating ideas that instantly capture the attention of the ‘audience’. Class discussion should focus around techniques
students can use to captivate and engage the reader, whilst establishing the theme of the narrative.
On an organisational level, all students should endeavor to structure their narrative with an:
Text structure
The organisation of narrative
features including orientation,
complication and resolution into
an appropriate and effective text
structure.
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Orientation – sets the scene and mood, introduces characters and includes the when, where, who or what.
Complication – the dilemma or problem that sets off the events.
Sequence of events – triggered by the complication, including the description of the events as they happen (perhaps with
further complications).
Resolution – the climax or ending where the problem is resolved.
ACTIVITY:
#1 Understanding the structured writing scaffold:
 Get your students to explore and practice narrative text structures with Spellodrome’s Writing Fun by Jenny Fahey
Students are required to generate ideas based on their own knowledge and experiences, which should combine to develop a
central storyline. Students are advised to develop ideas which explore a recognizable theme.
Ideas
The selection, relevance and
crafting of ideas for a narrative.
Ideas may include:
 Psychological subjects
 Unexpected topics
 Mature view points
 Elements of popular culture
 Satirical perspectives
 Extended metaphor
 Traditional sub-genre subjects: heroic quest, good v evil, overcoming the odds
Higher marks will be awarded to students who can skillfully use their ideas to establish and reflect their narrative theme.
ACTIVITY:
#1 The aim of a narrative is to get the attention of the reader and maintain their interest. Choosing an entertaining theme is an effective way of achieving this. Provide students with an
unseen stimulus and get students to develop a list as many different genres/themes as they can think of which could potentially relate to that stimulus. Here are a few genres to get you
started:
 Real-life drama
 Classic
 Fantasy
 Adventure
 Science fiction
 Mystery
 Myth
 Legend
Character: The portrayal and
development of character
Character and
setting
Setting: The development of a
sense of place, time and
atmosphere
Characterisation and setting are essential components of effective narrative writing. Whilst both are important, students can elect
to balance these components i.e. some narratives can be character-driven, whilst others may be setting-driven (deep, dark woods),
with little character detail.
Effective characterisation emerges through descriptions, actions, speech or the attribution of thoughts and feeling to a character.
In setting the scene – students should focus on using descriptive and figurative language to establish the place, time and
atmosphere.
TIPS:
Students should be cautious not to include too many characters in their narrative, and instead focus on establishing a few important characters and allow the reader to truly ‘get to know’
each character. When describing characters, attention should be focused on character appearance, personality, and even their past (if it matters to your storyline). Using speech can be an
effective way to introduce and establish your individual character personalities, as well as establish relationships between the characters.
Students should try to maintain a sense of setting throughout the entire narrative.
The vocabulary criterion is based upon a student’s ability to use a range of precise and effective words and word groups in their
writing. Marks will also be awarded for student’s ability to appropriately match their language choice with their narrative genre.
Example of basic vs. advanced vocabulary:
Vocabulary
The range and precision of
contextually appropriate
language choices.
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Basic
Single nouns – water, award, house
Simple noun groups – a very helpful man, a tin cage
Single verbs – quick, like, run, look
Simple verb groups – did it the proper way, acted without a
thought
Simple figurative language – as big as a house
Adjectives and adverbs – cold, always, really, friendly
Simple comparisons – as much as she can, the best teacher
I ever had, one of the fastest
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Advanced
Single precise words – hissed, yanked, clutched,
exhilarating
Effective simile – burning coal shot out like tiny bullets
Metaphor – lungs screamed for air
Attitudinal – simpered
Evaluative – hard-done by, aggressive
Technical – resuscitated
Formal – To what do I owe this honour?
Colloquial language for characters’ speech – Whatcha
doin?
Alliteration – completely captivating cat called Clarence
Effective personification – the wind clutched at her hair
TIPS:
Students should revise how to effectively use figuratively language to enhance their writing. These techniques can be particularly useful when establishing the characters and setting in the
narrative.
The cohesion criteria assesses a student’s ability to demonstrate continuity of ideas throughout their writing in a way that
enhances the reading experience and supports the underlying relationships across the text.
Cohesion
The control of multiple threads
and relationships across the text,
achieved through the use
of grammatical
elements (referring words, text
connectives, conjunctions) and
lexical elements (substitutions,
repetitions, word associations).
Students can demonstrate this through the consistent use of appropriate cohesive devices to signal structural relationships. For
example, using connectives such as:
 Later
 Meanwhile
 Instead
 In the middle of
 Earlier
 Finally
Students should also endeavor to avoid repetition in their writing through incorporating word associations throughout their text.
For example, using synonyms, antonyms, word sets and control of narrative tense.
Paragraphing is very important to help students organize their ideas. Students must demonstrate planned division within their
writing, thereby structuring their text in a way that enhances the reader’s experience.
Paragraphing
The segmenting of text into
paragraphs that assists the reader
to negotiate the narrative.
Students should focus on the structure of their narratives, ensuring that paragraphs are deliberatively structured to pace and direct
the reader’s attention. This can be done simply through segmenting the narrative into the introduction, body (complication,
sequence of events) and resolution; or alternatively can be achieved through breaking the narrative up into sections which capture
the reader’s attention and keep them wanting to know what is next to come. For example, a single sentence may be used as a
dramatic comment or to place emphasis upon a particular point in the storyline.
TIPS:
NB: Students should be reminded to make the start of their paragraphs very clear – either through indenting a new line, leaving space between blocks of text or clearly annotating the start
of a new paragraph.
Sentence
structure
The production of grammatically
correct, structurally sound and
meaningful sentences.
The sentence structure criteria awards students for their ability to generate a variety of sentence structures using correct spelling
and grammar. Variety is demonstrated through:
 Clause types and patterns (verbless, adjectival, adverbial, multiple, non-finite)
 Dependent clause position
 Length and rhythm
 Increased elaboration and extension, and
 Stylistically appropriate choices.
Higher marks will be awarded for complex and compound sentences that express precise meaning and are consistently effective,
as opposed to using simple sentences.
TIPS:
Students should revise nouns, verbs, adjectives, conjunctions, pronouns, phrases, contractions and high frequency homophones. Ensuring students know how to correctly use quotation
marks is a useful task to undertake. This will enable students to develop greater interest and engagement in their writing and help to establish character and setting through character
converse.
Punctuation
Spelling
The use of correct and
appropriate punctuation to aid
the reading of the text.
The accuracy of spelling and the
difficulty of the words used.
Whilst advanced punctuation can demonstrate greater skill in student knowledge, it is imperative that students get the basics
absolutely correct. The appropriate use of sentence boundary punctuation such as full stops and capital letters is essential –
especially when students begin to experiment with more sophisticated sentence structures.
The spelling criterion assesses student’s spelling ability over the entire text. Marks are awarded for mastering more complex words,
however it is very important that students continually review their work for spelling mistakes to ensure minor errors are minimised.
ACTIVITY:
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Practice identifying spelling & punctuation errors in short, long, simple and complex sentences.
Recall spelling tips for unfamiliar words – (Look, Cover, Write, Check)