This revision guide will give an insight into the structure of the two writing elements in Higher Gaelic (Learners) and provide examples of useful language structures, tenses and verbs to employ in your writing.
There are two writing items which, combined, make up 40 marks, 25% of your final Higher Gaelic (Learners) mark:
You need to use detailed and complex language in both.
This guide covers:
Let's deal with Directed Writing first.
This is the writing exercise you will complete in Paper 1 of the final exam. It carries 20 marks.
You will cover Directed Writing in the same question paper as you do Reading. The two elements together come to two hours, so try and split the time evenly.
Stimuli
Directed Writing will be based on the two contexts not covered by the Reading and the Listening papers. So if, for example, Reading is about Employability and Listening is about Society, then you will have two stimuli - one about Culture and the other about Learning.
Marking
Directed Writing is marked out of 20, and you can achieve one of six marks:
Tips to help you with Directed Writing
Read through these notes to help you master the skills required for the Directed Writing paper.
The Scenarios
You will have to choose one of two scenarios. These will give you a scenario as a stimulus that you have to write about and six bullet points that you must address, along with any other information that you think is appropriate to the scenario.
The Bullet points
Use the stimulus in the scenario to guide your response. It isn't in Gaelic like it was at National 5, so this makes it more challenging, but use it. Look at the verbs used in the bullet points.
The suggested word limit is 150-180 words.
Answer the bullet points
Make sure you answer all the bullet points. If you don't address one bullet point, the maximum mark you can get is 16 out of 20, no matter how good the rest is. If you don't address two bullet points, the maximum mark you can get is 12 out of 20. If you don't address three bullet points the mark will be zero.
A nice tip is to write in bullet points yourself. This lets both you and the marker see where you have covered the content.
A good thing to try is to make sure you have at least two sentences per bullet point. You will see example bullet points in the Writing Revision Guides.
Proofreading is key
Re-read what you have. Does it sound right?