1. July 28, 2010

2. In the next 90 minutes... Writing assessment background Writing assessment rubric Scoring process Instruction 30

3. Development of the Writing Assessment

4. Development of the Writing Assessment: Prompt Research-based Development of the prompt –Pilot Prompt Advisory Committee Bias Content –Field tested

5. Development of the Writing Assessment: Prompt Prompt design –Specific format –Three parts Let’s use an example to illustrate

6. Narrative prompt example Writing Situation: Pretend you woke up one day as a wild animal. You spend the day living as that animal really lives in the wild. Directions for Writing: Before you begin to write, think about the details of the animal’s real life, including its habitat, its enemies, and what it eats. Now write a story about your day as a wild animal.

7. Part One: Activates schema Writing Situation: Pretend you woke up one day as a wild animal. You spend the day living as that animal really lives in the wild. Directions for Writing: Before you begin to write, think about the details of the animal’s real life, including its habitat, its enemies, and what it eats. Now write a story about your day as a wild animal.

8. Part Two: Brainstorm (Scaffold) Writing Situation: Pretend you woke up one day as a wild animal. You spend the day living as that animal really lives in the wild. Directions for Writing: Before you begin to write, think about the details of the animal’s real life, including its habitat, its enemies, and what it eats. Now write a story about your day as a wild animal.

9. Part Three: Actual assignment Writing Situation: Pretend you woke up one day as a wild animal. You spend the day living as that animal really lives in the wild. Directions for Writing: Before you begin to write, think about the details of the animal’s real life, including its habitat, its enemies, and what it eats. Now write a story about your day as a wild animal.

10. Development of the Writing Assessment 35 minutes –More time does not necessarily reflect better scores Rough draft

11. Development of the Writing Assessment Snapshot of child’s writing ability on any given day –How well they write Prompt is a springboard for creativity Lined paper –29 lines long –Maximum lines on assessment = 58 lines

12. Writing Assessment Rubric

13. Holistic Connection to Traits Score range: 0 - 6 Proficient: 4 - 6 –4 = Competent –5 = Strong –6 = Outstanding

14. Scoring Process

15. Writing Scoring Committee –75 state educators (25 per grade level) –Geographical representation Goal of committee –Select anchor papers Stratified random sampling Total representation –Each scoring level range (low, mid, high)

16. Scoring Process 654321 Sample 1 Sample 2 Sample 3 Etc...

17. Scoring Process While reading the sample packs we.. - Have to read it exactly as it is written - Cannot guess at an illegible word - Phonetic spelling works, but.... Ex. Beautiful OK: bewtifull Not OK: ghdifntful - Look for Off Topic papers

18. Scoring Process 654321 Sample 1 2203 Sample 2 988 Sample 3 Etc... 1213 Sample Paper 1 results in score of 4 Sample Paper 2 results in score of 5 (with group discussion) Sample Paper 3 results in score of 2/3 line paper

19. Scoring Process What they’re looking for: –Identify line papers: potential inaccurate scoring of papers at Measurement Inc. –What the student’s strengths are –Won’t punish for boring papers –Finishing the story is not as important as the quality of writing throughout the paper

20. Instruction

21. What makes a good piece of writing? Makes sense and Stays on topic

22. What makes a good piece of writing? Beginning Middle End

23. What makes a good piece of writing? Content is interesting and Develops the idea

24. What makes a good piece of writing? Word Choice and Sentence Variety

25. What makes a good piece of writing? Organization - Story level - Paragraph level - Sentence level

26. Instruction To earn a 5 or 6: - demonstrate a command of the language - emphasis on sentence variety - Compound vs. Complex sentences - practice taking a “4” paper and enhancing it to a 5 or 6

27. Wrapping it up... Questions? email: sdallmann@hcboe.net