Assessing writing

Assessing writing

1. It has become an essential skill.

   • To grade it, the purpose must be known.

2. Genres

   • Academic writiings
     • Papers, essays, theses...
   • Job-related writing
     • Messages, memos, schedules.
   • Personal writings
     • Letters, messages, memos...

3. Types of writing

   • Imitative
     • To write correctly and to master the writing skill.
       • To assess it:
         • Writing letters, punctuation
           • Using pictures or cloze excercises.
         • Spelling tasks.
           • Spelling tests.
           • Multiple choice
   • Intensive
     • To produce a text within a context.
       • To assess it:
         • Dictation
           • To assess both listening and writings skills.
         • Grammatical transformation
           • To assess its compence
         • Picture cued tasks
           • To avoid using the reading skill
         • Ordering tasks.
           • Like a puzzle
         • Answer competition tasks.
   • Responsive
     • To connect ideas
       • To assess both of them
         • Paraphrasing
           • Learners must know its importance
         • Guided questions and answers
           • There are cues in the answers.
         • Paragraph construction
           • To write with harmony
         • TWE
           • Timed improntu test.
   • Extensive
     • To master all the skills.
   • To assess both responsive and extensive writings
     • Holistic scoring
       • There is no wahsback
       • It has high reliability
     • Analistic scoring
       • It provides washback.
     • Primary trait scoring
       • To grade a goal

4. Skills

   • Micro
     • Produce graphemes
     • Produce writing at an efficient rate
     • Express particular meaning in different gramatical forms.
   • Macro
     • Use a battery of writing strategies
     • Correctly convey culturally specific references.
     • Distinguish between literal and implied meaning
     • Use communicative functions