testing writing and rubrics

TESTING WRITING AND RUBRICSPrepared by:

Sarwar D. Ganjo

What is writing:

The act or art of forming letters and characters on paper, wood, stone, or other material, for the purpose of recording the ideas which characters and words express, or of communicating them to others by visible signs.

“Nobody in this world wants to read your diary except your mother."(Richard Peck, writer of young adult fiction)

A test or examination is an assessment intended to measure a test-taker's knowledge, skill, aptitude, physical fitness, or classification in many other topics.

What is a test

What is the testing writing

A test or an assessment intended to measure writing skill of students.

Writing Skills

1) Grammatical Skills – the ability to write correct sentence

2) Stylistic Skills – the ability to manipulate sentences and use language effectively

3) Mechanical Skills – the ability to use correctly those conventions peculiar to the written language

4) Judgment Skills – the ability to write in an appropriate manner for a particular audience in mind, together with an ability to select, organize and order relevant information

The components of testing writingOr What to test

• Grammar• Organization• Content/Substance• Fulfillment of purpose• Vocabulary/word choice

The ways to test writing

• Essay• Letter• Paragraph• Short story• Matching Items• Make a synopsis• Rearrange sentence into paragraph

How a writing test should be

• Clearly defined purpose and audience for writing

• Restrict students’ answers

• Test only writing ability, nothing else

• Well-defined and authentic task

• Ensure long enough sample

• Appropriate scales for scoring

Factors to consider in Developing Writing Tasks

• The type of writing• The function• The addressee• Process• Product

Characteristics of writing tests

• Authentic and communicative writing tasks place emphasis on transmitting authentic/integrative information in writing.

• Current writing tasks reflect the kind of writing tasks that the students are required to do in the L2 oral communicative situations. Thus, there is emphasis on the type, and function of writing as well as the addressee.

• Since current teaching of writing emphasizes also strategies of writing, the process should get attention in testing writing as well as the final product of writing.

Characteristics of writing tests

The way to score

No Criteria score

1 Grammar 20%

2 Organization 20%

3 Content/Substance 20%

4 Fulfillment of purpose 20%

5 Vocabulary/word choice 20%

Conclusion:

Always bear in mind though that the difficulty of an item may relate to whether it has been covered in class or it may give an indication of how well it was understood. Such test analysis can give us information about how effective our teaching has been as well as actually evaluating the test. Evaluating tests carefully can ensure that the test improves after it is taken and can give us feedback on improving our test writing…...

Thank you