ASSESSING WRITING

Ms. WRIGHT SAYS DO NOT USE RED PEN !

The usage of red

pen mostly urges
teachers to find
mistakes. Do not use
red pen while
evaluating your
students’ papers.
Ms. Wright AVOIDS SNAPSHOTS !

She avoids snapshots, but she considers the process that the student has gone
through.
Snapshot – considering only one exam as a grading mark, ignoring the process
• She DOES NOT GIVE STUDENTS A CHOICE OF WRITING
• She uses A WELL-ESTABLISHED ANALYTIC MARKING SCALE
APPROACHES TO WRITING ASSESSMENT: DIRECT /INDIRECT

Indirect :
• Also referred as ‘recognition measure’
• Assess student’s knowledge of writing sub-skills, such as
grammar, spelling, sentence construction
• Objective: Multiple choice questions, cloze tests
Direct :
• Also referred as ‘production measure’
• Assess student’s ability to communicate in the writing mode
• Require producing a piece of writing on pre-selected topics
• Direct writing assessment integrated all elements of writing.
Approaches to WRITING ASSESSMENT :DIRECT /INDIRECT
EXAMPLES OF INDIRECT ASSESSMENT
Test-takers read:
Choose the word with the correct spelling to fit the sentence, then write the word in the space provided.
1- He washed his hands with ------------------
A. Soap
B. Sope
C. Sop
D. Soup
2- The door- bell rang, but when I went the door no one was --------------
E. Their
F. There
G. They’re
H. Thair
DESIGNING WRITING ASSESSMENT TASKS
• According to Hyland (2003), the design of good writing assessment
tests and tasks involves four basic elements:
• Rubric: the instructions
• Prompt: the task
• Expected response: what the teacher intends students to do with
the task
• Post-task evaluation: assessing the effectiveness of the writing task
RUBRIC: means two things!!!
RUBRIC
• The first element of a good writing assessment is the rubric, the
instructions for carrying out the writing task.
• A rubric can also mean the set of criterion which a piece of work, such as
a project , is evaluated, and it is used in this sense in elementary
education.
• Specify a particular rhetorical pattern, length and amount of time to
complete the task
• Indicate the resources students will have available at their disposal
(dictionaries, spell/grammar, character, etc.) and the delivery method of
the assessment (i.e., paper and pencil, laptop, PC)
• THE SPECIFICATIONS for a writing test should provide the test writer with
details:
• on the range topics,
• the number of words the student is expected to produce,
• and overall weighting
• should be included in a good rubric for writing assessment (Davidson& llyod, 2005).
 WRITING PROMPT
• Hyland (2003), defines prompt as the stimulus the student must respond to
• There are three main prompt formats: base, formed and text based.
• Base prompts state the entire task in direct and simple terms
• Text based prompts present writers with a text to which they must respond or
utilize in their writing.
• Base prompt: ex/ Discuss the view that women are better drivers then men.
• Framed prompt: ex/ On a recent flight back home to UAE, Emirates Airlines
lost your baggage. Write a complaint letter to Mr. Al-Ahli, the general manager,
telling him about your problem. Be sure to include the following: your flight
details, - a description of the baggage lost and its contents, - what you would like
Mr. Al-Ahli to do for you
• Text Based prompt: ex/ You have been asked by a youth travel magazine to
write an article about things to see and do in your hometown. Using the attached
set of pictures, write a one-page article on this topic.
Decontextualized vs. contextualized
assessments
An Example of Decontextualized Assign
ment
  • “Write about someone you admire. You
can choose someone you know very
well, such as a family member, a friend,
or a teacher, or you can choose a
famous person, such as a national
leader, a scientist, or an artist.” —from
an L2 writing textbookfor low-
intermediate students
Contextualized Assignment: Personal
Heroes 
• We are going to develop a book on personal
heroes. Each of you will contribute a short
chapter (1-2 pages) that describes someone
you admire and explains why you admire the
person. You can choose someone you know
very well, such as a family member, a friend,
or a teacher, or you can choose a famous
person, such as a national leader, a scientist,
or an artist. When finished, we will share the
book with other classes, teachers and
parents. I guess I’ll write aboutmy teacher. I
want my parents to know how cool she is.
GOOD WRITING PROMPTS:
• Generate the desired type of writing, genre or rhetorical pattern
• Get students involved in thinking and problem solving
• Be accessible, interesting and meaningful, relevant and motivating
• Not require specialist back-ground knowledge
• Use appropriate sing post verbs
• Be fair and provide equal opportunities for all students to respond
• Be clear, authentic, focused and unambiguous
• Specify an audience, purpose, and a context
criteria OF GOOD WRITING PROMPTS
Most common signposts
• Developing a good writing prompt requires appropriate
signpost (telling the way to follow) term and sign posts
should:
• Describe- give a detailed account
• Discuss – argue a thesis, identifying pros and cons
• Explain- state and interpret
• Compare- show similarities, exemplify
• Summarize- produce a concise account of the main ideas
• Outline- provide a summary of main points and sub-
headings
• Evaluate- appraise the worth or value of something
Response
• A description of what the teacher intends students to do with the writing task
• Whatever you choose to assess writing, according to Hyland (2003) good
writing tasks should produce positive answers to the following questions:
• 1- Did prompt discriminate well among my students?
• 2- Were the essays easy to read and evaluate?
• 3- Were students able to write to their potential and show what they know?
 ISSUES IN WRITING ASSESSMENT
• TIME ALLOCATION:
• Time depends on what you are
assessing: the product or the process
• Jacobs et al. found out that 30
minutes is probably sufficient for
most of the students (1981)
• Process focused writing portfolios
requires much more time
ISSUES IN WRITING ASSESSMENT
• PROCESS AND PRODUCT:
• In recent years the process gained more
important rather than the product
• Some writing tests assess the whole
writing process from brain storming
activities to the final draft or the
finished product.
• Thus, students have to submit their
work in a portfolio that includes all
drafts
• Assessing through the product is more
traditional
WRITING IS A PROCESS !
 ISSUES IN WRITING ASSESSMENT
TOPIC RESTRICTION:
• The belief that all the students should write on the same
topic with no alternatives allowed
• It is controversial
• Some teachers believe that students perform better when
they have the opportunity to select the prompt from a
variety of alternatives
• Disadvantage of giving choice to students is that
marker consistency may reduce if all the papers read
at a single writing calibration session are not in the same
topic.
• When the students are given multiple choices they waste
time in order to choose the topic instead of writing.
• When the choices are multiple they should be in the
same genre and rhetorical pattern.
TECHNIQUES FOR WRITING

• The ESL/EFL literature generally addresses two types of writing : free

writing and guided writing.

FREE WRITING VS GUIDED WRITING :

CONSIDERATIONS FOR FREE WRITING
• Free writing require students to read a prompt that poses
a situation and write a planned response based on a
combination of background knowledge and knowledge
learned from the course.
• Considerations for guided writing are useful for free
writing.
• Use of multiple raters. Agree on grading criteria in advance
& calibrate before grading.
• Decide on which scale to see beforehand.
• Acquaint students marking scheme in advance by using it
for teaching, grading homework and providing feedback.
• Provide students with enough space for an outline, a draft
and the finished product.
• Avoid issues that might offend or disadvantage students.
CONSIDERATIONS FOR GUIDED WRITING
• Guided writing, in contrast, requires students
to manipulate content that is provided in the
prompt, usually in the form of a chart or
diagram.
• Be clear about the expected form and length of
response (e.g. One paragraph or certain amount
of word etc.)
• If you want particular information included,
clearly specify it in the prompt (e.g. Three
causes and effects, two supporting, details.)
• Similarly, specify the discourse patterns the
students are expected to use (e.g. Compare and
contrast, cause and effect, description)
Authentic writing assessment

STUDENT-TEACHER CONFERENCES
Student teacher conferences can help teachers to learn about their students’
writing habits.

• How did you select this topic?

• What did you do to generate content for this writing?
• What do you find difficult in writing?
Self-assessment
Dialogue journals and learning logs are
the two self-assessment techniques can
be used in writing assessment.
• Dialogue journals require students to
regularly make entries addressed to
the teacher on topics of their choice.
• Learning logs document time
students spend on various writing
activities.
Peer assessment
Peer assessment involves the
students in the evaluation of
writing. Teachers do not
need
to mark every single piece of
student writing.
Portfolio-based assessment
It examines multiple pieces of writing produced over time under different
constraints rather than a single essay written in a specified time period.
CHARACTERISTICS OF A PORTFOLIO

Portfolios must include student

participation in four important areas:
(1) the selection of portfolio contents,
(2) the guidelines for selection, (3) the
criteria for judging merit, (4) evidence
of student reflection.
‘’Without reflection, the portfolio
remains ‘a folder of all my papers’’
(Santos, 1997)
Marking procedures for the assessment of writing
Reliable writing assessment requires a carefully
thought-out set of procedures, and a significant
amount of time needs to be devoted to the rating
process.
Benchmarking: selection of papers from previous
years or completed exam papers.
• Clear Pass
• Borderline Pass
• Borderline Fail
• Clear Fail
Writing assessment scales
An important part of writing assessment deals with selecting the appropriate
writing scale for a particular teaching context.
Two main types of writing scales for assessment student written proficiency
are holistic and analytic:
ANALYTIC VS. HOLISTIC
HOLISTIC MARKING SCALES
It is based on the marker’s total impression of
the essay as a whole.
• Using a banding scale, 1 mark is given
• Each score has descriptive criteria
• Quick grading, but inter-rater reliability
problems
HOLISTIC MARKING
STRENTHS
• Quick and reliable if done under no time
constrains
• Liked by administrators and teachers
• Perceived by teachers to be less time consuming
• Since overall writing ability is assessed, students • Raters can overlook one or more aspects of writing ability
are not disadvantaged by one lesser ability
• Emphasis rests on what is done well, not
deficiencies
WEAKNESSES
• Does not provide a «profile» of students’ ability (Hamp-
Lyons, 1990)
• Longer essays may receive higher ratings (Cohen, 2004)
• Gives one score for possibly uneven abilities (Cohen, 2004)
• No feedback on how or why score was awarded (Hamp-
Lyons, 1990)
• Rating scale may confuse writing ability with language
proficiency (Cohen, 2004)
Analytical marking scales
In analytic marking, «raters provide separate
assessments for each of a number of aspects of
performance» (Hamp-Lyons, 1991)
Scorers mark selected aspects of a piece of
writing and assign point values to quantifiable
criteria.
Analytic marking scales are generally more
effective with inexperienced teachers and more
reliable for scales with a larger point range.
ANALYTICAL MARKING

+ (STRENGTHS)
• Provides profile of students’ strengths
and weaknesses
• Reliable with inexperienced teachers,
time constraints and little training time
• Guards against the collapsing of
categories (Cohen 1994)
• Training raters is easier because
scales are thought to be more explicit
and detailed
- (WEAKNESSES)
• Difficult to develop assessment criteria
• Perceived by teachers to be more time consuming
• Scores are often lower than holistic
• No assurance that scales will be used according to
stated criteria (Cohen 1994)
• Writing is more than the sum of its parts (takes
out integrative nature of writing assessment)
Responding students writing
Ten things to remember about writing assessment
1. Give students multiple writing assessment
opportunities.
2. Test a variety of writing skills and create
tasks of varying lengths.
3. Develop prompts that are appropriate for
the students.
4. Evaluate all answers to one question before
going on to the next.
5. Mark only what the student has written.
6. Have a systematic approach for dealing
with marking discrepancies.
7. Get students involved.
8. Provide students with diagnostic
feedback.
9. Practice blind or double blind marking.
10. Calibrate and recalibrate.
Thank you for Listening