1. The REEP Pre and Post Writing Assessment (RWA)
Suzanne Grant
Director
Arlington Education and Employment Program (REEP)
Arlington Public Schools,
Arlington, Virginia

2. REEP PRE AND POST WRITING ASSESSMENT
Performance-based writing test
Measure writing gains for adult ESOL learners (SPL 2+/NRS Beginning ESL+)
Consists of:
REEP Writing Rubric (6 levels of performance measured against 5 dimensions: Content & Vocabulary, Development & Organization, Structure, Mechanics, Voice)
Performance Tasks/Prompts, including warm-up activities. Scored using the Rubric.
Two forms of the test.

3. REEP Arlington Education and Employment Program
Adult ESOL Program
Target population: adult immigrants and refugees who live and work in Arlington
Nine levels of instruction
Provide 9,000 class slots per year in:
Intensive ESOL
Non-intensive ESOL
Family English
Workplace Literacy

4. The Journey 1995: Virginia Alternative Assessment Grant:
Need to improve placement of students into 9 levels
Development of REEP Writing Rubric and placement test prompt
: What Works Literacy Partnership
Purpose: to determine the effectiveness of the REEP Writing Rubric to measure writing
Research and Development of:
timed pre and post-test prompts
warm-up activities
standardized test administration procedures and training
standardized scoring procedures and training

5. Research Results
A carefully designed and validated instrument with sufficiently high reliability.
Gains can be effectively and reliably measured within a 12-week period of 100 hours.
Scoring and training procedures lead to high interrater reliability.
Forms A and B are equivalent.

6. Further studies
2002: CASAS Study: Comparing REEP Rubric with CASAS Writing Rubric
Strong evidence for the validity of both instruments and that based on the observed correlations, the two assessments are interchangeable.
2002-present: Commonwealth of Massachusetts, Department of Education: Adoption of RWA for adult ESOL programs
effectiveness of the instrument in a variety of program settings
additional prompt development
July Virginia adopts RWA for adult ESOL programs

7. Lessons Learned AND Home-grown performance-based assessment can:
be an effective instrument for
measuring learner gains
AND
lead to positive changes within
a program
Staff Development
Program Improvement
Students’ Attitude