Summary
Chapter 4
How important is writing in your program?. Assessing writing skills are important because good writing ability is significant for higher education and employers.
Two major approaches to writing assessment are: indirect and direct.
Indirect measures of writing assessment assess correct usage in sentence level constructions, spelling and puctuation. It is more concerned with accuracy than communication.
Direct measures of writing assess a student's ability to communicate through the written mode based on the actual production of written texts. It requires the students to produce the content; give ideas and use appropriate vocabulary, grammatical conventions, and syntax. Direct writing assessment integrates all elements of writing.
According to Hyland(2003) to design a good writing assessment tests and tasks involves four basic elements:
1. Rubric: instructions
2. Prompt: the task
3. Expected response: what students will do with the task.
4. post-task evaluation: assessing the effectiveness of the writing task.
Also Hyland stated that good writing tasks are likely to produce positive responses to the following questions:
* Did the prompt discriminate well among my students?
* Were the essays easy to read and evaluate?
* Were students able to write to their potential and show what they knew?
Techniques for Assessing Writing
The ESL/EFL literature addresses two types of writing : free writing and guided writing.
Free writing: requires students to read a prompt that poses a situation and write a planned response based a combination of background knowledge and knowledge learned in the present.
Guided writing: this task requires teachers to be clear about what they expect students to do. It requires them to manipulate content that is provided in the prompt, usually in the form of a chart or diagram.
Authentic Writing Assessment
Student-Teacher conferences
You can learn more from your students by asking questions like:
* How did you select this topic?
* What do you feel are your strengths in writing?
* What did you do to generate content?
Self-Assessment
You can use dialogue jornals or learning logs. The first require students to make entries on different topics. On the other hand, learning logs document time students spend on various writing activities.
Peer Assessment
The major rationale for peer assessment is that when students learn to evaluate the work of their peers, they are extending their own learning opportunities.
Portfolio Based Assessment
It examines multiple pieces of writing produced over time under different constraints rather than a single essay. A portfolio is a collection of student writing that shows the stages in the writing process, the growth of the writer's.
Writing Assessment Scales
We need to select the appropriate writing scale for a particular teaching context. The two main types for assessing student written proficiency are holistic and analytic.
Holistic Marking Scales
It is based on the marker's toatl impression of the essay as a whole. This marking is termed as impressionistic, global, or integrative marking.
Analytical Marking Scales
"Raters provide assessment for each of a number of aspects of performance"(Hamp-Lyons, 1991). Scorers mark selected aspects of a piece of writing and assignpoint values to quantifiable criteria. Analytic scales are generally more effective with inexperienced teachers and more realiable for scales with a larger point range.
It is important to provide feedback to students so they can learn and make improvements to their writing. You can do so by handwritten comments or simple correction codes.
According to Hyland(2003) to design a good writing assessment tests and tasks involves four basic elements:
1. Rubric: instructions
2. Prompt: the task
3. Expected response: what students will do with the task.
4. post-task evaluation: assessing the effectiveness of the writing task.
Also Hyland stated that good writing tasks are likely to produce positive responses to the following questions:
* Did the prompt discriminate well among my students?
* Were the essays easy to read and evaluate?
* Were students able to write to their potential and show what they knew?
Techniques for Assessing Writing
The ESL/EFL literature addresses two types of writing : free writing and guided writing.
Free writing: requires students to read a prompt that poses a situation and write a planned response based a combination of background knowledge and knowledge learned in the present.
Guided writing: this task requires teachers to be clear about what they expect students to do. It requires them to manipulate content that is provided in the prompt, usually in the form of a chart or diagram.
Authentic Writing Assessment
Student-Teacher conferences
You can learn more from your students by asking questions like:
* How did you select this topic?
* What do you feel are your strengths in writing?
* What did you do to generate content?
Self-Assessment
You can use dialogue jornals or learning logs. The first require students to make entries on different topics. On the other hand, learning logs document time students spend on various writing activities.
Peer Assessment
The major rationale for peer assessment is that when students learn to evaluate the work of their peers, they are extending their own learning opportunities.
Portfolio Based Assessment
It examines multiple pieces of writing produced over time under different constraints rather than a single essay. A portfolio is a collection of student writing that shows the stages in the writing process, the growth of the writer's.
Writing Assessment Scales
We need to select the appropriate writing scale for a particular teaching context. The two main types for assessing student written proficiency are holistic and analytic.
Holistic Marking Scales
It is based on the marker's toatl impression of the essay as a whole. This marking is termed as impressionistic, global, or integrative marking.
Analytical Marking Scales
"Raters provide assessment for each of a number of aspects of performance"(Hamp-Lyons, 1991). Scorers mark selected aspects of a piece of writing and assignpoint values to quantifiable criteria. Analytic scales are generally more effective with inexperienced teachers and more realiable for scales with a larger point range.
It is important to provide feedback to students so they can learn and make improvements to their writing. You can do so by handwritten comments or simple correction codes.
Sample Marking Codes for Writing
sp= spelling
vt= verb tense
ww= wrong word
wv= wrong verb
?= I don't understand
Remember to give positive remarks and feedback, but be careful too much praise can make students complacent. Be sure to give them aspects to be improve or correct in the following tasks or tests.
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