ENGLISH LANGUAGE ARTS RESOURCES

ENGLISH LANGUAGE ARTS :: RESOURCES :: WRITING HANDBOOK :: UNDERSTANDING THE TERMINOLOGY OF ASSESSMENT

Teachers often struggle with knowing how to support student writers yet hold them accountable to standards when evaluating their compositions. Perhaps this stems from the commonly accepted practice of assigning writing and then not seeing it until the finished product is turned in for a grade. Under such circumstances, it seems that it is too late to do much more than write comments and assign a numerical grade. In a process oriented classroom, however, the teacher has many more options. He or she can actually engage in multiple forms of assessment throughout the writing process.

In a broad sense, assessment refers to "collecting performance data and assigning quantitative meaning to it" (Milner & Milner, 2003). We are expected to assign grades, so we somehow figure out how to look at a student's performance in writing and put a number grade on it. However, that is really only one small part of assessment. In addition to figuring out how we are going to create a numerical value for a piece of writing we have to think about how we are going to set up evaluation criteria, at what points we will check for progress, what kind of feedback we will give, and what we can do to make that feedback helpful to the writer.

Many terms are used when discussing assessment of writing, and each refers to something different. Tchudi (1997), for example, differentiates among the terms "response," "assessment," "evaluation," and "grading" as they relate to student writing. Suggesting that the four terms can be seen on a continuum by applying the notion of "degrees of freedom," he argues that response offers teachers and students the greatest amount of freedom or flexibility while grading offers the least. And although institutional pressures may place more focus on grading, research in composition and teacher impulse is more often focused on providing meaningful response. The teacher's task, then, becomes to reconcile the need for a "grade" with the need to support the continued growth of student writers in a supportive and challenging environment.

• RESPONSE, according to Tchudi (1997), tends to be audience-centered, richly descriptive, multidimensional and individualized. Rather than grading papers, teachers at this point on the continuum give credit for completion and act as coaches who give authentic feedback to the writer from the perspective of an individual reader.
• ASSESSMENT, he continues, is still multidimensional and descriptive, but it takes on more of an analytic tone as the teacher helps the student problem-solve and offers suggestions in the here-and-now to help the writer improve this particular piece of writing with no look to future assignments. At this point on the continuum the teacher may accept a piece or request a revision, involve students in self-evaluation, and even negotiate grades.
• Moving down the continuum, Tchudi points out that EVALUATION becomes semidimensional, more judgmental, standardized and future directed. At this point on the continuum the teacher may use contracts, point systems, outcomes-based evaluation, or portfolio grading.
• Finally, at the GRADING end of the continuum the teacher uses rubrics, trait scoring, and assigns final grades to the writing.

It is helpful to students when teachers incorporate informal methods of assessment such as individualized response, writing conferences, and troubleshooting opportunities before students have to submit a composition for formal assessment and a final grade.

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