Early Holistic Scoring of Writing

Early Holistic Scoring of Writing PDF

Author: Richard Haswell

Publisher: University Press of Colorado

Published: 2019-11-01

Total Pages: 351

ISBN-13: 1607329123

DOWNLOAD EBOOK →

What is the most fair and efficient way to assess the writing performance of students? Although the question gained importance during the US educational accountability movement of the 1980s and 1990s, the issue had preoccupied international language experts and evaluators long before. One answer to the question, the assessment method known as holistic scoring, is central to understanding writing in academic settings. Early Holistic Scoring of Writing addresses the history of holistic essay assessment in the United Kingdom and the United States from the mid-1930s to the mid-1980s—and newly conceptualizes holistic scoring by philosophically and reflectively reinterpreting the genre’s origin, development, and significance. The book chronicles holistic scoring from its initial origin in the United Kingdom to the beginning of its heyday in the United States. Chapters cover little-known history, from the holistic scoring of school certificate examination essays written by Blitz evacuee children in Devon during WWII to teacher adaptations of holistic scoring in California schools during the 1970s. Chapters detail the complications, challenges, and successes of holistic scoring from British high-stakes admissions examinations to foundational pedagogical research by Bay Area Writing Project scholars. The book concludes with lessons learned, providing a guide for continued efforts to assess student writing through evidence models. Exploring the possibility of actionable history, Early Holistic Scoring of Writing reconceptualizes writing assessment. Here is a new history that retells the origins of our present body of knowledge in writing studies.

Very Like a Whale

Very Like a Whale PDF

Author: Edward M. White

Publisher: University Press of Colorado

Published: 2015-03-04

Total Pages: 211

ISBN-13: 1457193515

DOWNLOAD EBOOK →

Written for those who design, redesign, and assess writing programs, Very Like a Whale is an intensive discussion of writing program assessment issues. Taking its title from Hamlet, the book explores the multifaceted forces that shape writing programs and the central role these programs can and should play in defining college education. Given the new era of assessment in higher education, writing programs must provide valid evidence that they are serving students, instructors, administrators, alumni, accreditors, and policymakers. This book introduces new conceptualizations associated with assessment, making them clear and available to those in the profession of rhetoric and composition/writing studies. It also offers strategies that aid in gathering information about the relative success of a writing program in achieving its identified goals. Philosophically and historically aligned with quantitative approaches, White, Elliot, and Peckham use case study and best-practice scholarship to demonstrate the applicability of their innovative approach, termed Design for Assessment (DFA). Well grounded in assessment theory, Very Like a Whale will be of practical use to new and seasoned writing program administrators alike, as well as to any educator involved with the accreditation process.

Evaluating Children's Writing

Evaluating Children's Writing PDF

Author: Suzanne Bratcher

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2003-09-12

Total Pages: 233

ISBN-13: 1135627363

DOWNLOAD EBOOK →

Introduces statement from preface about application activities for a wide range of writing evaluation strategies elementary classroom teachers can use to determine a grade. Txtbk for undergrad. & graduate elementary language arts&writing methods courses

Guide to College Writing Assessment

Guide to College Writing Assessment PDF

Author: Peggy O'Neill

Publisher: University Press of Colorado

Published: 2009-04-15

Total Pages: 231

ISBN-13: 0874217334

DOWNLOAD EBOOK →

While most English professionals feel comfortable with language and literacy theories, assessment theories seem more alien. English professionals often don’t have a clear understanding of the key concepts in educational measurement, such as validity and reliability, nor do they understand the statistical formulas associated with psychometrics. But understanding assessment theory—and applying it—by those who are not psychometricians is critical in developing useful, ethical assessments in college writing programs, and in interpreting and using assessment results. A Guide to College Writing Assessment is designed as an introduction and source book for WPAs, department chairs, teachers, and administrators. Always cognizant of the critical components of particular teaching contexts, O’Neill, Moore, and Huot have written sophisticated but accessible chapters on the history, theory, application and background of writing assessment, and they offer a dozen appendices of practical samples and models for a range of common assessment needs. Because there are numerous resources available to assist faculty in assessing the writing of individual students in particular classrooms, A Guide to College Writing Assessment focuses on approaches to the kinds of assessment that typically happen outside of individual classrooms: placement evaluation, exit examination, programmatic assessment, and faculty evaluation. Most of all, the argument of this book is that creating the conditions for meaningful college writing assessment hinges not only on understanding the history and theories informing assessment practice, but also on composition programs availing themselves of the full range of available assessment practices.

Measuring Writing: Recent Insights into Theory, Methodology and Practice

Measuring Writing: Recent Insights into Theory, Methodology and Practice PDF

Author: Elke van Steendam

Publisher: BRILL

Published: 2012-11-20

Total Pages: 257

ISBN-13: 900424848X

DOWNLOAD EBOOK →

This volume provides a state-of-the-art overview of theory, methodology and practices in the assessment of writing. The focus throughout the book is on the construct of writing and its assessment: what constitutes writing ability and how can it be defined (in various contexts)? This question cannot be answered without looking into the methodological question of how to validate and measure the construct of writing ability. Throughout the book, therefore, discussions integrate theoretical and methodological issues. A number of chapters discusses whether varying definitions and varying operationalizations of writing ability are needed in various contexts, such as formative assessments versus summative assessments, large scale assessments versus individual assessments, different tasks, different genres, and different languages, but also different age groups. A range of rating methods is investigated and discussed in this book. The ongoing debate on holistic versus analytic ratings, and the different underlying conceptions of writing proficiency, is a pertinent matter, on which a number of chapters in this volume shed new light. The matter is discussed and analyzed from various angles, such as generalizability of judgements and usability in formative contexts. Another fundamental debate concerns computer scoring of written products. A nuanced discussion of its validity is presented in this volume.

Machine Scoring of Student Essays

Machine Scoring of Student Essays PDF

Author: Patricia Freitag Ericsson

Publisher:

Published: 2006-03-15

Total Pages: 284

ISBN-13:

DOWNLOAD EBOOK →

The current trend toward machine-scoring of student work, Ericsson and Haswell argue, has created an emerging issue with implications for higher education across the disciplines, but with particular importance for those in English departments and in administration. The academic community has been silent on the issue—some would say excluded from it—while the commercial entities who develop essay-scoring software have been very active. Machine Scoring of Student Essays is the first volume to seriously consider the educational mechanisms and consequences of this trend, and it offers important discussions from some of the leading scholars in writing assessment. Reading and evaluating student writing is a time-consuming process, yet it is a vital part of both student placement and coursework at post-secondary institutions. In recent years, commercial computer-evaluation programs have been developed to score student essays in both of these contexts. Two-year colleges have been especially drawn to these programs, but four-year institutions are moving to them as well, because of the cost-savings they promise. Unfortunately, to a large extent, the programs have been written, and institutions are installing them, without attention to their instructional validity or adequacy. Since the education software companies are moving so rapidly into what they perceive as a promising new market, a wider discussion of machine-scoring is vital if scholars hope to influence development and/or implementation of the programs being created. What is needed, then, is a critical resource to help teachers and administrators evaluate programs they might be considering, and to more fully envision the instructional consequences of adopting them. And this is the resource that Ericsson and Haswell are providing here.

Rearticulating Writing Assessment for Teaching and Learning

Rearticulating Writing Assessment for Teaching and Learning PDF

Author: Brian Huot

Publisher: University Press of Colorado

Published: 2003-04-01

Total Pages: 226

ISBN-13: 087421470X

DOWNLOAD EBOOK →

Brian Huot's aim for this book is both ambitious and provocative. He wants to reorient composition studies' view of writing assessment. To accomplish this, he not only has to inspire the field to perceive assessment--generally not the most appreciated area of study--as deeply significant to theory and pedagogy, he also has to counter some common misconceptions about the history of assessment in writing. In (Re)Articulating Writing Assessment, Huot advocates a new understanding, a more optimistic and productive one than we have seen in composition for a very long time. Assessment, as Huot points out, defines what is valued by a teacher or a society. What isn't valued isn't assessed; it tends to disappear from the curriculum. The dark side of this truth is what many teachers find troubling about large scale assessments, as standardized tests don't grant attention or merit to all they should. Instead, assessment has been used as an interested social mechanism for reinscribing current power relations and class systems.

Lanterna Rally - Theme by Grace Themes