Delivering Solid Writing Instruction in a Time of Tests

(The Council Chronicle, July 8, 2005)

We want students to develop a broad repertoire as writers, and we know that a good measure of that repertoire will help them in test situations. —Anne Ruggles Gere, “What to Expect When Expected to Write” speaker

Heather McDermid wants to give her students the best. This includes providing good writing instruction even as she negotiates “the rigid structure imposed by standardized tests.”

McDermid is a graduate student in English at Texas A&M University, Corpus Christi, pursuing an 8–12 teaching certificate. Before entering the profession, she wants to learn “how to apply modern composition pedagogies in a Texas classroom submersed in high-stakes testing.” To gain some insight, she will be attending a “What to Expect When Expected to Write: Best Practices and Strategies for Success” Writing Workshop offered by NCTE. 

Although McDermid is current on the theories that underlie good writing instruction, she’s looking for ways they can be put to use in the classroom, even while she finds that the prevailing focus is on grammar drills and superficial errors. 

Attendees Have Varied Backgrounds

Others attending the workshops that will be offered in Ann Arbor, New York, and Houston include Toni Butz, a new literacy coach developing workshops on writing instruction for her colleagues; Daryl Corcoran, who is in “career transition” and will be student teaching ninth grade this fall at Ridge High School in Basking Ridge, New Jersey; and Renate Pennington, an English and German teacher at Lakeshore High School in Stevensville, Michigan, who seeks strategies to energize the writing of her freshman, sophomore, and English as a Second Language students.

Butz explains, “The No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) and the Pennsylvania State Standards Assessment have really influenced our writing instruction and expectations in my school district.” The good news, she says, is that from elementary through high school, English teachers speak about writing in similar ways, stressing focus, content, organization, style, and conventions—elements assessed on the state test. On the other hand, she says, students and teachers are bristling about an overemphasis on “writing on demand prompts,” with students required to complete four such assignments in English class each year and similar exercises in other classes.  

“Students are becoming resistant to writing instruction because they are doing too much of one kind of writing purpose and style,” Butz reports. “I believe that this has negatively impacted other kinds of writing purposes and styles.”

States Look at Testing

Although NCLB only requires annual tests in reading and math, states are looking closely at their writing assessments as well. Vermont is tweaking its writing test, that starting next fall, will assess students in grades 5, 8, and one grade in high school. Karen Kurzman, a private consultant on writing, believes “it was always a pretty good test,” and says the changes include requiring a variety of writing and shorter pieces of writing. She says the revamped version calls for three short and one long piece of writing rather than “two large pieces of writing.” 

Kurzman explains that six types of expository and expressive writing are assessed—report, text analysis, persuasive, narrative, personal essay, and procedure. Kurzman says the variety is meant to encourage teachers to cover a variety of writing styles and approaches. 

“We found on the first assessment [where] we kept using the same types of writing—reports and persuasive—that teachers were only teaching these two genres. We wanted teachers to vary types of writing, so we included the other genres in the assessment.”

Vermont also uses a portfolio system, and Kurzman says the test “assesses the exact same way and the same standards that we expect in the portfolio. So it’s an authentic assessment of our standards.” The message to teachers, she says, is not to teach to the test, but to teach the standards. “If you teach [the standards], students will automatically do well on the tests.”

Kentucky also has two measures of writing performance in their state assessment program: writing portfolios and on-demand writing prompts. Cherry Boyles, a writing consultant for the Kentucky Department of Education, says that in 2007, they will include multiple-choice editing and revision questions.

Portfolios are assessed in grades 4, 7, and 12, says Boyles. Elementary students include reflective, personal expressive, literary, and transactive entries, with one writing sample coming from outside language arts. Middle school students include the same array with one additional personal, literary, or transactive entry. High school students fulfill the same requirements as middle schoolers, with at least two samples coming from classes other than English.

“Because Kentucky encourages authentic writing and the use of the writing process,” Boyles says, “the writing portfolio is a natural assessment measure. In schools where the process works well, students simply review their working folders, identify and possibly revise the selected pieces, and then compile the assessment portfolio.”

But, in some cases, she says the process can go awry, especially when teachers force stages of the writing process on students rather than helping them to learn and apply the stages themselves. “We encourage educators to teach writers rather than teach writing samples, but that concept is sometimes lost when accountability scores outweigh student learning.”

Boyles explains that Kentucky’s on-demand writing assessment was added to provide another look at student writing and to guard against “over-conferencing the writing portfolio.” While schools posting a significant performance difference between the two measures are encouraged to review their practices, Boyles says many students receive comparable scores on the two instruments.

Boyles says the state “is planning to make some changes to its writing assessment program for 2007, but the Kentucky Board of Education continues to be committed to the writing portfolio.”

Focusing on Good Writing Instruction

Educators across the country are seeking ways to deliver solid writing instruction in the midst of testing pressures. What will those who attend NCTE’s Writing Workshops learn? Presenters Leila Christenbury, Anne Ruggles Gere, and Kelly Sassi, who have authored Writing on Demand: Best Practices and Strategies for Success, will keep the focus on good writing instruction.

Leila Christenbury, professor of English education at Virginia Commonwealth University in Richmond, Virginia, and a former NCTE President, explains that good writing assessments offer students room to express themselves. “The best writing tests offer a genuinely open forum which allows students to take informed stands and to offer real opinions. When prompts are so structured that it is clear to the writer that there is no choice in rhetorical stance, we have created an artificial—and ultimately useless—exercise.”

Christenbury makes clear that “using recursive and multi-part, multi-day processes of writing in the classroom is still our goal and ideal.” She explains that within this, teachers can help students prepare for timed writing tests by demonstrating how to use abbreviated aspects of a writing process. She says teachers also can help students learn to rhetorically analyze and address writing prompts.

Anne Ruggles Gere, professor of English and education at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, and a Past President of NCTE, adds, “Good writing instruction is rhetorically based. That is, there is attention to the audience and the purpose, and the same is true for writing in response to test prompts.

“Students need to learn to read prompts, just as they need to learn to read a variety of other texts. [They need] to understand what is being called for and to learn how to respond to the demands of such ‘assignments.’ [They also need] to demonstrate awareness of the explicit or implied audience. I’d even go so far as to say that thinking carefully about test prompts can help teachers improve the assignments they give regularly in classes.”

Kelly Sassi, who taught high school and is now a doctoral student at the University of Michigan, says it’s vital in “the testing-intensive environment” to hold fast to a goal of encouraging students to think critically and independently. She says these skills will help students do well on tests and help them succeed in life’s myriad writing demands. 

Sassi plans to stress this message during the workshops: “Keep doing what you do best—helping students learn how to become well-rounded, thoughtful writers who are confident in their ability to write well for a variety of audiences in a variety of forms. Timed essays are just one of those forms.”

For more information about NCTE’s Writing Workshops, please visit http://www.ncte.org/profdev/conv/workshops/writing.