Excerpt from Chaper 9, "Evaluating Written Language," Helping Students Learn to Write: An Idea Book for K-7 Teachers by Joyce C. Bumgardner (Boston: Allyn & Bacon, 1996):

Why do we evaluate?

. . . When we ask the question, "How do we evaluate students' writing?" we must ask another question: "Why do we evaluate students' writing?" We must work with purpose, after all.

Obviously, the purpose is to observe what writing skills a student has acquired, to seek evidence of the student's growth as a writer, and to determine what skills remain to be learned for the student to write competently.

Assessments/evaluations must meet instruction, both developmentally and individually. We have become aware, in this time of language instruction and learning in all its wholeness, that there are other, better ways to tell what students know than letters and number/percentage grades.

We also have learned that as programs for development of written language change, so too must the role of the writing Teacher. In many classrooms today, the Teacher writes with students, modeling in actual classroom practice the process of bringing a piece of writing from brainstorming to drafting to publishing; this provides a "writers' workshop" classroom atmosphere.

Evaluating the process way

Instead of the old product method where students wrote to please a Teacher and thereby earned a good grade, we now use the process method. Teachers show students how to use steps in the writing process to take their ideas to final written form. We take time to get ready and to set the stage for writing; have them write first and perhaps second or third drafts; then revise, proofread, and edit until the final product reflects the value of the process.

We tell our students to listen to what they write: Does it make sense? Does it hold your attention? Does it sound right? The answers to these questions help our students evaluate and improve their writing.

Nationwide, we hear of the wholeness of learning and of cross-curriculum instruction, where many areas of study are interrelated and where students read, speak, and write in science, geography, social studies, physical education, music, and art--as well as in language class. This is a positive change, but it is not new. As we so often observe in education, "Everything old is new again." This is what was done years ago in one-room schools, where students wrote down what they knew and what they were learning. There were no workbooks. They learned to write with purpose and moved into new learning experiences as they were ready for them.

Accountability is a vital part of the writing process: Are students, in fact, learning to write competently using these methods?

. . . It is difficult to relate a letter grade to a piece of writing in which a student has poured out his or her excitement about a pst or coming event, sadness about a heart-breaking loss, or careful description of the petals of a newly opened flower when we also want to recognize the emotion, the effort, the growth demonstrated by a given piece of writing. Is that worth an A? a B? Or, if the piece contains many spelling errors despite the fact that it brings tears to the Teacher's eyes, does that mean it deserves a D or an F? . . . Is a letter grade or a number the best way to describe the quality of a piece of writing or to indicate a student's progress in learning to write competently? It would seem that the more important question is not what grade a student earns, but what progress a student is making.

More than one way to evaluate

As we seek to provide evidence of students' growth as writers, it becomes clear that a single grade is generally a poor indicator of writing development. Evaluation should indicate students' knowledge and use of steps in the writing process, and of being active participants with other class members--talking, writing, listening, revising, and completing high-quality pieces. It is clear we need to use more than one way of indicating development in such a wide range of writing activities. Some alternatives are provided here.

In some districts, writing samples are taken in fall as school begins and again at the end of the school year. Both times, each student drafts a piece of writing on a given topic. Following the spring sampling, each student evaluates those two pieces, noting progress made. In some schools these samples are sent home for parents to record their observations and comments. The samples, evaluations and parent comments are placed in a cumulative writing portfolio/folder that remains in the school, providing evidence of a student's writing development and parent involvement.

In other districts, holistic assessment accompanies folder/portfolio-keeping programs, with trained writing Teachers placing the samples in rank-order. Rather than making absolute grade or number judgments, these Teachers preselect certain papers to establish criteria for good writing, then independently rank student writing samples according to criteria such as the following:

. . .

Provide expectations for students

Criteria for given writing projects should be shared with and demonstrated to students so they are aware of expectations, goals, and possibilities for their own work and that of classmates. They need to know what the expectations are before they can endeavor to meet them. Discuss and show students, for example, a high-quality paper on the overhead. Show them papers that would be described as acceptable and unacceptable. Discuss what qualities determine these descriptions and how changes might be made to improve them; this is information they need to know.

. . . Recently, young writers, responding on evaluation sheets to group sessions at young authors' conferences, praised those presenters who "let us write--that's what we came for!" When asked how schools could best help them write, all asked for at least thirty minutes of uninterrupted writing time each day--and "don't use it for anything but writing."

Sample comments from fifth- and sixth-grade students:

These students know what they need, and they are right!

How do other Teachers do it?

Many Teachers require students to keep writing folders/portfolios in their classrooms. These contain completed pieces, works-in-progress, and Teacher comments, and they may be accompanied by journals, writing notebooks, learning logs, and idea sheets for future writing. In addition, Teachers keep weekly/daily records based on Teacher observations of student writing activity.

Some Teachers collect monthly writing samples, evaluate and conference with students about the samples, and determine together the strengths demonstrated by students and the areas in which more work is needed. One or more of these may be selected as a "major piece" on which a student will spend more time developing/publishing a piece of excellence.

. . . the evidence is clear: Few writing Teachers are content to use A, B, C, D, F grading--just one way of evaluating--to assess and comment on students' writing development, and most are seeking more effective ways of indicating student achievement and progress in written language.

Some Teachers find it helpful to give points, rather than a grade, for each step of the process demonstrated in a piece of writing:

A friend who teaches students with learning disabilities says she simply gives credit, not grades to her students, whose writing crosses all areas of learning. Her students earn credits in various ways, one of which is revising/rewriting a first draft after conferencing with classmates and the Teacher. Their revisions are tangible proof of learning and of effort--and they deserve credit for their hard work. The more successes they have, the more confident and competent they become. Encouraged by a supportive Teacher and cheerleader classmates, they are motivated to do their best work.

An interesting observation by her is that these students often must draw first, then write about a given topic, because they have trouble visualizing. The drawing gives them something concrete with which to begin. . . .

Using conferences to evaluate

One of the most practical, effective tools for communicating development in written language is the Teacher-student writing conference, where Teacher and student together read and evaluate current pieces of writing to determine which skills have been developed and which remain to be learned. Here, the student retains ownership of the piece and the Teacher acts as mentor, asking questions, making suggestions, and advising the writer on how to improve the final product. Sometimes such conferences take place one on one; other times they take place in small-group settings, with other students learning as they listen, observe, and even offer helpful suggestions and comments of their own.

Teacher-student conferences allow students to take responsibility for writing and improving their pieces. Such conferences are more useful than a Teacher carrying home piles of writing, red-penciling them, then returning them to students who simply follow directions for changes indicated--if, in fact, they actually do this. The Teacher then has assumed responsibility for final products.

Peers can help

Peer evaluation of writing can be an effective, practical, and useful means for helping students to improve their writing. The Teacher, in a whole-class demonstration, shows students that two jobs exist in this cooperative effort: the job of the author/reader, who reads aloud his or her piece-in-progress, and the job of the listeners, who give their full attention to material being presented.

Listeners are instructed to help determine where clarification or additional information might be needed, to suggest appropriate ideas and to ask questions that might help make the published piece clearer, more complete and more interesting. After listening to the reader, listeners give him or her feedback so appropriate changes can be made. The goal in this situation is for students to help one another publish the best pieces possible. Students can teach one another and can learn from one another, often more effectively than from an adult.

Parents can conference too

Another helpful tool in the process of evaluation is the Teacher-parent (and perhaps student) conference, which allows Teacher and parent(s)--and in many cases, the student--to discuss the student's growth in written language. These conferences allow Teachers and students to show parents what is meant by evaluation and how it is done to best help students learn.

In a conference it is possible for the Teacher to indicate that, while the student is having trouble with compound sentences, for example, and must learn to combine sentences to write clearly and effectively, she is marvelously creative, has a wonderful vocabulary and holds bright promise as a young writer. These conferences offer excellent opportunities to discuss parents' experiences and attitudes about language and to share ideas for helping and encouraging a student to develop these skills at home as well as at school.

A magnum opus

In one district where I worked at length with students and Teachers, we invited sixth-grade students to select, with the help of their Teachers, up to forty pages of their best writing from the school year. Students' pieces, printed by computer, were collected in mid-May. Each student's collection was put into a spiral-bound, permanent book with an attractive, sturdy cover that indicated this was his or her magnum opus (with thanks to Charlotte of Charlotte's Web), the greatest written work of the year. Bound copies were given to students to keep. Our young writers were pleased and proud to see these special pieces put together into a permanent binding.

What do letters and numbers tell us?

Because common sense tells us that letter grades and numbers do not inform us adequately of what we need to know and do not convey to students or parents truly useful information, other varying methods of assessing student growth in writing are growing in usage nationwide.

The most useful evaluation of a student's writing is done by a competent classroom Teacher who observes and interprets what is taking place daily, weekly, and monthly; who can ensure that samples are collected; and who, with the students, can discuss and determine goals and progress in written language.

As we evaluate and measure a child's progress in writing, we need to ask the following questions: Can this child think? Can he or she move a thought, an idea, in an orderly direction and bring it to a logical conclusion? Does this student work at expressing himself or herself on paper in the best way possible? Does the child revise, rethink, revise some more? Is the child growing as a writer?

Tests can give us guidance in improving curriculum and can show us where we need to develop areas for further study. But test scores do not explain what a student has learned. The seas and the mountains and the things that grow are far too complex to be reduced to numbers on test papers. As William Raspberry, the insightful and articulate columnist for the Washington Post, has said:

Most tests indicate passive recognition knowledge, not active, useful knowledge. They require only recall of small bits and pieces of information; they do not require an orderly, thoughtful process of thinking or of putting knowledge into a whole. Therefore, we must create opportunities for students to show us what they know. We do this with writing, with speaking, with reading, and with answering questions. A test score is just one piece of many available to us to show what students are learning. We cannot overlook the others. . . .

To help students learn to write, in brief

Share your own enthusiasm for writing and your own writing efforts with students. Attitudes are contagious.

Preteach and review those tasks students are likely to encounter in a writing assignment. Give examples. This lets students practice writing correctly those things of special note in a given writing project and makes them feel competent as they begin.

Teach students to proofread their own papers by reading them aloud--in other words, by listening to their writing as someone else might. Give everyone identical papers on which to practice proofreading and work on these together. . . . Remind them that it's O.K. to cross out, correct, and revise; that's what real writers do. Their final piece will reflect these earlier efforts.

Allow students to work in twos or threes, carefully editing one another's papers, then returning them to the owners to do suggested revising. A good way to begin these miniconferences is with whole-group conferencing (writers' workshops).

When you are reading students' papers containing many errors, you may need to mark for correction/revision those things that are of greatest importance. Students who are overwhelmed with too many correction marks may simply give up. (Use a "friendly" marking color--not red.)

As you conference with students and observe their writing practices, take time for minilessons on common problems. . . .

Be sure students follow through with revising where it is needed; only in actually revising will they learn the skills they must know to become competent writers. Be sure they understand that this is the writing process: prewriting, drafting, revising, proofreading/Editing, and publishing. Following these steps will lead to a good final piece.

Help students identify their writing strengths: in doing so, they also become more aware of areas where they need practice.

Remember: Our teaching goal is to help our students so that eventually they will be fully responsible for their writing. We must give them as much responsibility for their own writing as they can handle, then teach more, moving ahead until they are able to meet that goal.

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