For the evaluation of the written texts, an external reader (a teacher of foreign languages) chose a sample of six students per class that represented the performance from unsatisfactory to very original in their first texts (at the very beginning of the drama project for class 2a). Starting from this sample of totally twelve texts, I observed the development of each student and compared the overall performance in the five traits of writing between the two classes.

Each text was evaluated against the five traits of writing (ideas/originality, organisation, word choice, mechanics, sentence fluency) with a maximum of 10 points per category. The total number of points for the whole text was thus 50.

Total Evaluation BMS 2a

The average of the total number of points achieved ranged between 27.5 and 44 (out of 50). All in all, the students achieved fairly homogeneous results. The difference in achievement between the 5 traits of writing varied between 1 and 2 points. Each student achieved only one point more or less in one of the categories. However, 3 students did clearly better in organisation. 1 showed poorer performance in word choice, 1 in sentence fluency and 1 in mechanics.
The range of points for ideas/originality varied between 5 and 9.
The range of points for organisation varied between 7.5 and 10.
The range of points for word choice varied between 5 and 8.
The range of points for mechanics varied between 4.5 and 8.5.
The range of points for sentence fluency varied between 5.5 and 8.5.

In class 2a, Yeti was third best of the whole class in his overall performance. He did best for originality and he was number two in word choice. In organisation and sentence fluency, he achieved an overall rank of four. Thus, I chose to present the collection of his texts to the readers.

Total Evaluation BMS 2b

The average of the points achieved totally ranged between 23 and 35 (out of 50). Generally, the texts were less homogeneous than those of the ‘drama’ class. The difference in achievement between the 5 traits of writing varied between 1.5 and 4 points. In addition, each student achieved markedly fewer points in one or two of the categories. 5 students achieved fewer points for word choice, 1 for mechanics and 1 for sentence fluency.
The range of points for ideas/originality varied between 6 and 7.5.
The range of points for organisation varied between 5.5 and 9.
The range of points for word choice varied between 2 and 5.5.
The range of points for mechanics varied between 4.5 and 7.5.
The range of points for sentence fluency varied between 5 and 6.

In class 2b, Sally excelled in originality and organisation. For her overall result, she was second best in her class, in mechanics she was number four. For her results in originality, I chose her texts for presentation to the readers.

Comparison of the Classes

In comparison with BMS 2b, class 2a displayed greater variety of ideas, better organisation, better results in word choice and better sentence fluency. The results for mechanics were comparable. The lowest result for mechanics in both classes was 4.5 points. Whereas the non-drama class achieved a top result in mechanics of 7.5 points on the average, the drama class was one point higher (8.5 points).

In their first text ('What would I do with two million pounds?'), the non-drama class primarily chose to write about houses, cars and holidays. In the drama class, there was much wider variety of topics according to the identities that the students had given themselves.

General Thoughts

There were sections in both tests in which I tested the structural use of the conditionals (filling blanks, choosing the right solution in a multiple choice exercise, rephrasing). However, I was not interested in including its evaluation in this study since it does not reflect a situation of writing that will occur in the students’ lives out of the school context. It only reflects a mechanical reproduction of certain linguistic structures rather than the ability to use them in meaningful contexts.

Contrary to the students’ feedback from the drama class, in which it became evident that they missed being taught the structures more explicitly, the result for mechanics shows that they did not do any worse than the non-drama class but even achieved a slightly better result for the top achievers.