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by Barbara Mariconda |
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Do You Need to Raise Test Scores in Writing?
In recent years there has been a great emphasis on increased testing in writing. On the positive side, this has raised the bar in the instruction of writing and accountability. A negative consequence, in some places, has been tremendous pressure, resulting in an over-emphasis in testing and testing prep. “Practice” prompts and timed assessments have taken the place of authentic writing experiences.
Without a doubt, everyone would agree that we want our students to be highly literate, expressive individuals with a solid command of the written word. We want our students to be able to write for a variety of purposes and audiences, fluently, using vivid vocabulary. Teachers want to nurture their students to be able to express themselves powerfully and effectively in all writing tasks. The question is, in this testing environment, can we provide instruction that is both invigorating, challenging, creative, and motivating, and can serve to prepare students well for the demands of state testing?
The Challenges of State Writing Tests
Assessment tools themselves can present challenges to teachers and students alike. In many places writing assessments are strictly timed. In these cases students must not only demonstrate powerful writing skills, but they must also understand how to work under the pressure of the clock. In other places tests are untimed. Still, students need to demonstrate skills in an artificial, often pressure filled writing situation. Prompts provided for testing purposes are often weak or overly general in order to ensure that the written response does not require vast or specialized prior knowledge. Other challenges involve the variety of genres tested. In some instances students could be faced with narrative, expository, or persuasive/argumentative writing prompts on their state writing test, as early as grade three. Teachers wonder how they can possibly prepare students in all genres with a reasonable level of competence in any of them.
Another challenge of formalized writing assessment is the fact that scoring can be inconsistent at best. Some states send students’ assessments out for scoring. The scoring is sometimes done by individuals with minimal training in assessing student work. Instead of carefully considering author’s purpose, voice, the cohesive whole of a piece of writing, they locate superficial, often misleading indicators such as adjectives, or didactic transitional phrases or sentence structure. (ex. The first reason...In conclusion…etc.) Some writing test responses are scored by computer. In any case, the sheer number of pieces that must be assessed precludes a thorough, careful view of student writing.
Given these challenges inherent in formal writing assessments, it’s understandable that teachers and school systems often focus attention on ways to improve student test performance. These efforts often include collecting or creating prompts that resemble those appearing on state tests, and administering these as often as possible, in test simulations. The rationale is that “practice makes perfect”.
However, without focused, thoughtful instruction in the skills necessary for powerful writing, this type of test practice can waste valuable instructional time, while causing student anxiety and frustration. Assessment is intended to be just that – a measure of student growth over time and a tool for informing and driving instruction. When testing occurs at short intervals teachers do not have sufficient time for instruction, nor can they provide meaningful feedback to nurture student growth.
As educators we’re always looking at both long and short-term goals. In writing, the long-term goal is to empower students to be capable, expressive, confident writers across genres and for a variety of purposes. This involves being exposed to, practicing, and applying skills to real world writing situations. The challenge with testing is that it often serves to push students in unnatural ways – teachers feel the need to move students to mastery before they may be ready. Writing is a process, students are all moving along a developmental continuum, and necessary skills fall into place over time. Testing may not take place at an optimum point in this process, and often we need to accept that there is still more to learn, the process will take more time, and the writing score is only an indicator of where a student falls at a particular place in time.
So, How to Best Prepare for Writing Assessments
Despite these challenges, testing is a reality we can address in positive ways. Of course, the most important step in “test prep” is high quality, consistent, ongoing instruction across and between grade levels. Every teacher at every grade level must own a piece of the instructional pie. (In some areas teacher shortages exist in grades where testing occurs – teachers servicing students during the “testing year” feel so much pressure to single-handedly prepare students for the writing test that they opt out. Another example of this kind of thinking is in districts where professional development in writing is offered only to teachers servicing students in the “testing year”. This sends the wrong message to teachers in earlier grades who feel that the job of teaching writing is determined by the demands of the test.)
Providing High Quality Consistency in Instruction
Districts need to move beyond overly general grade level expectations in writing to more specific basic assured writing experiences at each grade. Clearly stated objectives, consistent vocabulary, designated opportunities for the introduction of the specific skills good writers possess – all relative to the particular grade and developmentally appropriate – these are the building blocks of a successful writing program. (See the Empowering Writers Scope and Sequence of Basic Assured Experiences for examples of this.) In this way teachers can build upon prior learning instead of wasting valuable time trying to figure out the experience level of all their students and desperately trying to get them all “up to speed”. It also guarantees that from kindergarten up, all teachers share in the responsibility of scaffolding instruction in age appropriate ways.
Informal Assessments
Included in a well thought out series of grade level expectations and basic assured experiences are carefully planned assessment opportunities. These include a beginning of year benchmark, and two or three additional formal assessments at evenly spaced intervals throughout the school year. Including process writing opportunities in which students work on a piece of writing over time, applying skills taught is another, more informal, but often more powerful tool for assessing student growth. All informal assessments should lead to clear, practical feedback for students, highlighting their successes as well as challenges in their writing.
Using Data to Drive Instruction
Data-based instruction is another buzzword tossed around today. Using objective criteria such as a formal writing assessment in which student responses are scored against a rubric and anchor set can generate statistical information about student growth. Also, comparing writing scores across and between grade levels can be enlightening.
However, if consistency in instruction is lacking across and between grade levels, the resulting data becomes highly subjective and cannot be used effectively to track student growth or to evaluate instruction. Therefore, another reason to build consistency into instruction is to objectify the data we gain from tracking writing scores. If instruction has been consistent, informal testing can be used effectively to assess student growth prior to formal testing. It can be used to identify struggling students and to apply a pro-active prescriptive approach to testprep review work.
How to Prepare for Informal or Formal Writing Assessments
Students must become savvy test takers. We never want the assessment tool itself to become a barrier to the demonstration of student success. Therefore it is helpful to spend some time examining the assessment tool with an eye for how to best approach it. The following bulleted list outlines a number of simple strategies to help demystify the typical writing test.
- Discuss the purpose of the test – the test is an opportunity for students to demonstrate all skills presented and practiced. In informal, instructional testing situations, it is helpful to actually list the skills taught on the board and to explain to students that applying these skills in their response will really increase their chances of success. In narrative writing this skill list might look like this:
• entertaining beginning • suspense • a fully elaborated main event
• elaborative detail • a conclusion or solution • a satisfying extended story ending - Analyze Prompts for Given and Variable Elements – read through a number of prompts (similar to those used on your state test) and point out and analyze the “givens” – in other words, the story elements provided in the prompt that everyone must include.
Ex. – Imagine a day when you enjoyed a fun time outside. Write a story about what you did and what happened next.
The given elements would be the outdoor setting, the main character (1st person), and the fact that something must happen.
The variable elements (the decisions the author must make) include the particular outdoor setting and what exactly happened next.
Play the “what if and why not” game. Ask students to come up with a variety of story summaries that would best describe their story:
This is a story about the time when I explored the woods behind my grandmother’s house and built a lean-to out of sticks.
The point is, the story they derive for their written response need not be their FAVORITE tale, rather, it needs to be one that works and allows them to best highlight their skills. - Model the Entire Process of Responding to an Assessment – Select a representative prompt, present it to the class and engage in the prewriting process. Analyze the prompt for
genre, author’s purpose, and given and variable elements. Construct a simple story summary. Draft a story using chart paper, an overhead, or a Smartboard, talking aloud as you write, asking the questions an author must ask. Incorporate student input as you write. Later, point out evidence of all key skills and show how these skills really come together in a successful piece of writing. - A month or two before the official test, identify struggling students. During an informal assessment, watch to see where the process breaks down for students. Make note of that. When scoring the work begin to look for any classroom-wide trends or common weaknesses. Use this information to plan both whole class and small group review work. Also, write as much constructive feedback on student responses as possible. Students need to know specifically where they’ve been successful and what they can improve. A numerical score alone is never enough feedback for students.
These ideas are just a few that have proved helpful in test situations. For more detailed suggestions and comprehensive day-by-day review plans for narrative and expository writing assessments, see the Empowering Writers publications:
Testing can become a positive opportunity for students to demonstrate their many skills with confidence and competence. In the best of all possible worlds, students and teachers alike can look at testing as one small tool they use to become effective writers. Our job as educators is to scaffold our writing instruction from kindergarten up in exciting, meaningful, thorough ways so that the test becomes just a small positive part of the process rather than a do or die endpoint.
Barbara Mariconda is the author of over 20 children’s books and numerous professional books for teachers. Her middle grade novel, “Turn the Cup Around” published by Delacorte Press was nominated for an Edgar Allan Poe Award by the Mystery Writers of America for best children’s mystery. Her latest, a picture book titled “Sort it Out,” was published by Sylvan Dell Publishing in the fall of 2008. She has presented programs on writing to thousands of teachers at workshops and conferences across North America.
