ABSTRACT
A trainee English teacher has just graduated with a good degree in English literature and thus, quite reasonably, believes she possesses strong content knowledge – at least in certain areas of the subject. There is a good reason why marking features so prominently in the life of an English teacher. Regular focused assessment – verbal and written; undertaken during and after a lesson – is the most effective way for teachers to understand what their pupils can do and how they might be helped to develop further. De Corte argues that one of the characteristics of powerful learning environments is that they provide opportunities for teachers to model the learning expected of their pupils. One of the ways in which De Corte's concept of teacher modelling has been translated into the classroom is through the creation of what is known in the parlance of pedagogic acronyms as a What A Good One Looks Like (WAGOLL).
