Blog # 6

1. My instructors assessed and scored my writing performance based on whether I answered the questions asked. There were times when I thought I had answered the question, but I had not explicitly provided the answer. My memory of writing assessment was answering specific questions in academic courses such as geography or biology.  Feedback was provided with comments placed in the margins of the paper, along with a letter grade. These comments were adequate enough for me to study harder, or to correct the paper, until the teacher or instructor was satisfied. I was not exposed to writing rubrics in high school. Perhaps a writing rubric would have reduced the re-work since I would have had more clarity about what the requirements were for producing an acceptable writing task.

2.  My writing skills improved as a result of my personal motivation towards excellence. In my high school there was friendly competition related to all marks received, which motivated me to improve. The scores I received were tangible evidence of my progress, so that my parents could feel good about my progress. Not wanting to disappoint my parents, I increased my mastery of writing and reading. There came a time when I developed an earnest desire to learn more about the world around me, and developed a voracious appetite for journals and magazines such as the National Geographic magazine. The more I read, the better my writing became. At some point, my writing was less dependent on grades my teachers assigned, and became more of an outward expression of the many books I enjoyed reading.  In my early college years, I was very motivated to receive the highest score, and thus I motivated myself to read and study.

2. I am just emerging as a composition instructor. The greatest challenge that I have observed is the difference in the rhetoric styles of the students based on their native writing styles, and the rhetoric structure that I am guiding them towards.  Also, some students from countries outside the USA are led to believe that they are writing in a way that is acceptable by western university standards, but feel disappointment when I point out the changes they should make in their writing style. There are adult students who are pursuing post-graduate degrees, whose writings are difficult to understand because of the sentence structure. The great challenge is in remediating the basics, grammatical and sentence structure, and especially when the adult students do not adequately revise their corrected writing as advised. I am currently asking some adults to increase their noticing of the structure of English sentences by copying interesting stories in their own hand writing.

3. Ferris and Hedgcock (2014) advises that formal assessment “should provide information about writing achievement, proficiency, and progress (page 228). However, since formal assessments are often accompanied by high levels of anxiety, teachers should consider careful placements of more formative assessments to gently guide progress in situations that are less anxiety provoking.  Formal assessments have their place for yielding quantitative scores used by the institution, and funding authorities. Ferris and Hedgcock (2014) recommends an approach to summing the formative assessments which could convert qualitative information gathered during formative assessment into quantitative data as needed by the learning institution. A conversion table is a suggested tool for this purpose.

4.  I am familiar with alternative assessment options such as students writing in portfolios, since as a student myself, my portfolio is being evaluated. Validated rubrics are effective as an alternative assessment tool, since the descriptive text can also educate the student as to the details included in an acceptable writing product. Teachers may not always have the most robust rubric to describe the written product generated from alternative activities which can produce assessable writing.  I look forward to learning more about the alternate assessment methods and the reliable rubrics developed for use.

Ferris, Dana R.; Hedgcock, John. Teaching L2 Composition: Purpose, Process, and Practice (p. 228). Taylor and Francis. Kindle Edition.