Informing Writing: The Benefits of Formative Assessment

Examines whether classroom-based formative writing assessment - designed to provide students with feedback and modified instruction as needed - improves student writing and how teachers can improve such assessment. Suggests best practices

Authentic Writing Assessment

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Ielts writing assessment criteria

The main criteria for international writing assessment are sub-stantiated in the article. The most important features of academic writing in English are lighted

An Analysis of the Effectiveness of Uninterrupted Time on High Stakes Writing Assessments

The design of the study was to analyze the mastery level of tenth grade students at Millard North High School to determine the effectiveness of extended, uninterrupted time on their successful completion of the Analytical Writing Assessment. The Analytical Writing Assessment is a three prompt writing assessment that must be passed in order for a student to graduate from the Millard Public Schools. In the fall of 2004, an analysis of writing results of Millard North High School students lead to concerns over writing instruction in the classroom and testing procedures. Although the assessment is not a timed test, it was believed that the class bell ringing at the end of a fifty-minute period was creating an artificial conclusion to the test for many students. The first step was to attempt to change the testing procedures in the spring of 2006. As part of the changes in testing procedures, students who had only had fifty minutes to complete the writing assessment in the past were given ninety minutes of uninterrupted time (no bells or other interruptions) to complete two of the three prompts of the Analytical Writing Assessment. As a result, in the spring of 2006, Millard North High School experienced significant increases in the mastery level of students writing assessment scores. Because of concerns over test security and consistency in procedures between the three high school, a committee established changes to the district procedures for the Analytical Writing Assessment in the spring of 2006. As part of the procedural changes, each student in all three high schools would be tested over the same prompt on the same day, for three days. In addition, all students would be given ninety minutes of uninterrupted time to complete each of the three writing assessments. The result was sustained higher mastery level scores for students at Millard North High School on the Analytical Writing Assessment

A Study of the Relationship between Students\u27 Anxiety and Test Performance on State-Mandated Assessments

This study examined whether relationships exist between Hispanic fourth-grade students\u27 anxiety and test performance on a state-mandated writing assessment. Quantitative methodologies were employed by using test performance and survey data from 291 participants. While no significantly direct relationship exists between students\u27 levels of anxiety and their performance on the TAKS (Texas Assessment of Knowledge and Skills) writing assessment, other findings indicate that greater time spent on the writing assessment, result in higher scores as well as greater levels of anxiety. (Contains 3 tables.

Best Practices in Writing Assessment

Our assignment in this chapter is to discuss best practices in writing assessment, a task that poses a twofold challenge for teachers-first, the task of providing authentic opportunities for students to acquire skill in writing while covering an ever-increasing array of other curriculum demands; second, the overriding pressures to ensure that students perform well on the standardized tests that have become the primary accountability index. As we complete this chapter, few state testing systems rely to any significant degree on performance tests for measuring student achievement. Multiple-choice tests dominate, and on-demand writing tests (including the SAT) generally contravene the counsel provided by the College Board. Our purpose is to survey assessment concepts and techniques supported by research and practical experience and to suggest ways to fit these ideas into the realities of policies that, although well intended, often conflict with best practices. The advice from the College Board illustrates this point; it captures many facets of best practices, but the real SAT assessment permits none of these elements. We have limited space for presenting how-to details, but we will provide selected references to help apply the ideas. The chapter is organized around three topics. First, we describe the concept of embedded classroom writing assessments designed to inform instruction and provide evidence about learning. The bottom line here is the recommendation that writing tasks (instruction and assessment) be designed to support the learning of significant academic topics (Urquhart & Mclver, 2005). Next, we present several contrasts that emerge from this perspective: process versus product, formative versus summative evaluation, and assessment versus testing. Finally, we review a set of building blocks that is essential to all writing assessments, especially those that are classroom-based: the prompt, the procedures, and the rubrics. As you have probably realized from the scenarios and the discussion thus far, our focus will be on composing more than mechanics. Attention to spelling and grammar is eventually important, but it helps if the writer has something to say and has learned how to organize his or her ideas.https://digitalcommons.chapman.edu/education_books/1002/thumbnail.jp