Task a): How do you know Chris is cunning? Appearance - About half of the trial students noted appearance as evidence of Chris being cunning.According to Burroway and Stuckey-French (2007: 81-82), "our eyes are our most highly developed means of perception ... it is appearance that prompts our first reaction to people". A character's appearance, their clothing, features, shape, style, the way they hold themselves and objects associated with them such as the car they drive or the house they live in, make statements about who the character is, what kind of person they are, their character, the "inner" person.

Of the group of students who noted Chris's appearance as evidence of him being cunning, about half noted the evidence in the written text about Chris's 'triumphant grin', and about half noted the evidence the visual text provides. For example, as one student noted of the illustration on page 7:

• He's got a real tricky look in this picture.

For the students who did not note the evidence the visual text provides, vital clues are overlooked. This may be because students at this level no longer value or recognise visual cues as valid evidence.  It may also be because some students are not able to infer from illustrations.

Dialogue - About half the trial students noted dialogue as evidence of Chris being cunning.The dialogue students most often noted was: "How about another go, then, if you think that one wasn't fair?" (page 6), and "OK, then - but this time we'll make it two runs each." (Page 6).

By using dialogue, a writer can simultaneously suggest image, personality, and emotion, enriching the readers' understandings while conveying them economically through to the core of the narrative - in this case, Chris's cunning character.

Action - Most of the trial students noted at least one of Chris's actions as evidence of him being cunning.

About half the students noted how Chris rang up his friends to get them to come round and mow the lawn for him; about a quarter noted how Chris timed his friends mowing the lawn - making the job into a race or competition. Common words used were tricking, and crafty. However a small group made comments such as They made a game of mowing the lawn. These students appear to have read the text naively because there is no indication that they understood Chris's devious intent. 

Task b): Was Chris right to accept the money his mother gave him?

NOTE: There is no right or wrong answer for this task. This task requires readers to make a judgement of a character and justify their response, drawing on both the text and their prior knowledge. What is important is the quality of the justifications they give for their stance.Ability to use both text details and background knowledge when making a judgement about a character - almost all trial students were able to use both.The judgements made by the majority of students were based both on background knowledge and on details from the text. For example:

• Chris might have accepted the money because he wanted to buy ice creams for his friends. But he might also have done it just because he wanted an ice cream - he's selfish enough to do that. (Yes and No.)

The judgements made by a small group were primarily based on background knowledge. For example:

• Boys can be selfish. (No, it was not right for Chris to accept the money.)
• These findings suggest some students over-rely on their background knowledge for evidence, and under-use evidence from the text. Students who neglect to use details from the text cannot be said to have the necessary skills to evaluate a character.

Justifying - a small group of trial students were not able to provide justification for their 'Yes and No' response.Responses were accepted only if they gave reasons why it was and was not right that Chris accepted the money. For example:

• Yes if he shares it [the money] with his mates. No because he made them do the job.
• This was accepted because it gives a reason why it was (or could be) right for Chris to accept the money: if he shares it with his mates and a reason why it wasn't: he made them do the job.

Some students failed to give reasons for both parts of their 'Yes and No' response:

• He was the one who came up with the idea of doing the lawn mower race. (Yes, it was right for Chris to accept the money.)
• He made it into a competition for his friends to mow the lawn. (No, it was not right for Chris to accept the money.)

Task c): Has the author been successful in making Chris a believable character?

NOTE: There is no right or wrong answer for this task. This task requires readers to evaluate a character and justify their response using both the text and prior knowledge. What is important is the quality of the justifications they give for their stance. Appropriateness - most trial students appeared to understand that for a character to be believable, they need to behave in a way that is appropriate to who they are.Burroway and Stuckey-French (2007: 145) write that although writers aim for individuality in characters, those characters must still be typical in the sense that they must be appropriate. For example, a "Baptist Texan behaves differently from an Italian nun; a rural schoolboy behaves differently from a professor emeritus at Harvard." A successful individual character, one who seems real and individual, will also behave in a way that is typical or appropriate to the kind of person they are. Writers achieve this through explicitly stating or implying appearance, tone, action and thought.

AppearanceNo students noted that Chris did or did not look like a typical boy.

ToneA small group of students noted Chris's tone - playful but dishonest (a trickster) - as appropriate:

• He's like my cousins playing tricks on each other to get each other to do their chores.
• He's pretty sneaky getting his friends to do his work. Everyone wants to get out of doing chores.

ActionA small group noted Chris's actions as appropriate:

• No kid would want to cut the grass, and no normal kid would give up the money.
• He is like some kids who hate doing dishes but like getting money.

Ability to use text details when making a judgement about a character - about half of the students were able to use text details. About a half made rather general statements.

One student noted:

• He acts like a real character doing all these mean things.

This student is certainly able to form an opinion about the appropriateness of Chris as a character but has not explicitly based that opinion on detailed evidence. For example, they could have noted details about the "mean" things that Chris did as evidence of his appropriateness. Students who neglect to use specific details from the text cannot be said to have the necessary skills to evaluate a character. Responses such as the one above beg the question, "Which mean things?"

Suspending disbelief - a very small group of students were not able to accept the illusion created by fiction as "real".

These students made responses such as:

• It is just a story, so it's not real at all.
• It's not as if Chris is a proper person.

Writers of fictional narrative create illusion. They attempt to reproduce the emotional impact of everyday life for the reader so that powerful feelings such as love, fear, embarrassment, frustration, loathing, despair, and excitement can be experienced without the reader having to risk what Burroway and Stuckey-French (2007: 25) call the "powerful consequences" of such feelings. So readers "experience" but at a safe distance. In order to experience fiction, the reader must suspend disbelief, they must believe the illusion. This group of students is, perhaps, not willing or able to suspend disbelief.