Toward a New Understanding of Classroom Writing Assessment

Dr. Brian HuotKent State University

Dr. Jeffrey PerryNorth Carolina Wesleyan

2009 Writing Development:Multiple Perspectives

Institute of EducationUniversity of London

Agenda for Classroom Writing Assessment

Distinction between Assessment and Grades.

Distinction between Portfolio as Product and Portfolio as Process.

Distinction between Response and Reading.

• strong cultural capital• summary for students of their school experience & identity as students• grades are given to individual papers; aggregated

for final grades• commentary on papers mostly to justify the grade• grades are a form of evaluation only seen in

schools and only given to students

The Power of Grades

formative & summative assessment

• The distinction between formative and summative assessment refers to whether or not an assessment comes at a time when the artifact that is being assessed can be improved based upon the assessment.

The Problem with this Distinction

For example, a teacher could give a student an F on a paper marking all grammar, usage, mechanical and stylistic errors. If the teacher allows the student to correct these errors and improve the grade of the paper, then we could call this formative assessment.

Instructive Assessment• Assessment can empower students• Assessment can give authorial, creative, and composing control that writers enjoy• good writing instruction should be organized

around important evaluative decisions• students should be taught to set specific targets

The Argument for Portfolios

Portfolios1. Allows the teacher to organize instruction and evaluation around the writing process.

2. Multiple drafts allow the focus of the class to remain on student writing and the student’s role as a writer.

Process versus Product

Traditional notions of writing assessment are more concerned with the product that students produce as opposed to the process through which students undertake the task of writing.

The Traditional Assignment

The concern with product over process is reflected in syllabi and writing prompts that emphasize “grammar, spelling, word/page length,” as opposed to “revision, clarity, organization, critical thinking, and familiarity with course content.”

Breaking the Habit of Written Response

A review of scholarship on responding to student writing reveals the misguided focus on written commentary.

Connors and Lunsford (1993)

A study of 3000 papers revealed that of 2000 comments, just 11% of these comments were written to give feedback on drafts in process, while 59% of these comments served to justify the grade given on the paper

Sommer’s Paradox

The paradox of interlinear comments (grammar, usage, word choice) and marginal notes that give advice on revision.

An important part of classroom assessment has always been how to respond to student writing.

How do we readstudent writing?

no matter how we respond, we have to read the writing first

reading is an interpretive actreading is also an act of evaluation especially

for those of us who teach and research writing

How do we read student writing?

ｷｷ the question is not how to evaluate but what to evaluate

ｷｷ what part of the evaluation do we share with the student?

ｷ what would be helpful to this student now?

• prepare teachers to read student writing in pedagogically productive ways

• read as teachers• provide pedagogical

& contextual feedback

Letters, Interviews, and Conferences

Alternative approaches to response.