SUMMARY OF ASSESSING READING  ( PAGE 185- 217) AND ASSESSING WRITING (218-250)

ASSESSING READING

In foreign language learning, reading is likewise a skill that, teachers simply expect learners to acquire.. Basic, beginning-level textbooks in a foreign language presuppose a student's reading ability if only because it's a book that is the medium. Most formal tests use the written word' as a stimulus for test-taker response; even oral interviews may require reading performance for certain tasks. Reading, arguably the most essential skill for success in all educational contexts, remains a skill of Paramount importance as we create assessments of general language ability.

The assessment of reading ability does not end with the measurement of comprehension. Strategic pathways to full understanding are often.important factors to include in assessing learners, especially in the case of most classroom assessments that are formative in nature. An inability to comprehend may thus be traced to a need to enhance a test-taker's strategies for achieving ultimate comprehension. For example, an academic technical report, may be comprehensible to a student at the sentence level, but if the learner has not exercised certain strategies for noting the discourse conventions of that genre, misunderstanding may occur.

As we consider a number of different types or genres of written texts, the components of reading ability, and specific tasks that are commonly used in the assessment of reading, let's not forget the unobservable nature of reading. Like listening, one cannot see the process of reading, nor can one observe a specific product of reading.

TYPES (GENRES) OF READING

1. Academic reading

general interest articles (in magazines, newspapers, etc.)

technical reports (e.g., lab reports), professional journal articles

reference material (dictionaries, etc.)

textbooks, theses

essays, papers

test directions

editorials and opinion writing

2. Job-related reading

messages (e.g., phone messages)

letters/emails

memos (e.g., interoffice)

reports (e.g., job evaluations, project reports)

schedules, labels, signs, announcements

forms, applications, questionnaires

financial documents (bills, invoices, etc.)

directories (telephone, office, etc.)

manuals, directions

3. Personal reading

newspapers and magazines

letters, emails, greeting cards, invitations

messages, notes, lists

schedules (train, bus, plane, etc.)

recipes, menus, maps, calendars

advertisements (commercials, want ads)

novels, short stories, jokes, drama, poetry

financial documents (e.g., checks, tax forms, loan .applications)

forms, questionnaires, medical reports, immigration documents

comic strips, cartoons

When we realize that this list is only the beginning, it is easy to see how overwhelming it is to learn to read in a foreign language! The genre of a text enables readers to apply certain schemata that will assist them in extracting appropriate meaning. If for example; readers know that a text is a recipe, they will expect a certain arrangement of information (ingredients) and will know to search for a sequential, order of directions. Efficient readers also have to know what their purpose is in reading a text, the strategies for accomplishing that purpose, and how to retain the information.

MICROSKTIJS, MACROSKILlS, AND STRATEGIES FOR READING

• Micro- and macroskills for reading comprehension

Microskills

1. Discriminate among the distinctive graphemes and orthographic patterns

of English.

2. Retain chunks of language of different lengths in short-term memory.

3. Process writing at an efficient rate of speed to suit the purpose.

4. Recognize a core of words, and interpret word order patterns and their

sign ificance.

5. Recognize grammatical word classes (nouns, verbs, etc.), systems (e.g.,tense, agreement, pluralization), patterns, rules, and elliptical forms.

6. Recognize that a particular meaning may be expressed in different grammatical forms.

7. Recognize cohesive devices in written discourse and their role in signaling the relationship between and among clauses.

• Macroskills

8. Recognize the rhetorical forms of written discourse and their significance for interpretation.

9. Recognize the communicative functions of written texts, according to form and purpose.

10. Infer context that is not explicit by using background knowledge.

11. From described events, ideas, etc., infer links and connections between events, deduce causes and effects, and detect such relations as main idea, supporting idea, new information, given information, generalization, and exemplification.

12. Distinguish between literal and implied meanings.

13. Detect culturally specific references and interpret them in a context of the appropriate cultural schemata.

14. Develop and use a battery of reading strategies, such as scanning and skimming, detecting discourse markers, guessing the meaning of words from context, and activating schemata for the interpretation of texts.

• Some principal strategies for reading comprehension

1. Identify your purpose in reading a text.
2. Apply spelling rules and conventions for bottom-up decoding.
3. Use lexical analysis (prefixes, roots/suffixes, etc.) to determine meaning.
4. Guess at meaning (of words, idioms, etc.) when you aren't certain.
5. Skim the text for the gist and for main ideas.
6. Scan the text for specific information (names, dates, key words).
7. Use silent reading techniques for rapid processing.
8. Use marginal notes, outlines, charts, or semantic map for understanding and retaining information.
9. Distinguish between literal and implied meanings.
10. Capitalize on discourse markers to process relationships.

• TYPES OF READING

1. Perceptive. In keeping with the set of categories specified for listening comprehension, similar specifications are offered here; except with some differing terminology to capture the uniqueness of reading. Perceptive reading tasks involve attending to the components of larger stretches of discourse: letters, words,punctuation, and other graphemic symbols. Bottom-up processing is implied.

2. Selective. This category is largely an artifact of assessment formats. In order to ascertain one's reading recognition of lexical, grammatical, or discourse features of language within a very short stretch of language, certain typical tasks are used: picture-cued tasks, matching, true/false, multiple-choice, etc.

3. Interactive. Included among interactive reading types are stretches of language

of several paragraphs to one page or more in which the reader must, in a psycholinguistic sense, interact with the text. That is, reading is a process of negotiating meaning; the reader brings to the text a set of schemata for understanding it, and intake

is the product of that interaction.

4. Extensive. Extensive reading, as discussed in this book, applies to texts of more than a page, up to and including professional articles, essays, technical reports, short stories, and books. (It should be noted that reading research commonly refers to "extensive reading" as longer stretches of discourse, such as long articles and books that are usually read outside a classroom hour.

At the beginning level of reading a second language lies a set of tasks that are fundamental and basic: recognition of. alphabetic symbols, capitalized and lowercase letters, punctuation, word and grapheme-phoneme correspondences. Such tasks of perception are often referred to as literacy tasks, implying that the learner is in the early stages of becoming "literate." Assessment of basic reading skills may be carried out in a number of different ways.

• Reading Aloud

The test-taker sees separate letters, words, and/or short sentences and reads them aloud, one by one, in the presence of an administrator. Since the assessment is of reading comprehension, any recognizable oral approximation of the target response is considered correct.

• Written Response

The same stimuli are presented, and the test-taker's task is' to reproduce the probe in writing. Because of the transfer across different skills here, evaluation of the test taker's response must be carefully treated. If an error occurs, make sure you determine its source; what might be assumed to be a writing error, for example, may actually be a reading error, and vice versa.

• Multiple-Choice

Multiple-choice responses are not only a matter of choosing one of four or five possible answers. Other formats, some of which are especially useful at the low levels of reading, include same/different, circle the answer, true/false, choose the letter, and matching. Here are some possibilities.

• Picture-Cued Items

Test-takers are shown a picture, such as the one on the next page, along with a written text and are given one of a number of possible tasks to perform.

DESIGNING ASSESSMENT TASKS: SELECTIVE READING

• Multiple-Choice (for Form-Focused Criteria)

By far the most popular method of testing a reading knowledge of vocabulary and grammar is the multiple-choice format, mainly for reasons of practicality: it is easy to administer and can be scored quickly. The most straightforward .multiple-choice items may have little context, but might serve as a vocabulary or grammar check.

• Matching Tasks

At this selective level of reading, the test-taker's task is simply to respond correctly, which makes matching an appropriate format. The most frequently appearing criterion in matching procedures is vocabulary.

• Editing Tasks

Editing for grammatical or rhetorical errors is a widely used test method for assessing linguistic competence in reading. The TOEFL and many "other tests employ this technique with the argument that it not only focuses on grammar but also, introduces a simulation of the.~authentic task of editing, or discerning errors in written passages. Its authenticity may be supported if you consider proofreading as a real-world skill that is being tested. Here is a typical set of examples of editing.

• Picture-Cued Tasks

In the previous section we looked at picture-cued tasks for perceptive recognition

of symbols and words. Pictures and photographs may be equally well utilized for

examining ability at the selective level. Several types of picture-cued methods are

commonly used.

1. Test-takers read a sentence or passage and choose one of four pictures that is being described.The sentence (or sentences) at this level is more complex.
2. Test-takers read a series of sentences or definitions, each describing a labeled part of a picture or diagram. Their task is to identify each labeled item. In the following diagram, test-takers do not necessarily know each term, but by reading the definition they are able to make an identification.

• Gap-Filling Tasks

Many of the multiple-choice tasks described above can be converted into gap-filling, or "fill-in-the-blank,"'items in which the test-taker's response is to write a word or phrase. An extension of simple gap-filling tasks is to create sentence completion items where test-takers read part of a sentence and then complete it by writing a phrase.

DESIGNING ASSESSMENT TASKS: INTERACTIVE READING

Tasks at this level, like selective tasks, have a combination of form focused and meaning  focused objectives but with more emphasis on meaning. Interactive tasks may therefore imply a little more focus on top-down processing than on bottom-up. Texts are a little longer, from a paragraph to as much as a page or so in the case of ordinary prose. Charts, graphs, and other graphics may be somewhat complex in their format.

• Cloze Tasks

One of the most popular types of reading assessment task is the cloze procedure. The word cloze was coined by educational psychologists to capture the Gestalt psychological concept of "closure," that is, the ability to fill in gaps in an incomplete image (visual; auditory, or cognitive) and supply (from background schemata) " omitted details.

In written language, a sentence with a word left out should have enough context that a reader can close that gap with a calculated guess, using linguistic expectancies (formal schemata), background experience (content schemata), and some strategic competence. Based on this assumption, cloze tests were developed for native language readers and defended as an appropriate gauge of reading ability.

Some research (Oller, 1973, 1976,1979) on second language acquisition vigorously

defends cloze testing as an integrative measure not only of reading ability but also of other language abilities. It was argued that the ability to make coherent guesses in cloze gaps also taps into the ability to listen, speak, and write.With the decline of zeal for the search for the ideal integrative test in recent years, cloze testing has returned to a more appropriate status as one of a number of assessment procedures available for testing reading ability.

• Impromptu Reading Plus Comprehension Questions

If cloze testing is the most-researched procedure for assessing reading, the traditional "Read a passage and answer some questions" technique is undoubtedly the oldest and the most common. Virtually every proficiency test uses the format, and one would rarely consider assessing reading without some component of the assessment involving impromptu reading and responding to questions. Notice that this set of questions, based on a 250-word passage, covers the comprehension of these features:

• main idea (topic)

• expressions/idioms/phrases in context

• inference (implied detail)

• grammatical features

• detail (scanning for a specifically stated detail)

• excluding facts not written (unstated details)

• supporting idea(s)

• vocabulary in context.

These·specifications, and the questions that exemplify them, are not just a string of "straight" comprehension questions that follow the thread of the passage.The questions represent a sample of the test specifications for TOEFL reading passages, which are derived from research on a variety of abilities good readers exhibit. Notice that many of them are consistent with strategies of effective reading: skimming for main idea, scanning for details, guessing word meanings from context, inferencing, using , discourse markers, etc.

• Short-Answer Tasks

 Multiple-choice items are difficult to construct and validate, and classroom teachers

rarely have time in their busy schedules to design such a test. A popular alternative to multiple-choice questions following reading passages is the age old short- answer format. A reading passage is presented, and the test-taker reads questions that must be answered in a sentence or two. Questions might cover the same specifications indicated above for the TOEFL reading, but be worded in question form.

• Editing (Longer Texts)

The previous section of this chapter (on selective reading) described editing tasks, put there the discussion was limited to a list of unrelated sentences, each presented with an error to be-detected by the test-taker. The same technique has been applied successfully. to longer passages of 200 to 300 words. Several advantages are gained in the longer format.

First, authenticity is increased. The likelihood that students in English classrooms

will read connected prose of a page or two is greater than the likelihood of their encountering the contrived format of unconnected sentences. Second, the task simulates proofreading one's own essay, where it is imperative to find and correct errors. And third, if the test is connected to a specific curriculum (such as placement into one of several writing courses), the test designer. can draw up specifications for a number of grammatical and rhetorical categories that match the content of the courses. Content validity is thereby supported, and along with it the face validity of a task in which students are willing to invest.

• Scanning

Scanning is a strategy used by all readers to find relevant information in a text. Assessment of scanning is carried out by presenting test-takers with a text (prose or something in a chart or graph format) and requiring rapid identification of relevant bits of information. Possible stimuli include:

• a one- to two-page news article,

• an essay,

• a chapter in a textbook,

• a technical report,

• a table or chart depicting some research findings,

• a menu, and

• an application form ..

Among the variety of scanning objectives (for each of the genres named above), the test-taker must locate

• a date, name, or place in an article;

• the setting for a narrative or story;

• the principal divisions of a chapter;

• the principal research finding in a technical report;

• a result reported in a specified cell in a table;

• the cost of an item on a menu; and

• specified data needed to fill out an application.

Scoring of such scanning tasks is amenable to specificity if the initial directions are specific ("How much does the dark chocolate torte cost?"). Since one of the purpose of scanning is to quickly identify important elements, timing may also be calculated into a scoring procedure.

• Ordering Tasks

Students always enjoy the activity of receiving little strips of paper, each with a sentence on it, anti assembling them into a story, sometimes called the "strip story" technique. Variations on this can serve :as an assessment of overall global understanding of a story and of the cohesive devices that signal the order of events or ideas. Alderson et al. (1995, p. 53) warn, however, against assuming that there is only one 'logical order. They presented these sentences for forming a little story.

Information Transfer: Reading Charts, Maps, Graphs, Diagrams

Every educated person must be able to comprehend charts, maps, graphs, calendars,

diagrams, and the like. Converting such nonverbal input into comprehensible intake requires not only an understanding of the graphic and verbal conventions of the medium but also a linguistic ability to interpret that information to someone else. Reading a map implies understanding the conventions of map graphics, but it is often accompanied by telling someone where to turn, how far to go, etc. Scanning a menu requires an ability to understand the structure of most menus as well as the capacity to give an order when the time comes. Interpreting the numbers on a stock market report involves the interaction of understanding the numbers and of conveying that understanding to others.

All of these media presuppose the reader's appropriate schemata for interpreting them and often are accompanied by oral or written discourse in order to convey, clarify, question, argue, and debate, among other linguistic functions. Virtually every language curriculum, from rock-bottom beginning levels to high-advanced, utilizes this nonverbal, visual symbolic dimension. It is therefore imperative that assessment procedures include measures of comprehension of nonverbal media.

DESIGNING ASSESSMENT TASKS: EXTENSIVE READING

Extensive reading involves somewhat longer texts than we have been dealing with up to this point. Journal articles, technical reports, longer essays, short stories, and books fall into this category. The reason for placing such reading into a separate category is that reading of this type of discourse almost always involves a focus on meaning using mostly top-down processing, with only occasional use of a targeted bottom-up strategy. Also, because of the extent of such reading, formal assessment is unlikely to be contained within the time constraints of a typical formal testing framework, whi,ch presents a unique challenge for assessment purposes. Before examining,a few tasks that have proved to be useful in assessing extensive reading, it is essential to note that a number of the tasks described in previous

categories can apply here. Among them are:

• impromptu reading plus comprehension questions,

• short-answer tasks,

• editing,

• scanning,

• ordering,

• information transfer, and

• interpretation (discussed under graphics),

• Skimming Tasks

Skimming is the process of rapid coverage of reading matter to determine its gist or main idea. It is a prediction strategy used to give a reader a sense of the topic and purpose of a text, the organization of the text, the perspective or point of view of the writer, its ease or difficulty, and/or its usefulness to the reader. Of course skimming can apply to texts of less than one page, so it would be wise not to confine this type of task just to extensive texts.

• Summarizing and Responding

One of the most common means of assessing extensive reading is to ask the test taker to write a summary of the text.

Directions for summarizing

Write a summary of the text. Your summary should be about one paragraph in length

(100-150 words) and should include your understanding of the main idea and

• supporting ideas.

Evaluating summaries is difficult: Do you give test-takers a certain number of points for targeting the main idea and its supporting ideas? Do you use a full/partial!no-credit point system? Do you give a holistic score? Imao (2001) used four criteria for the evaluation of a summary:

Criteria for assessing a summary (lmao, 2001, p. 184)

1. Expresses accurately the main idea and supporting ideas.

2. Is written in the student's own words; occasional vocabulary from the

original text is acceptable.

3. Is logically organized.

4. Displays facility in the use of language to clearly express ideas in the text.

As you can readily see, a strict adherence to the criterion of assessing reading, and reading only, implies consideration of only the first factor; the other three pertain to writing performance. The first criterion is nevertheless a crucial factor; otherwise the reader-writer could pass all three of the other criteria with virtually no understanding of the text itself. Evaluation of the reading comprehension criterion will of necessity remain somewhat subjective because the teacher will need to determine degrees of fulfillment of the objective (see below for more about scoring this task).

• Directions for responding to reading

In the article "Poisoning the Air We Breathe," the author suggests that a global dependence on fossil fuels will eventually make air in large cities toxic. Write an essay in which you agree or disagree with the author's thesis. Support your opinion with information from the article and from your own experience.

One criterion for a good response here is the extent to which the test-taker accurately reflects the content of the article and some of the arguments therein. Scoring is also difficult here because of the subjectivity of determining an accurate reflection of the article itself. 

Holistic scoring scale for summarizing and responding to reading

3 Demonstrates clear, unambiguous comprehension of the main and

supporting ideas.

2 Demonstrates comprehension of the main idea but lacks comprehension

of some supporting ideas.

1 Demonstrates only a partial comprehension of the main and supporting

ideas.

0. Demonstrates no comprehension of the main and supporting ideas.

The teacher or test administrator must still determine shades of gray between the point categories, but the descriptions help to bridge the gap between an empirically determined evaluation (which is impossible) and wild, impressionistic guesses.

• Note-Taking and Outlining

Finally, a reader's comprehension of extensive texts may be assessed through an evaluation of a process of note-taking and/or outlining. Because of the difficulty of controlling the conditions and time frame for both these techniques, they rest firmly in the category of informal assessment. Their utility is in the strategic training that learners gain in retaining information through marginal notes that highlight key information or organizational outlines that put supporting ideas into a visually manageable framework. A teacher,perhaps in one on one conferences-with students, can use student notes/outlines as indicators of the presence or absence of effective reading strategies, and thereby point the learners in positive directions.

ASSESSING WRITING

Not many centuries ago, writing was a skill that was the exclusive domain of scribes and scholars in educational or religious institutions. Almost every aspect of everyday life for "common" people was carried out orally. Business transactions, records, legal I documents, political and military agreements-all were written by specialists whose vocation it was to render language into the written word.

In the field of second language teaching, only a half-century ago experts were saying that writing was primarily a convention for recording speech and for reinforcing grammatical and lexical features of language. Now we understand the uniqueness ofwriting as a skill with its own features and conventions. We also fully understand the difficulty of learning to write "welltl in any language, even in our own native language.

GENRES OF WRITTEN LANGUAGE

1. Academic writing

papers and general subject reports

essays, compositions

academically focused journals

2. Job-related writing

messages (e.g., phone messages)

letters/emails

memos (e.g., interoffice)

3. Personal writing

letters, emails, greeting cards, invitations

messages, notes

calendar entries, shopping lists, reminders

TYPES OF WRITING PERFORMANCE 

1. Imitative. To produce written language, the learner must attain skills in the fundamental, basic tasks of.writing letters, words, punctuation, and very brief sentences. This category includes the ability to spell correctly and to perceive phoneme-grapheme correspondences in the English spelling system. It is a level at which learners are trying to master the mechanics of writing.

2. Intensive (controlled). Beyond the fundamentals of imitative writing are skills in producing appropriate vocabulary within a context, collocations and idioms, and correct grammatical features up to'the length of a: sentence.

3. Responsive. Here, assessment tasks require learners to perform at a limited discourse level, connecting sentences into a paragraph and creating a logically connected sequence of two or three paragraphs. Tasks respond to pedagogical directives, lists of criteria, outlines, and other guidelines. Genres of writing include brief narratives and descriptions, short reports, lab reports, summaries, brief responses to reading, and interpretations of charts or graphs.

4. Extensive. Extensive writing implies successful management of all the processes and strategies of writing for all purposes, up to the length of an essay, a term paper, a major research project report, or even a thesis. Writers focus on achieving a purpose, organizing and developing ideas logically, using details to support or illustrate ideas, demonstrating syntactic and lexical variety, and in many cases, engaging in the process of multiple drafts to achieve a final product. Focus on grammatical form is limited to occasional editing or proofreading of a draft.

MICRO- AND MACROSKII.IS OF WRITING

Microskills

1. Produce graphemes and orthographic patterns of English.

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

3. Produce an acceptable core of words and use appropriate word order

patterns.

4. Use acceptable grammatical systems (e.g., tense, agreement, pluralization), patterns, and rules.

5. Express a particular meaning in different grammatical forms.

6. Use cohesive devices in written discourse.

Macroskills

7. Use the rhetorical forms and conventions of written discourse.

8. Appropriately accomplish the communicative functions of written texts

according to form and purpose.

9. Convey links and connections between events, and communicate such

relations as main idea, supporting idea, new information, given information, generalization, and exemplification.

10. Distinguish between literal and implied meanings when writing.

11. Correctly convey culturally specific references in the context of the written text.

12. Develop and use a battery of writing strategies.

DESIGNING ASSESSMENT TASKS: IMITATIVE WRITING .

With the recent worldwide emphasis on teaching English at young ages, it is tempting to assume that every English learner knows how to handwrite the Roman alphabet. Such is not the case. Many beginning-level English learners, from young children to older adults, need basic training in and assessment of imitative writing: the rudiments of forming letters, words, and simple sentences.

Tasks in [Hand] Writing Letters, Words, and Punctuation

First, a comment should be made on the increasing use of personal and laptop computers and handheld instruments for creating written symbols. Handwriting has the potential of becoming a lost art as even very young children are more and more likely to use a keyboard to produce writing.

A few of the more common types are :

1. Copying.

2. Listening cloze selection tasks.

3. Picture-cued tasks.

4. Form completion tasks.

5. Converting numbers and abbreviations to words.

Spelling Tasks and Detecting Phoneme-Grapheme Correspondences

            A number of task types are in popular use to assess the ability to spell words correctly and to process phoneme-grapheme correspondences.

1. Spelling tests.

2. Picture-cued tasks.

3. Multiple-choice techniques.

4. Matching phonetic symbols.

DESIGNING ASSESSMENT TASKS: INTENSIVE (CONTROLLED) WRITING

This next level of writing is what second language teacher training manuals have for decades called controlled writing. It may also be thought of as_ form-focused writing, grammar writing, or simply guided writing. A good deal of writing at this level is display writing as opposed to real writing.

Dictation and Dicto-Comp

Dictation was described as an assessment of the integration of listening and writing, but it was clear that the primary skill being assessed is listening. Because of its response mode, however, it deserves a second mention in this chapter. Dictation is simply the rendition in writing of what one hears aurally, so it could be classified as an imitative type of writing, especially since a proportion of the test taker's performance centers on correct spelling.

A form of controlled writing related to dictation is a dicto-comp. Here, a paragraph is read at normal speed, usually two or three times;then the teacher asks students to rewrite the paragraph from the best of their recollection.

Grammatical Transformation Tasks

In the heyday of structural paradigms of language teaching with slot-filler ,techniques and slot substitution drills, the practice of making grammatical transformations...;....orally or in writing-was very popular. To this day, language teachers have also used this technique as an assessment task, ostensibly to measure grammatical competence. Numerous versions of the task are possible:

Picture-Cued Tasks

A variety of picture-cued controlled tasks have been used in English classrooms around the world.

1. Short sentences.

2. Picture description

3. Picture sequence description.

Vocabulary Assessment Tasks

Most vocabulary study is carried out through reading. A number of assessments of reading recognition of vocabulary were discussed in the previous chapter: multiplechoice techniques, matching, picture-cued identification, cloze techniques, guessing the meaning of a word in context, etc. The major techniques used to assess vocabulary are (a) defiding and (b) using a word in a sentence.

Vocabulary assessment is clearly form-focused in the above tasks, but the procedures are creatively linked by means of the target word, its collocations, and its morphological variants.

Ordering Tasks

One task at the sentence level may appeal to those who are fond of word games and puzzles: ordering (or reordering) a scralnbled set of words into a correct sentence. Here is the way the item format appears.

1.Test-takers read: Put the words below into the correct order to make a sentence:

2. Test-takers write

While this somewhat inauthentic task generates writing performance and may be said to tap into grammatical word-ordering rules, it presents a challenge to test takers whose learning styles do not dispose them to logical-mathematical problem solving.

Short-Answer and Sentence Completion Tasks

Some types of short-answer tasks were discussed in Chapter 8 because of the heavy participation of reading performance in their completion. Such items range from very simple and predictable to somewhat more elaborate responses.

ISSUES IN ASSESSING RESPONSIVE AND EXTENSIVE WRITING

Responsive writing creates the opportunity :tor test-takers to offer an array of 'possible creative responses within a pedagogical or assessment framework: test-takers are "responding" to a prompt or assignment. Freed from the strict control of intensive writing, learners can exercise a number of options in choosing vocabulary, grammar, and discourse, but with some constraints and conditions. Criteria now· begin to include the discourse and rhetorical conventions of paragraph structure and of connecting two or three such paragraphs in texts of limited length.

The genres of text that are typically addressed here are

• short reports (with structured formats and conventions);

• responses to the reading of an article or story;

• summaries of articles or stories;

• brief narratives or descriptions; and

• interpretations of graphs, tables, and charts.

Both responsive and extensive writing tasks are the subject of some classic, widely debated assessment issues that take on a distinctly different flavor from those at the lower-end production of writing.

1. Authenticity. Authenticity is a trait that is given special attention

2. Scoring. Scoring is the thorniest issue at these final two stages of writing.

3. Time. Yet another assessment issue surrounds the unique nature of writing

DESIGNING ASSESSMENT TASKS RESPONSIVE AND EXTENSIVE WRITING

In this section we consider both responsive and extensive writing tasks. They will -be regarded here as a continuum of possibilities ranging from lower-end tasks whose complexity exceeds those in the previous category of intensive or controlled writing, through more open-ended tasks such as writing short reports, essays, summaries, and responses. up to texts of several pages or more.

paraphrasing

One of the more difficult concepts for second language learners to grasp is paraphrasing.The initial step in teaching paraphrasing is to ensure that learners understand the importance of. paraphrasing: to say something in one's own words, to avoid plagiarizing, to offer some variety in expression. With those possible motivations and purposes in mind, the test designer needs to elicit a paraphrase of a sentence or paragraph, usually .not more.

Guided Question and Answer

Another lower-order task in this type of writing, which has the pedagogical benefit of guiding a learner without dictating the form of the output, is a guided question and-answer format in which the test administrator poses a series of questions that essentially serve as an outline of the emergent written text. In the writing of a narrative that the teacher has already covered in a class discussion

A variation on using guided questions is to prompt the test-taker to write from an outline. The outline may be self-created from earlier reading and/or discussion, or, which is less desirable, be provided by the teacher or test administrator.

Paragraph Construction Tasks

The participation of reading performance is inevitable in writing effective paragraphs. To a great extent, writing is the art of emulating what one reads.You read an effective paragraph; you analyze the ingredients of its success; you emulate it. Assessment of paragraph development takes on a number of different forms:

1. Topic sentence writing.

2. Topic development within a paragraph.

3. Development of main and supporting ideas across paragraphs.

Strategic Options

Developing main and supporting ideas is the goal for the writer attempting to create an effective text, whether a short one- to two-paragraph one or an extensive one of several pages. A number .of strategies are commonly taught to second language writers to accomplish their purposes. Aside from strategies of free writing, outlining, drafting, and revising.

1. Attending to task.

2. Attending to genre.

TEST OF WRITTEN ENGLISH (TWE^®)

One of a number of internationally available standardized tests of writing ability is the Test o/ Written English (TWE). Established in 1986, the ~ has gained a reputation as a well-respected measure of written English, and a number of research articles support its validity (Frase et al., 1999; Hale et al., 1996; Longford, 1996; Myford et al., 1996).

The TWE is in the category of a timed impromptu test in that test..takers are under a 30-minute time limit and are not able to prepare ahead of time for the topic that will appear.

Sample TWE^® topics

1. Sonle people say that the best preparation for life is learning to work with others and be cooperative. Others take the opposite view and say that learning to be competitive is the best preparation. Discuss these positions, using concrete examples of both. Tell which one you agree with and explain why.

It is important to put tests like the TWE in perspective. Timed impromptu tests have obvious limitations if you are looking for an authentic sample of performance in a real-world context.

While timed impromptu tests suffer from a lack of authenticity and put test takers into an artificially time-constrained context, they nevertheless offer interesting, relevant information for an important but narrow range of administrative purposes. The classroom offers a much wider set of options for creating real-world writing purposes and contexts.

SCORING METHODS FOR RESPONSIVE AND EXTENSIVE WRITING

At responsive and extensive levels of writing, three major approaches to scoring writing performance are commonly used by test designers: holistic, primary trait, and analytical. In the first method, a single score is assigned to an essay, which represents a reader's general overall assessment. Primary trait scoring is a variation of the holistic method in that the achievement of the primary purpose, or trait, of an essay is the only factor rated.

Holistic Scoring

The TWE scoring scale above is a prime example of holistic scoring. In Chapter 7, a rubric for scoring oral production holistically was presented. Each point on a holistic scale is given a, systematic set of descriptors, and the reader-evaluator matches an overall impression with the descriptors to arrive at a score. Descriptors usually (but not always) follow a prescribed pattern. For example, the first descriptor across all score categories may address the quality of task achievement, the second may deal with organization, the third with grammatical or rhetorical considerations, and' so on.

Primary Trait Scoring

A second method of scoring, prilnary trait, focuses on "how well students can write within a narrowly defmed range of discourse" (Weigle, 2002, p. 110).This type of scoring emphasizes the task at hand and assigns a score based on the effectiveness of the text's achieving that one goal. For example, 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 on the accomplishment of that function.

Analytic Scoring

For classroom instruction, holistic scoring provides little washback into the writer's further stages of learning. Primary trait scoring focuses on the principal function of the text and therefore offers some feedback potential, but no washback for any of the aspects of the written production that enhance the ultimate accomplishment of the purpose. Classroom evaluation of learning is best served through analytic scoring, in which as many as six major elements of writing are scored, thus enabling learners to home in on weaknesses and to capitalize on strengths.

Analytic scoring of compositions offers writers a little more washback than a single holistic or primary trait score. Scores in five or six major elements will help to call the writers' attention to areas of needed improvement. Practicality is lowered in that more time is required for teachers to attend to details within each of the categories in order to render a final score or grade, but ultimately students receive more information about their writing

BEYOND SCORING: RESPONDING TO EXTENSIVE WRITING

Formal testing carries with it the burden of designing a practical and reliable instrument that assesses its intended criterion accurately. To accomplish that mission, designers of writing tests are charged with the task of providing as "objective" a scoring procedure as possible, and one that in many cases can be easily interpreted by agents beyond the learner. Holistic, primary trait, and analytic scoring all satisfy those ends.Yet beyond mathematically calculated scores lies a rich domain of assessment in which a developing writer is coached from stage to stage in a process of building a storehouse of writing skills.

Most writing specialists agree that the best way to teach writing is a hands-on approach that stimulates student output and then generates a series of self-assessments, peer editing and revision, and teacher response and conferencing (Raimes, 1991, 1998; Reid, 1993; Seow, 2002).

Assessing Initial Stages of the Process of Composing

Following are some guidelines for assessing the initial stages (the first draft or two) of a written composition. These guidelines are generic for self, peer,. and teacher , responding. Each assessor will need to modify the list according to the level of the learner, the context, and the purpose in responding.

The teacher-assessor's role is; as a guide, a facilitator, and an ally; therefore, assessment at this stage of writing heeds to be as positive as possible to encourage the writer.

Assessing Later Stages of the Process of Composing

Once the writer has determined and clarified his or her purpose and plan, and has completed at least one or perhaps two drafts, the focus shifts toward "fine tuning" the expression with a view toward a final revision.

Through all these stages it is assumed that peers and teacher are both responding to the writer through conferencing in person, electronic communication, or, at the very least, an exchange of papers.

This chapter completes the cycle of considering the assessment of all of the four skills of listening, speaking, reading, and writing. As you contemplate using some of the assessment techniques that have been suggested, I think you can now fully appreciate two significant overarching guidelines for designing an effective assessment procedure:

1. It is virtually impossible to isolate anyone of the four skills without the involvement of at least one other mode of performance. Don't underestimate the power of the integration of skills in assessments designed to target a single skill area.

2. The variety of assessment techniques and item types and tasks is virtually infinite in that there is always some possibility for creating a unique variation.

References 

Brown, H. Douglas. 2004. Language Assessment: Principle and Classroom Practices. New York: Pearson Education