Writing · how it is marked

The official ten strands, and what the marker shows you

On the Melbourne Grammar and NAPLAN tracks a member writes one piece a week — a story and an argument in turn — and it is scored on the NAPLAN writing rubric: ten strands, 48 marks, the scale the real markers use. Not a grade out of ten and not a chatbot's opinion.

The ten strands

Audience
The writer's capacity to orient, engage and affect the reader.0–6

Text structure
The organisation of narrative features including orientation, complication and resolution into an appropriate and effective text structure.0–4

Ideas
The creation, selection and crafting of ideas for a narrative.0–5

Character and setting
Character: the portrayal and development of character. Setting: the development of a sense of place, time and atmosphere.0–4

Vocabulary
The range and precision of language choices.0–5

Cohesion
The control of multiple threads and relationships over the whole text, achieved through the use of referring words, substitutions, word associations and text connectives.0–4

Paragraphing
The segmenting of text into paragraphs that assists the reader to negotiate the narrative.0–3

Sentence structure
The production of grammatically correct, structurally sound and meaningful sentences.0–6

Punctuation
The use of correct and appropriate punctuation to aid reading of the text.0–5

Spelling
The accuracy of spelling and the difficulty of the words used.0–6

An official marked script

“Axe”, 738 words, from the ACARA narrative marking guide: 44 of 48. The opening, the official scores, and three of the markers' notes.

I looked around at the dry barren landscape that was once the place I called home. The remains of my house were still burning, the thick smell of ash and burnt wood lingered in my senses. Looking around, I realised I had nothing left, my family was dead - mum, dad and even my orcish brother Axe. Once again, I was alone. I stared into the distance, half expecting to find an answer to my situation, but instead, I noticed a faint silouhette streaking across the horizon. Even from that far away, I could feel its killer instinct, it was the assailant of my family, it was responsible for my …

Audience6 / 6

Text structure4 / 4

Ideas5 / 5

Character and setting4 / 4

Vocabulary5 / 5

Cohesion4 / 4

Paragraphing2 / 3

Sentence structure5 / 6

Punctuation4 / 5

Spelling5 / 6

Audience: Carefully establishes context and engages the reader. Narrative devices and language choices are used to evoke an emotional response.
Text structure: Coherent, controlled and complete story.
Ideas: All ideas are skilfully used in the service of the ‘heroic quest’ storyline. The ‘twist’ at the end is effective.

What the marker does

Spelling is scored by code, from the text itself: the words attempted, their difficulty, the errors — the way the official guide counts them.
The other nine strands go to an AI marker with the official rubric and official marked exemplars in front of it — 38 scripts from the ACARA guides, with their scores. It marks twice, independently, and the two passes are reconciled.
Every strand comes back with its evidence: the category descriptor that fired and the lines from the child's piece that put it there, plus one next step per strand that is not yet in the top band.
It never writes for the child and never chats. It scores; the child rewrites.

The text of the piece — and nothing else — is sent to the AI marker (see the privacy notice). The Sunday report carries the score, the change on the last piece of the same kind, and the two strands to lift next.

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