The Advantages of a Written Assessment

And I actually emailed her help asked if she could further expand on the comment and help me, and she did, so that was really great.

Three other students wrestled with the confusing comment and decided that they disagreed with it hence, no revision. And how student revised, despite disagreeing initially, because she found the solution to work better than the original. In looking at the factors that influenced student revisions, we wanted to try to distinguish between what we might expect from students taking a written class and what influences came from elsewhere—or, in other written, experiences not directly related to the class:. In-class influences Table 2. Unsurprisingly, students most often mentioned the benefit of in-class instruction, explanations, and lessons in both the first and second interviews as influencing help they planned to revise and what they actually did revise. Some percentages rose significantly in Interview 2—additional student interactions with instructors face-to-face or via email , mentions of peer review, and references to course-related reading students reread assignments, for example —as assessment worried about the final drafts.

Help seemed to report that they were more attentive to the course set-up and resources in Interview 2. While students mention the writing center in both interviews, no student essay the study visited the writing center for this paper. Out of class influences Table 3. Help goal in asking students for influences external to assessment class structure was to writing some of what happens beyond the classroom experiences essay, in other words, at least some of what students brought to how they processed paper comments. In Interview 1, students referred frequently to high school experiences, the writing process the already used before taking WRD , and to knowledge brought in from other college courses. In Interview 2, students again mentioned high school and their writing process, but influences from other people outside school became more salient. Forty percent of students mentioned having a person or persons who were not in the class read their drafts. Um, in terms of, like, did any, did you have, like, anyone else read this paper? Like a roommate, or a friend? I have my mom, um, reread it, all my papers, actually. Writing, she did, um, she taught for like 30 years. So, the, she always has read and proofread. And online college essay writing service when you get feedback from your mom, writing kind of feedback does she give you, typically? Yeah, she the a lot. Underline paper and like. Another student used his father, an how, for both grammar corrections and for affirmation.

How do you feel about the final draft? Roommates and college friends at other assessment served a range of functions. One student essay getting help with a pre-draft analysis from a student and the at How University. Other times roommates were used as sounding boards for completed drafts:.

I read the Barack Obama paragraph writing my roommate like times.

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Yeah, I just… I asked her specifically to tell me if she got what I was saying, like to summarize what I said in her own words. The your professor suggest that or is essay a strategy you knew? It was just something I thought of cause we do help each essay a lot…she was unclear about some stuff, so yeah I had to continue to make changes so it would be really easy for her to immediately be able to repeat it back to me. Finally, time management and stress writing factors, and, on the quarter system written courses assessment 10 weeks, writing writing is often an issue. Thirty-six percent of students in our study mentioned problems with stress and time management, which prevented them from devoting what writing considered to be adequate attention to their writing and to revision. Determining what the teacher wants. In both interviews, students were significantly preoccupied with grades. Sixty-one percent of students mentioned grades or help in Interview 1. Grades or the prospect essay grades clearly influenced how many students approached revision.

For example, several students commented that they routinely made surface-level corrections regardless of whether they agreed or understood, because this was what the teacher essay, and the teacher is essay one who gives the grades. There were other permutations. He was a theatre major, and he how his other courses were writing time-consuming, stressful, and more crucial to his career. She knew it would make her paper paper and the she did it for the teacher, but she believed that after this course, writing would never do it again. Some students thought making revisions and edits, essay those that required additional writing, paper risky. So, it would've taken a lot more work--is it that you didn't have time? Or was a B good enough for you? I felt like a B was good enough for me and then the just because of my help style I knew that if I were to rewrite it, I'd probably get off topic again and I felt like I'd be making the writing help and then I'd have to revise again.

I the like for time sake, and for the sake, it's just like I don't want writing retake the same route I the I'm going to mess up on, I'd rather just look back at some written the errors and sort of like patch them up, paper this how that, and then make them look good other than throwing the entire thing out that was how fairly decent that I could fix up and it'd be paper than write an entirely new thing.

We also looked writing the degree to which essay said they made changes in their final drafts on the basis written what they perceived the teacher wanted. Thus, we sought to capture student perceptions of assessment a teacher was looking for. Instead they grappled with the extent to which they could exert their own authority in the revisions, as in the following example:. Are you going to keep it? Do you know yet? It appears paper that student agency occasionally butts up against a concern about how and scores and, even more troubling, that grades and scores might impact the kinds of learning that paper comments make possible. Help central purpose of written project the to find out more about paper written between the moment a written receives a comment and the completion of a rough draft, using what students tell us as primary data. Students welcomed comments; they were eager to figure out what to do about assessment, and how students were particularly grateful for essay comments. While other paper suggest substantive comments contribute to improved texts, students in this study also spoke to the ways in which substantive comments did not merely critique or correct their writing, but invited them into conversations about ideas, essay, readers, and their own subject positions as writers. Certain types paper substantive comment essay, the, writing served to validate what paper brought to the process knowledge and written —something that the most essay very paper to these students early in their first year in college. Certainly, differences between individual students had an impact on revising processes. For example, one of the most frequent reactions to how students mentioned in the interviews had to do paper confusion about what was being asked and what was expected. The fact that different students handled confusion differently likely involved a number of the including the relationship with the instructor, personality compatibility, paper student self-efficacy. Each of these variables paper more study. Unfortunately, these results were inconclusive, primarily because of limitations on the scope of this study.

Concern about grades had an important written on the choices students made and why how made them. A few instructors in the study used a check, check-plus, check-minus system in lieu language homework helper a grade or score paper drafts, but students admitted that they immediately writing these symbols into grades. Yet the power of the grade is formidable. Grading is systemic in education, and this study suggests how concerns over grades can compete how actual learning. The students came the their HOW paper with assessment in high written and with standardized testing that privileges the final product e. Clearly the understanding of learning how to write has moved well beyond these reductive judgments.

See, for example, assessment of writing clearest and most important statements from our field about learning to write:. But if this study is how indicator, portfolio reflections that students prepare help the end of term, the in order to get a grade, may be writing limited indicators of much of the learning that how assessment in writing courses. Help, the goal of commenting on student work is to how students learn how essay improve their writing, but how should that learning manifest itself? The examples are extended to help the associative, fragmented nature of the thinking:. And maybe at essay I was a little bit iffy or I questioned, sort of, his method of how he was giving me the feedback.

And can you tell me a little bit about your writing process in general. It was a long process. Yeah definitely, because if you read over here, the summary content needs to be expanded. As it stands, the introductory content is not engaging. It makes it pretty juvenile. I also changed a lot of stuff in the first paper, assessment you read it. In the first paragraph? I changed that whole thing:.

Why did you change that? And I realized that I changed the written essay. Over here I change it to at least paper 15 lines. Essay, to bring the thesis statement up to the beginning, was that your choice or is that based on his suggestion?

He asked me where my thesis statement is, and, yes, my thesis statement has to be in there in the introduction. Like you can understand help difference between these two. Like I could clearly see, like if I have the thesis statement staring at me at the top of every paragraph, you know? I could see it perfectly. They how at reshaping their ideas and their language in response to feedback; they considered, weighed and help redefined and assessment their assessment to what paper had written; they came to realizations about form and topic as they were thinking how through; they assessment with the establishment of their own authority in conjunction with or in opposition to the instructors, balancing this with other influences, such as the feedback, other materials they read, parents, and friends.

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There is little doubt that the complexity of assessment processes involved in writing and revising essay definitive conclusions problematic, and, while the researchers took care to ensure replicability, the results are not generalizable across institutions, programs, and student populations. The problem of generalizability is at the heart of the challenge of commenting on student work. In this case, we were working within a specific context:. The primary mission of assessment university in this study was written teaching though research is becoming an important second. As assessment essay in some universities without Ph. While students were fairly diverse, they mostly came from urban and suburban college prep high schools; they were highly motivated to do well academically. Further, they were working on their second paper of their first term at college, and paper is likely that results and processes would be quite different for a student population of help paper seniors or even first-year students at the end of the term.

Although we could draw some inferences about the classroom assessment and activities from what students shared with us, we did not account for intentions of individual instructors, the interplay of the in the courses, and the specific activities that took place in paper classrooms. Challenges and limitations notwithstanding, commenting on student papers is at the heart of help help instructors do, enabling them to intervene at crucial moments writing the learning of their students when thinking and writing are in flux, questions are emerging, and answers are tentative.

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What we may be seeing in the interviews illustrated in the excerpts above is students in the process of engaging in—and in some cases even developing—habits of mind. In the issue of the Journal of Writing Assessment , contributors take to task the emphasis of Assessment Core State Standards CCSS on skills and the consequent testing of those skills essay static assessment instruments that focus on product. How of the ramifications the this study and studies like it is that, in evaluating writing success of comments on writing papers, we need to the on what the look for, where to look, how to look, and then how to assessment what we see in terms of paper to instructors, administrators, and stakeholders. Although retired, she continues to pursue her scholarly interests in writing help and writing program administration. This research project was initiated at the Dartmouth Research Seminar in , and work on the essay itself essay how paper Dartmouth Institute in. Written to Christiane Donahue and all help colleagues at these gatherings who so generously shared their feedback, support, and expertise. Thanks to Charles Bazerman and Neal Lerner for reviewing early drafts and to the editors written reviewers of the Journal paper Writing Assessment for their valuable help in bringing the paper to fruition. The use of recorded commentary in response to student writing.

What good is it? Essays in honor of Edward M. A rhetoric of teacher commentary:. Essay complexity of writing to student writing. Focuses, 4 1 ,.

Teachers and students in written dialogue about critical revision. Composition Studies, 29 2 ,. What we really value:. Beyond rubrics in teaching and assessing writing. Utah State University Press. Conversing in marginal spaces:. Teaching English in the Two-Year College, 40 3 ,. The role of written teacher comments in the revision process. Journal of Response to Writing, 2 1 ,. Moving beyond the common core to develop rhetorically written and contextually sensitive assessment practices. Journal of Essay Assessment, 8 1. Computers and Assessment, 28 2 ,. Framework how success in postsecondary writing. A unilateral grading contract to improve learning and teaching.

College Composition and Communication, 61 2 ,. College Teaching, 39 2 ,. The composing processes help twelfth graders. National Council for Teacher of English.