Created by Chloe E EdwardsFor educational purposes only

Advice letter assessment task

Aims of the assessment:1. To show that you can use language to give guidance and advice2. To show that you can organize and express thoughts, feelings, ideas and opinions

in an advice letter3. To show that you can correctly use a range of grammar, vocabulary and different

types of sentences4. For you to write a letter with a particular audience and purpose in mind

Assessment task: You are a student writer for a teen magazine (called Teen Dream Magazine), and your job is to give advice to teens who write in asking for help with their problems.

Maleeka Madison has written a letter to the magazine explaining the troubles she is experiencing and asking for help. You are going to reply to Maleeka’s letter, as a fellow teen, giving her guidance and advice about how to deal with her problems.

Requirements for this assessment:

Use language to guide and advise the Maleeka Show that you have been paying attention to the details about Maleeka’s life in our

reading of the novel Formatted like a letter

Unit question: How have people shown their feelings about discrimination?

Area of Interaction: Community & service

Significant concepts: There are many mediums that can be used to protest against discrimination

Created by Chloe E EdwardsFor educational purposes only

This is Maleeka’s letter:

Sections in bold are quotations taken from the novel:Flake, Sharon G. The Skin I’m In. Oxford University Press. Oxford, 2007

5th May, 2013

Dear Teen Dream Magazine,

I sure need your help. I’m a freak and I don’t know what to do about it. I feel like I’ve got no one to talk to ‘bout the things which been happening to me at school. People been teasing me all my life. If it ain't about my color, it's my clothes…It's bad enough that I'm the darkest, worse-dressed thing in school. I'm also the tallest, skinniest thing you ever seen. And people like John-John remind me of it every chance they get.

My friend Charlese helped for a while by lending me her clothes, well, in exchange for me doing her homework. I'm like Superman when I get Charlese's clothes on. I got a new attitude, and my teacher's sure don't like it none.

Then I decided to change my appearance, and talked my friend Sweets into helping me. I wanted a new look like that model I saw in the magazine, so that maybe people would start to see me differently and treat me differently. I liked they new look I got, made me look like somebody worth knowing. Then I got to school and all the kids teased me. I didn’t get it. I looked good. I knew I did…I went to the bathroom…I looked in the mirror and started crying. I thought to myself, 'you can glue on some hair, paint yourself white, come to school wearing a leather coat down to your toes and somebody would still say something mean to hurt your feelings. That's how it goes at this school.'

My Daddy is dead, but he used to say, 'you got to see yourself with your own eyes. That's the only way you gonna know who you really are.’ It’s not that easy though, when people are calling you names and telling you you’re nothin’. The only person who thinks I’m worth anything is my freaky English teacher, who embarrassed me once by sayin’ my skin was beautiful. She’s real confident, but it’s easy when you’re older and have lots of money. She don’t remember what it’s like being an ugly kid in school.

What should I do?

M M

Created by Chloe E EdwardsFor educational purposes only