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Reading and Literature Studies · Reading Like a Grade 10 Critic: Literature, Information and Shakespeare

Evaluating Texts: Believability, Engagement and Usefulness

1.7About 65 minutes
Learning goals
  • I can set criteria for judging how effective a text is.
  • I can evaluate whether a plot is believable using evidence.
  • I can explain why one information source is more useful than another.
  • I can evaluate how the wording of an ad targets its audience.

Words to know

evaluate
To judge how well a text achieves its purpose, using criteria and evidence.
criteria
The standards used to judge something.
believable
Consistent with what a text has set up, with motivated characters and events.
motivated
Having a clear reason, set up earlier in the story.
authority
Who created a source and whether they have the knowledge to be trusted.
currency
How up to date a source is.
qualified judgement
An opinion that acknowledges limits or weaknesses (for example using although or mostly).
coincidence
A lucky chance event; too many weaken believability.

Hook: five stars or one?

Before you buy a game, watch a movie or try a restaurant, you probably check reviews. But some reviews just say Amazing!!! and others explain why. The useful ones use criteria and evidence. That is exactly what evaluating a text means.

Remember from Grade 9

In Grade 9 you judged the credibility and reliability of sources. In Grade 10 you evaluate the effectiveness of any text, fiction or non-fiction, and you support your opinion with evidence from the text itself.

Evaluating: opinion plus evidence

To evaluate is to judge how well a text achieves its purpose. A strong evaluation has three steps:

  1. Criteria: decide what effective means for this kind of text and purpose.
  2. Evidence: find specific examples from the text that meet or miss each criterion.
  3. Judgement: weigh strengths against weaknesses and state a clear, qualified opinion (mostly effective because...).

Different texts need different criteria:

  • Story or novel: Is the plot believable within its own world? Are characters' choices motivated? Does it engage the reader (suspense, relatable characters, pacing)?
  • Online information source: Is it useful for my purpose? Check authority (who made it?), accuracy (does it match other sources?), currency (is it up to date?) and purpose (inform, sell, entertain?).
  • Advertisement: Does its wording capture attention and persuade its target audience?
1. CRITERIAWhat makes it effective?2. EVIDENCEquote and describe3. JUDGEMENTweigh it upweaknessesstrengths (heavier)A fair evaluation names both sides before deciding.
Evaluating a text: choose criteria, gather evidence, then weigh strengths and weaknesses before making a judgement.

Is the plot believable?

Read this ending to an imaginary story. Earlier, the main character, Mateo, has been shown as shy, terrible at public speaking and terrified of the school's talent show.

The night of the show, Mateo walked on stage, grabbed the microphone and delivered a perfect ten-minute comedy routine. The crowd roared. A talent agent in the front row signed him on the spot.

Believable doesn't mean realistic: a fantasy story can have dragons. It means events follow from what the text has set up. Here, Mateo's change is not motivated: nothing in the story prepared us for it.

Worked example

Let's evaluate a plot's believability

Evaluate whether Mateo's ending is believable. Then suggest how the writer could make it more believable.

  1. Criterion: a character's big change should be motivated by events in the story.
  2. Evidence: Mateo is shy, terrible at public speaking and terrified, yet he delivers a perfect ten-minute routine with no practice shown.
  3. More evidence: A talent agent in the front row signed him on the spot. This is a lucky coincidence, not a result of Mateo's choices.
  4. Judgement: the ending is not believable: the change is too sudden and too perfect, and coincidence solves the problem.
  5. Improvement: show Mateo practising in secret, getting help from a friend, and performing imperfectly but bravely. Remove the agent, or make the reward smaller (a classmate asks him to perform again).

Not believable: an unmotivated, too-perfect change plus a coincidence. Showing gradual effort and a smaller, earned success would fix it.

Which online source is more useful?

You're researching the Rideau Canal Skateway in Ottawa for a presentation. You find two sources.

Source ANational Capital Commission pageon the Rideau Canal Skateway✓ known public organization✓ updated this winter✓ clear map, rules, hours✓ purpose: inform visitors✗ little about historySource B“Epic Canada Facts!!” blogno author named✗ no author or sources✗ no date✗ mixes up canal and skateway✗ purpose: clicks and ads✓ fun photos, easy to read
Two sources on the same topic, checked against the same criteria. Source B is easier to read, but Source A is far more useful and trustworthy for research.
Worked example

Let's evaluate usefulness

Explain why one source is more useful for a research presentation, using the criteria.

  1. Authority: Source A comes from the National Capital Commission, the public organization that runs the Skateway. Source B names no author and gives no sources.
  2. Accuracy: Source B says the whole 202-kilometre canal freezes into one giant rink. Checking Source A, only a section in downtown Ottawa is maintained for skating; the full Rideau Canal is about 202 km long, but most of it is not a groomed rink. Source B mixed up two facts.
  3. Currency and purpose: Source A was updated this winter to inform visitors. Source B has no date and is covered in ads, so its purpose may be clicks.
  4. Judgement: Source A is more useful. Source B's photos might be fun, but its facts can't be trusted without checking.

Source A: clear authority, accurate, current, informative purpose. Source B: unknown author, an inaccurate claim, no date, and a profit purpose.

Evaluating an ad's wording

An imaginary transit ad aimed at teens reads:

Your city. Your schedule. Your pass. Ride anywhere after school for less than a large pizza. No parents required.

  • Repetition and parallel structure (Your... Your... Your...) makes it punchy and memorable and stresses independence.
  • Short fragments match how teens text and scroll.
  • A comparison to pizza makes the price concrete and teen-friendly.
  • No parents required is humour that appeals to the wish for freedom, though some parents may not love it.

Judgement: effective for its audience: short, memorable and focused on what teens value. A weakness: it gives no actual price, which a careful reader would notice.

Just for fun

Funny-but-true: the word blurb (the praise on a book's back cover) was invented in 1907 by the American humorist Gelett Burgess. His joke book jacket showed an over-excited young woman he named Miss Belinda Blurb.

Hands-on activity

Back-cover detective

You need: three books from your home or library (any genre), and a notebook.

  1. Read each back-cover blurb and the first page.
  2. Choose three criteria for an engaging opening (for example: a hook in the first sentence, a character I care about, a question I want answered).
  3. Rate each opening out of 5 for each criterion, with a quotation as evidence.
  4. Write a short judgement: which opening is most effective, and why? Then read the next five pages of that book to test your judgement.

What to look for: criteria stated before rating, a quotation for every rating, and a judgement that mentions at least one weakness, even for the winner.

Your turn

1

What are the three steps of a strong evaluation?

2

Does believable mean the same as realistic? Explain.

3

Why is Mateo's ending not believable?

4

Name four criteria for judging an online source.

5

What error did Source B make?

6

Give one strength and one weakness of the transit ad's wording.

More practice: warm-up

1

What does evaluate mean?

2

What is currency in source evaluation?

3

Which source named an organization as its author?

4

What technique is Your city. Your schedule. Your pass.?

5

Is It's good a strong evaluation? Why?

More practice: on your own

1

Write a qualified judgement (using mostly, partly, or although) about Source B.

2

How could a fantasy novel with a dragon still be believable?

3

Suggest two criteria for evaluating a poem, and explain why each fits.

4

Why should an evaluation mention weaknesses even if your overall judgement is positive?

5

Why might No parents required be effective for some readers but not others?

Challenge

1

Write a 6 to 8 sentence evaluation of Glass Branches (Lesson 5) as an engaging short story. Use at least two criteria and two quotations.

2

Design your own rubric (3 criteria, with a description of strong vs weak) for evaluating a news website's usefulness for a school project.

3

Rewrite Mateo's ending in 5 to 7 sentences so that it is believable, then explain what you changed.

Check your understanding

Quiz

1.

A strong evaluation always includes...

2.

A plot is believable when...

3.

Which criterion asks Is this source up to date?

4.

Source B's main accuracy problem was that it...

5.

Your city. Your schedule. Your pass. is effective mainly because...

6.

Which is a qualified judgement?

For parents and teachers

What this lesson teaches: ENG2D Reading 1.7: evaluating the effectiveness of increasingly complex texts using evidence. It uses the curriculum's own examples: whether a plot is believable, why one online source is more useful than another, how a text engages readers, and how an ad's wording targets teens.

How to help at home:

  • When your teen says a movie was good or bad, ask "By what standard?" and "Give me one example."
  • Compare two websites on the same topic and check who made each one.
  • Read ads aloud together and decide who they target and whether the wording works.

Common difficulties:

  • Opinion with no criteria. Help them name what good means first.
  • All-or-nothing judgements. Encourage mostly, although and partly.
  • Trusting the slickest site. Design is not the same as reliability.

Facts used: The Rideau Canal is about 202 km long and connects Ottawa and Kingston; the Rideau Canal Skateway is a section in Ottawa maintained by the National Capital Commission. The word blurb was coined by Gelett Burgess in 1907. Mateo, the two source mock-ups and the transit ad were created for this website.