Assessing WritingImelda Hermilinda Abas

(807649)

Genre of Writing• Academic writing

Papers, essays, dissertations, theses, etc. • Job-related writing

messages, formal letters, e-mails, advertisements, manuals, etc.

• Personal writinginformal letters, e-mails, greeting cards, shopping lists, etc.

2 Categories of Writing Skills (Brown, 2004)

Micro Skills Macro Skills

Produce grapheme and orthographic patterns of English;

Produce writing at an efficient rate of speed to suit the purpose;

Produce an acceptable core of words and use appropriate word order patterns;

Use acceptable grammatical systems Express a particular meaning in

different grammatical forms; Use cohesive devices in written

discourse

Use the rhetorical forms and conventions of written discourse;

Carry out communicative function of written texts;

Convey links and connection between events, and communicate;

Distinguish between literal and implied meanings;

Carry out culturally specific references in the context of the written text;

Develop and use of writing strategies;

Types of Writing Performance

Imitative and Intensive (controlled) Responsive and Extensive

Imitative and Intensive (controlled) writing

Imitative Writing Intensive (Controlled) Writing

The ability to spell correctly and to perceive phoneme - grapheme correspondences in the English spelling system

Students are supposed to copy sentences and words, rewrite texts and passages, order sentences

Designing Assessment Task

Imitative Writing

Task in (hand) writing letters, words and punctuation

Spelling tasks and detecting phoneme-grapheme

correspondence

Copying Listening cloze selection task Picture-cued tasks

Spelling test Multiple choice techniques Matching phonetic symbols

Designing Assessment Task

Intensive (Controlled) Writing

Dictation and Dicto-Comp :Dictation is basically copying what the

teacher reads ( imitative )Rewrite a paragraph with their

recollection from what was understood

Grammatical transformation tasks:Combination of sentencesActive to passiveDirect to IndirectReduced formsEndless possibilities

Picture-Cued tasks (nonverbal means to stimulate written responses):

Picture description Picture sequence description Picture-Cued Short sentences

Vocabulary Assessment Tasks (to see if the test-taker knows the word): Defining and using a word in a sentence

(collocation and morphological variants)

Ordering Tasks:Order or reorder scrambled set of

words into the correct order to make a sentence

Short-answer and Sentence Completion Tasks:

Limited response writing tasks (vary from simple to more elaborated responses)

Responsive Writing Extensive Writing

Requires learners to perform at a limited discourse level, connecting sentences into a paragraph and creating a logically connected sequence of two or three paragraphs.Ex: Brief narratives and descriptions, a lab report, summaries and etc.

Focusing on the achievement of a purpose. Organizing ideas logically, using details to support or illustrate it and demonstrating syntactic and lexical variety.Ex: an essay, a term paper, a major research project report, a thesis and etc.

Common Issues: Authenticity: Teacher needs to check the validity of the writing production teacher

becomes less of an instructor and more of a coach or facilitator. Scoring: Teacher must assess not only the form (the way the writer put words

together), but also the function of the text (what the writer is trying to say). Time: The writer is free to write as many drafts as he wants before it becomes a final

product.

Responsive and Extensive Writing

Designing Assessment TaskResponsive and Extensive Writing

Paraphrasing Ensuring that the students know the

importance of paraphrasing: to say something in their own words.

Avoiding plagiarism. Offering variety in expression.

Paragraph Construction Task Topic Sentence writing Topic Development within a paragraph Development of main and supporting

ideas across paragraphs

Guided Question and Answer May be consist of 2 – 3 paragraph Scored on either analytic or holistic

scale

Strategic Options Attending to task Attending to genre

Scoring methods: Responsive & Extensive writing

• Holistic Scoring: A single score is assigned to an essay, which represents a reader's general overall assessment.

• Primary Trait Scoring: This type of scoring emphasizes the effectiveness of the text's achieving. If the purpose or function of an essay is to persuade the reader to do something, the score for the writing would rise or fall according to the accomplishment of that function.

• Analytic Scoring: Classroom evaluation of learning is best served through analytic scoring in which as many as five major elements of writing are scored.