: Octopus
Trend task
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Approach: Station Level: Year 4 and year 8 
Focus: Completing a story in speech bubbles
Resources: Pictures in recording book

Questions/instructions:
The pictures on the next pages show the story of a family at the beach. They are collecting mussels.
First, have a look at each part of the story. Tell the story by writing in the speech bubbles what the people are saying.

oct1
oct2
oct3
[Mum’s Octopus; Learning Media, Wellington, New Zealand; (1999)]



% responses
2006 ('02)
y4
y8
How many individual speeches fitted with pictures?
(11 in total)
all or most
85 (84)
95 (93)
about half of them
12 (12)
5 (6)
few or none
3 (4)
0 (1)

Extent to which series of speeches told the story:
very well
32 (13)
47 (39)
quite well
50 (52)
45 (48)
slightly
16 (33)
8 (12)
not at all
2 (2)
0 (1)
Extent to which series of speeches sounded like an interactive conversation:

high
60 (36)
73 (57)
moderate
33 (50)
25 (35)
low
7 (14)
2 (8)
Writing conventions followed:

consistently
8 (0)
23 (23)
about half of time
25 (22)
37 (30)
rarely or never
67 (78)
40 (47)
Total score:
8–9
18 (5)
40 (34)
6–7
45 (36)
40 (36)
4–5
26 (42)
17 (23)
0–3
11 (17)
3 (7)
Subgroup Analysis:
Year 4
Year 8
octopusY8
Commentary:
Most students met the core expressive requirements of this task very well or quite well but fewer followed writing conventions well. There was substantial improvement from 2002 to 2006 for year 4 students and a little improvement for year 8 students. Girls and Pasifika students were prominent among the high scores, especially at year 8 level. Pasifika students had a wide range of performance.
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