ICSE English Literature Internal Assessment: Written Assignments Guide

The Literature in English Internal Assessment is your opportunity to engage deeply with the prescribed texts — outside the time pressure of a two-hour examination. Worth 20 marks, it is assessed through written assignments evaluated by both your subject teacher and an external examiner. This post walks you through everything: the format, word limits, assignment types, marking rubric, prescribed texts, and a full sample assignment.

Structure at a Glance

Both examiners assess the assignments independently — they do not consult each other before awarding marks. The External Examiner is a teacher nominated by the Head of School from the same faculty, but one who does not teach the candidate's section or class — for example, a Class VIII English teacher may be deputed as External Examiner for Class X.

Note for Class IX: CISCE encourages students to work in pairs or small groups to develop skills of collaboration and cooperation, though the written assignments are submitted individually.

Prescribed Texts for Assignments

Assignments must be based on the prescribed textbooks. Here is the full list of texts by class.

Class IX Texts

Drama

• Julius Caesar — William Shakespeare (Acts I & II)

Short Stories (Treasure Chest)

• Bonku Babu's Friend — Satyajit Ray
• Oliver Asks for More — Charles Dickens
• The Model Millionaire — Oscar Wilde
• Home-coming — Rabindranath Tagore
• The Boy who Broke the Bank — Ruskin Bond

Poetry (Treasure Chest)

• The Night Mail — W. H. Auden
• Skimbleshanks: The Railway Cat — T. S. Eliot
• I Remember, I Remember — Thomas Hood
• A Doctor's Journal Entry for August 6, 1945 — Vikram Seth
• A Work of Artifice — Marge Piercy

Class X Texts

Drama

• Julius Caesar — William Shakespeare (Acts III, IV & V)

Short Stories (Treasure Chest)

• With the Photographer — Stephen Leacock
• The Elevator — William Sleator
• The Girl Who Can — Ama Ata Aidoo
• The Pedestrian — Ray Bradbury
• The Last Lesson — Alphonse Daudet

Poetry (Treasure Chest)

• Haunted Houses — H. W. Longfellow
• The Glove and the Lions — Leigh Hunt
• When Great Trees Fall — Maya Angelou
• A Considerable Speck — Robert Frost
• The Power of Music — Sukumar Ray

Types of Assignments

CISCE prescribes eight broad assignment approaches. Your school or teacher will select from these, or frame assignments that combine more than one type.

1. Character or Thematic Analysis — analyse a character's role, development, or significance; or explore a theme across the text
2. Socio-economic, Cultural, or Historical Background — examine the context in which the text is set and how it shapes its meaning
3. Summary or Paraphrase — retell the key events or ideas in your own words, demonstrating close reading
4. Appreciation of Literary Qualities — analyse the author's use of language, imagery, structure, or tone
5. Identifying with a Character — place yourself in a character's situation and explain what you would think, feel, or do
6. Imagining Alternative Outcomes — consider how a different decision or event could have changed the story, and what effect this would have on all concerned
7. Graphic Representation — create a visual or diagrammatic representation of a scene, story, or poem (e.g., a storyboard, timeline, or annotated map)
8. Diary Entry as a Character — assume the persona of a character from the text and write a diary entry recording a key incident or episode

Marking Criteria: The Five Grades

Unlike the Listening and Speaking rubric (which uses four grades), the Literature Internal Assessment uses a five-grade scale. Five parameters are assessed together: Understanding of Text and Narrative, Use of Examples from the Text, Interpretation and Evaluation, Appreciation of Language and Characterisation, and Critical Appreciation and Personal Response.

The maximum per assessment is Grade I (4 marks). Since both the Internal and External Examiners mark out of 10, and the total is 20, consistent Grade I performance across your assignments gives you the best possible score in this component.

How to Write a Grade I Assignment

The five assessment parameters give you a clear checklist for every assignment you write. Before submitting, ask yourself:

• Understanding — Have I shown that I understand the text well beyond surface-level plot? Do I refer to specific scenes, events, or lines?
• Examples — Have I quoted or closely paraphrased the text to support every major point I make? Unsupported claims always score lower.
• Interpretation — Have I gone beyond "what happens" to discuss "what it means"? Does my response analyse the author's intent, the character's motivation, or the poem's deeper significance?
• Literary Appreciation — Have I commented on how the writer achieves their effect — through word choice, imagery, structure, tone, or characterisation?
• Personal Response — Have I included my own critical view? A well-reasoned personal opinion, stated clearly and backed by the text, is essential for Grade I.

Sample Assignment: Class X

The following is a model written assignment for Class X, based on the prescribed short story The Pedestrian by Ray Bradbury. It is written to Grade I standard and falls within the 400–500 word range appropriate for one of the two or three Class X assignments.

Assignment Topic

How does Ray Bradbury use the character of Leonard Mead to comment on the dangers of a technology-dependent society in The Pedestrian?

Student Response

Ray Bradbury's short story The Pedestrian presents a chilling vision of a future in which human beings have surrendered their individuality and curiosity to technology. Through the solitary figure of Leonard Mead — a man who simply walks at night — Bradbury constructs a powerful critique of a society so numbed by television and routine that it has lost the capacity for genuine thought or experience.

Leonard Mead is portrayed as a man out of place in his own world. In the year 2053, the streets are empty every evening because all citizens sit indoors watching their "viewing screens." Mead alone walks — for no purpose other than the pleasure of observation and thought. Bradbury's description of the empty, silent city creates an atmosphere of desolation: the streets are like "dry riverbeds", suggesting that life has drained away from the public world. This imagery makes Mead's walking act not just unusual but almost radical — a quiet act of resistance against collective passivity.

The most significant moment in the story is Mead's encounter with the automated police car — the only law enforcement unit in a city of three million people. The car cannot understand why Mead is walking; it has no category for leisure, curiosity, or solitude. When Mead explains he is a writer, the car responds with silence — because in this world, there is no audience for writing. Bradbury uses this exchange to suggest that a society built entirely around passive entertainment has no space for creativity, imagination, or independent thought. The automated car represents a system that enforces conformity without human judgement.

Bradbury's most disturbing insight is that the society in The Pedestrian does not oppress its citizens through violence or fear — it simply renders nonconformity invisible and inexplicable. Mead is taken away not because he has broken a law, but because he is incomprehensible to the system. This is a more insidious form of control: one that does not punish difference but simply has no language for it.

Written in 1951, the story feels remarkably prescient. Bradbury was responding to the rapid spread of television, but the story speaks just as powerfully to our current relationship with screens and digital consumption. The image of darkened homes lit only by the blue glow of screens — with "shadows" moving behind the windows — is both literal and metaphorical: these are people who have become shadows of themselves.

In Leonard Mead, Bradbury gives us not a hero but a reminder — that the simple acts of walking, observing, and thinking freely are not trivial. They are, in fact, what it means to be fully human.

(Word count: approximately 420 words)

Why This Scores Grade I

• Understanding — goes well beyond plot summary; demonstrates command of the story's structure and world-building
• Examples from Text — specific references to the "dry riverbeds" imagery, the police car exchange, and the glowing windows support every claim
• Interpretation & Evaluation — the discussion of "conformity without violence" shows analytical depth and evaluation of the author's intent
• Literary Appreciation — Bradbury's use of imagery, atmosphere, and the symbolic police car are all discussed with precision
• Personal Response — the closing reflection connects the story to the present day and offers a clearly stated critical view