This document discusses various methods for assessing writing performance, from imitative to extensive writing. It outlines genres of writing, types of writing performance, and examples of tasks used to assess skills at different levels. These include spelling tasks, picture-cued tasks, grammatical transformation tasks, paragraph construction, and holistic, primary trait, and analytical scoring methods. Scoring writing requires evaluating content, organization, vocabulary, syntax and mechanics.

1. Build Bright UniversityBuild Bright University
Language Testing & AssessmentLanguage Testing & Assessment
Chapter- 9Chapter- 9
Assessing WritingAssessing Writing
Prepared by Kheang Sokheng,Prepared by Kheang Sokheng,
Ph.D Candidate and MEd in TESOLPh.D Candidate and MEd in TESOL

2. Genres of Writing
• 1. Academic writing
• Papers and general reports/essays,
compositions/academically focused
journals/theses/dissertations
• 2. Job-related writing
• Messages/letters,
emails/memos/reports/labels/signs/advertisements/ann
ouncements
• 3. Personal writing
• Greeting cards/invitations/notes/tax
forms/diaries/fiction/personal journals

3. Types of Writing Performance
• 1. Imitative It is a level at which learners are
trying to master the mechanics of writing.
Form (letters, words, punctuation, and brief
sentences) is the primary while context and
meaning are of secondary concern.
• 2. Intensive It includes skills in producing
appropriate vocabulary, collocations, idioms,
and correct grammatical features. Most
assessment tasks are concerned with a focus
on form.

4. Types of Writing Performance
• 3. Responsive At this level, form-focused
attention is mostly at the discourse level, with
a strong emphasis on context and meaning.
Assessment tasks require learners to connect
sentences into a paragraph and create a
sequence of two or three paragraphs.
• 4. Extensive Extensive writing requires using
all the processes and strategies of writing to
write an essay, a term paper, a project report,
or even a thesis.

5. Imitative Writing
• 1. copying There is nothing innovative or modern
about directing a test-taker to copy letters or words.
• Example: (Copy the words)
• bit bet but gin din pin
• ___ ___ ___ ___ ___ ___
• Listening cloze selection tasks Test takers listen a
passage and then write the missing words (p. 222)

6. • 3. Picture-cued tasks Familiar pictures are
displayed, and test-takers are told to write the
word that the picture presents.
• 4. Form completion tasks The use of a simple
form (registration, application, etc.) that asks
for name, address, phone number, and other
data.
• 5. Converting numbers and abbreviations to
words
• 9:00 _______ 5:45 ___________
• Tues. _______ 5/3 ____________
• 726 S. Main St. _________________

7. Spelling Tasks & Detecting Phoneme-Grapheme
Correspondences
• Spelling tests
• Picture-cued tasks
• Multiple-choice techniques
• Example:
• He washed his hands with ______
• A. soap B. sope C. sop D. soup
• Matching phonetic symbols
• d/e/ ____ l /ai/ /k/ ______

8. Intensive Writing
• The same as controlled writing or guided
writing. At this level, students produce
language to display their competence in
grammar, vocabulary or sentence formation,
and not necessarily to convey meaning for an
authentic purpose.
• Dictation and Dicto-Comp
• Dictation is the rendition in writing of what
one hears aurally.

9. Intensive Writing
• Dicto-comp: 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.
• Variation: The teacher, after reading the
passage, distributes a handout with key words
from the paragraph as cues for students.

10. Grammatical Transformation Tasks
• The tasks are:
• Change the tenses in a paragraph.
• Change full forms of verbs to reduced forms.
• Change statements to yes/no or wh-
questions.
• Change questions into statements.
• Combine two sentences into one using a
relative pronoun.
• Change from active to passive voice.

11. Picture-Cued Tasks
• Short sentences. A drawing of some simple action is
shown; the test-taker writes a brief sentence. (p.
227)
• Picture description. Using the prepositions: on , over,
under, next to, around to describe as in a picture on
p. 192.
• Picture sequence description. A sequence of three to
six pictures depicting a story line can provide a
suitable stimulus for written task. (p.228)
•

12. Picture-Cued Tasks
• Vocabulary Assessment Tasks
• The major techniques used to assess
vocabulary are (a) defining and (b) using a
word in a sentence.
• Ordering Tasks
• Reordering words in a sentence
• 1. cold/winter/is/weather/the/in/the
• 2. Studying/what/you/are
• 3. next/clock/the/the/is/picture/to

13. Short-Answer & Sentence Completion
Tasks
• Example:
• 1. A: Who’s that ? B: ___________ Gina.
• A: Where’s she from? B: ____________ Italy.
• 2. Write three sentences describing your
preferences: #6a: a big, expensive car or a
small, cheap car; #6b: a house in the country
or an apartment in the city; #6c: money or
good health.
• 6a.________ 6b.______ 6c.__________

14. Issues in Assessing Responsive and Extensive
Writing
• The genres of text here are:
• Short reports/responses to the reading of an
article or story/summaries of articles or
stories/brief narratives or descriptions/
interpretations of graphs, tables, and charts.
• Writers become involved in composing, real
writing, as opposed to display writing.

15. Continue
• 1. Authenticity. Assessment is typically formative,
not summative, and positive washback is more
important than practicality and reliability.
• 2. Scoring. Not only the form but also the
function of the text are important in evaluation.
• 3. Time. Responsive writing, along with extensive
writing, relies on the essential drafting process
for its ultimate success.

16. Designing: responsive & Extensive
Writing
• Paraphrasing. It is to say something in one’s
own words. It can avoid plagiarizing and offer
some variety in expression. Scoring is judged
by how the test-taker conveys the same or
similar message, with discourse, grammar,
and vocabulary as secondary evaluations.
• Guided Question and Answer
• The test administrator poses a series of
questions which serve as an outline of the
emergent written text.

17. Guided Written Stimuli
• 1. Where did this story take place? (setting)
• 2. Who were the people in the story?
• 3. What happened first? And then? And then?
• 4. Why did _________ do _______ (reasons)?
• 5. What did ____ think about ____? (opinion)
• 6. What happened at the end? (climax)
• 7. What is the moral of the story? (evaluation)

18. Paragraph Construction Tasks
• Assessment of paragraph development takes on the
following forms.
• 1. Topic sentence writing. The writing of a topic sentence
(its presence/absence, its effectiveness in stating the
topic).
• 2. Topic development within a paragraph. Four criteria to
assess the quality:
• The clarity of expression of ideas/ the logic of the
sequence and connections/the cohesiveness or unity/the
overall effectiveness or impact

19. Continue
• 3. Development of main and supporting ideas across
paragraphs. The elements in evaluating a multi-
paragraph essay:
• Addressing the topic, main idea, or principal purpose.
• Organizing and developing supporting ideas
• Using appropriate details to undergird supporting
ideas.
• Showing facility and fluency in the use of language.
• Demonstrating syntactic variety.

20. Strategic Options
• 1. Attending to task. A set of directives is stated or
implied by the teacher or the conventions of the
genre. Four types: compare/contrast,
problem/solution, pros/cons, and cause/effect.
• 2. Attending to genre. Reports, Summaries of
readings/lectures/videos, Responses to
readings/lectures/videos, Narration, description,
persuasion/argument, and exposition, Interpreting
statistical, graphic data, Library research paper.

21. Test of Written English (TWE)
• TWE is a standardized test of writing ability
and has gained a reputation as a well-
respected measure of written English.
• The TWE is a timed impromptu test in which
test-takers are under a 30-minute time limit
and are not able to prepare ahead of time.

22. Sample TWE Topic
• Some 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.

23. Six Steps to Maximize success on the
TWE
• 1. Carefully identify the topic.
• 2. Plan your supporting ideas.
• 3. In the introductory paragraph, restate the
• topic and state the organizational plan.
• 4. Write effective supporting paragraphs.
• 5. Restate your position and summarize in
• the concluding paragraph.
• 6. Edit sentence structure & rhetorical
• expression. (Scoring Guide p. 239)

24. Scoring Methods for Responsive and Extensive
Writing
• Three major approaches to scoring writing
performance: holistic, primary trait, and analytical.
• Holistic: A single score is assigned to an essay.
• Primary trait: The achievement of the primary
purpose, or trait, of an essay is the only factor rated.
• Analytical: the written text is broken down into a
number of subcategories (organization, grammar)
and each subcategory gets a separate rating.

25. Holistic Scoring
• Advantages:
• Fast evaluation/high inter-rater reliability/
• easily interpreted by lay persons/emphasize
the writer’s strengths/applicability to writing
across many different disciplines
• Disadvantages:
• No diagnostic information/not equally well
apply to all genres/training in raters/one score
only

26. Primary trait Scoring
• 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.
• Organization, supporting details, fluency,
syntactic variety, and other features will also
be evaluated.
• Advantage: focus on function.

27. Analytic Scoring
• Classroom evaluation of learning is best served
through analytic scoring.
• Brown and Bailey (1984) designed an analytic scoring
scale that specified five major categories and five
different levels in each category, ranging from
“unacceptable” to “excellent”.
• Five categories: organization, logical development of
ideas, grammar, punctuation/spelling/mechanics,
and style and quality of expression. (pp.244-245)

28. Continue
• Content 30
• Organization 20
• Vocabulary 20
• Syntax 25
• Mechanics 5
• Total 100
• Analytic scoring offers more washback and helps to
call the writer’s attention to problem areas, but it
requires more time for teachers to attend to details
within each of the categories.

29. Thanks for your attention!!!
Any Questions?