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The document discusses different approaches to assessing student writing. It describes a holistic assessment approach where raters assign an overall single score based on their general impression of the writing. It also describes an analytic assessment approach where raters evaluate and score different writing constructs such as content, organization, grammar, and mechanics separately and then combine the scores. The document notes that determining which approach to use depends on factors like the assessment purpose and practical considerations of time and resources. It also discusses issues like separating language ability from writing ability for ESL students.

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51 views

Rubrics

The document discusses different approaches to assessing student writing. It describes a holistic assessment approach where raters assign an overall single score based on their general impression of the writing. It also describes an analytic assessment approach where raters evaluate and score different writing constructs such as content, organization, grammar, and mechanics separately and then combine the scores. The document notes that determining which approach to use depends on factors like the assessment purpose and practical considerations of time and resources. It also discusses issues like separating language ability from writing ability for ESL students.

Uploaded by

Ahmed
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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Rubrics

Writing
In the Arab context, Al-Abed al-Haq and Ahmed (1994) developed a rubric to evaluate argumentative essays composed
by Saudi EFL university-level students It comprises 9 constructs as indispensable components of quality writing including
thesis statement and topic sentence, relevance, cohesion, coherence, argumentativeness, quantity, unity, wording, and
grammaticality. Their rubric also has 24 sub-criteria including clarity of thesis statement, qualification of thesis
statement, indication of further development in the thesis statement, support of thesis statement, clarity of topic
sentences, qualification of topic sentences, indication of further development in the topic sentence, support of topic
sentences, relevance of treatment, coherence, cohesion, development of argument, support of argument, organization
of argument, degree of argumentativeness, logicality of argument, degree of persuasion, completeness of discussion,
balance of discussion, unity, wording, grammaticality, spelling, and punctuation.

Writing Assessment Approaches


Holistic and analytic approaches or a combination of them are the most commonly used to guide evaluate student’s
writing proficiency.

Determining which approach to be used depends on the purpose of assessment, whether for diagnosis, development or
promotion (Bacha, 2001) and on a number of practical considerations including the available time, budget, training the
raters and the number of the scripts that need to be evaluated (Nimehchisalem, 2010).

Holistic Assessment Approach As its name suggests, a holistic assessment approach is a qualitative judgement of
students' writing ability (Wiseman, 2012).It focuses on assigning a written composition a single global score in its
entirety based upon an overall impression it makes on the rater. It does not require raters to consider the characteristics
of quality writing individually when evaluating and scoring a writing sample. They are rather seen as traits that merge
into a single entity working together towards its overall quality. Such method assumes that the final-end product or
performance being assessed is a whole entity that should be judged as such since “the whole is not equal to the sum of
the parts.” Rather, “the whole is equal to the parts and their relationships” (Goulden, 1992, cited in Barkaoui, 2007,
p.87). Another important feature of this approach is that it focuses more on what the writer does well than on
diagnosing the specific areas of his/ her weakness (Charney, 1984; Cohen, 19 4.1.2 Analytic Assessment Approach
Analytic approach is based upon a list of constructs as being the aspects of successful writing, the most common being
content, organization, grammar, mechanics and vocabulary (Jacobs, et al, 1981, p. 30). The exclusion of any of them is
especially problematic for L2 students since different aspects of the writing skill may develop at different rates for
different L2 students. Some of them may have the ability to achieve high level in expressing content and organization
but have limited one in the area of grammatical accuracy, while others may have excellent control at the sentence level
but are unable to organize their writing at the discourse level (Kroll 1990).

Each construct has definable criteria with a gradation of performance levels on which students’ writing abilities are
evaluated and scored (Wiggins, 1998). Analytic scoring requires raters to read and examine the written product several
times. It involves assigning a score at a time to each level and then summing up the multiple sub-scores to arrive at a
single total one that reflects the overall performance (Hamp-Lyons, 1991; Bacha, 2001; Weigle, 2002). Such scoring
scheme assumes that “the sum of the sub-scores for the parts is exactly equal to a valid score for the whole and, by
evaluating the parts, the rater has evaluated the whole” (Goulden, 1992, cited in Barkaoui, 2007, p.87). Analytic scoring
is often used in tests that are formative in nature and it is chosen for placement purposes. It creates a profile on
students' performance in the different characteristics of quality writing. Teachers and curriculum designers use the test
results and writing assignments for diagnosis of gaps between actual and desired levels of students' performance. Such
diagnostic information can be useful for both students and teachers. It gives students feedback to be aware of their
strengths and weaknesses. It also allows teachers to tailor the level and content of writing instruction more closely to
the needs of their students to maximise their future learning and eventually improve the quality of their writing
assignments (Hamp-Lyons & Kroll, 1997; Becker, 2011).

Issues

A third theoretical issue is the difficulty of separating language ability from writing ability in the case of ESL/EFL testees.
Cumming (1989) argued that “writing expertise and second-language proficiency each make quite different
contributions to the processes and products of writing in a second language” (p. 118).

DESIGNING WRITING ASSESSMENT TASKS


It is essential to give proper consideration to reliability, validity, authenticity, interactiveness, impact and practicality in
designing meaningful tests.

In the classroom, giving students opportunities to display what they have mastered and ensuring that writing scoring is
rated appropriately is of significance.

designing writing assessment tasks is supposed to contain three basic elements. Rubric and prompt, and input material
is crucial to successful writing assessment tasks.

Speaking
https://www.hindawi.com/journals/edri/2022/8984330/

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