Methodological Guidelines for Preparing and Conducting the Final Essay in the 2016/2017 Academic Year

Methodological Recommendations for Preparation and Conducting the Final Essay in the 2016/2017 Academic Year Published

The Federal Service for Supervision in Education and Science and the Federal Institute of Pedagogical Measurements (FIPI) have developed methodological recommendations for the preparation and conduct of the final essay in the 2016/2017 academic year.

Traditionally, the final essay (summary) is held on the first Wednesday of December, the first Wednesday of February, and the first working Wednesday of May. The main date for the final essay (summary) in the 2016/17 academic year is December 7, 2016. Students who received an unsatisfactory result, did not attend the final essay (summary), or did not complete it for valid reasons will be able to retake it on February 1, 2017, and May 3, 2017.

To participate in the final essay (summary), participants must submit an application no later than two weeks before the event. Registration of current-year graduates for participation in the essay is conducted at their schools. Graduates of previous years may participate in the final essay (summary) on any of the specified days at their discretion, submitting applications to locations determined by the regional education authority.

The recommendations specify the list of documents that graduates of previous years and students with disabilities must submit together with their application for participation in the essay (summary).

The duration of the final essay (summary) is 3 hours and 55 minutes (235 minutes). For participants with disabilities, children with disabilities, and disabled persons, the duration is extended by 1.5 hours.

Additionally, the recommendations describe the procedure for conducting the essay, including for various categories of students with disabilities, as well as the procedure for checking, evaluating, and processing the results of the essay (summary).

Methodological materials for conducting the final essay (summary) in the 2016/17 academic year are posted on the Rosobrnadzor website, on the FIPI website, and also on the official information portal of the Unified State Exam in the sections for exam participants and organizers.

The recommendations for essay preparation include comments explaining the features of the open thematic directions of the essays approved by the Council on the issues of conducting the final essay in graduating classes for this academic year:

1. "Reason and Feeling." This direction involves reflection on reason and feeling as two essential components of a person's inner world, influencing their aspirations and actions. Reason and feeling can be viewed both in harmonious unity and in complex opposition, constituting an internal conflict of personality.

The theme of reason and feeling is interesting to writers of different cultures and eras: literary characters often face a choice between the call of feeling and the prompt of reason.

2. "Honor and Dishonor." This direction is based on polar concepts related to a person's choice: to be faithful to the voice of conscience, follow moral principles, or go the way of betrayal, lies, and hypocrisy.

Many writers have focused on depicting various manifestations of a person: from loyalty to moral rules to various forms of compromise with conscience, up to a deep moral decline of personality.

3. "Victory and Defeat." This direction allows reflection on victory and defeat in various aspects: socio-historical, moral-philosophical, psychological. Reasoning may relate both to external conflict events in the life of a person, country, or world, and to a person's internal struggle with themselves, its causes, and results.

Literary works often show the ambiguity and relativity of the concepts of "victory" and "defeat" in different historical conditions and life situations.

4. "Experience and Mistakes." This direction allows for reflections on the value of spiritual and practical experience of an individual, a people, and humanity as a whole, on the cost of mistakes on the path of understanding the world and gaining life experience.

Literature often prompts reflection on the interconnection of experience and mistakes: on experience preventing mistakes, on mistakes without which movement along the life path is impossible, and on irreversible, tragic mistakes.

5. "Friendship and Enmity." This direction focuses on reasoning about the value of human friendship, ways to achieve mutual understanding between individuals, their communities, and even entire peoples, as well as the origins and consequences of enmity between them.

Many literary works are related to the warmth of human relationships or the hostility of people, the transformation of friendship into enmity, or, conversely, the portrayal of a person capable or incapable of valuing friendship, able to overcome conflicts or sow enmity.

The recommendations also provide examples of essay analysis regarding compliance with requirements for length, independence, relevance to the topic, argumentation, composition and logic of reasoning, quality of written language, and literacy.

A separate section of the recommendations is devoted to preparation for the final summary.