On Writing Assessment

This week’s readings are very important because they tackle the crucial issue of assessment. Although assessment does have some specificities in different contexts, there are overall common issues that have to be addressed regardless of the context where we are teaching. In my teaching context, writing instruction is still product-oriented. Yet, even here where writing instruction is supposed to be process or post-process oriented; there is always an end product that is graded. So in the assessment, teachers may consider the process behind this product but still the last draft turned in is the one that counts most.

In many Expanding Circle countries, writing is used to take exams. Even with the adoption of Communicative Language Teaching (CLT), the instruction and examination landscape did not change much. Assessment was still exams-based, with much emphasis on writing and no oral component is part of assessment, especially in national exams that decide who is to enter the university and who is not.

Reading throughout these articles, I found Ferris’ chapter on “Responding to writing” representative of many of the concerns I had when I was teaching academic writing in an EFL context. Ferris chapter was well organized and read as a series of strategies and practices that can be used in SLW instruction. These were based on research and scholarship on teacher response and peer feedback, and are not just mere intuitive suggestions. The way writing instructors respond to second language writers impact the way those writers will take the feedback they receive.

However, no matter what SLW instruction we opt for, \no matter what teacher response or feedback we favor, second language writers are often bound to take exams and standardized tests where assessment is conceived and implemented differently. The 5 paragraph essays is still the form that students taking the TOEFL test have to write in one shot, no drafting is possible, and there is no feedback. Students have to write a 5 paragraph essay at once, especially if we consider the TOEFL Internet Based Test.

For me personally, the dilemma is that despite being knowledgeable about all these issues of SLW instruction, feedback, peer-review, etc. when it comes to assessment, will I assess according to my own standards that stem from this knowledge, or will I assess so as to confirm the national tests in order not to disadvantage my students. It is not that easy to negotiate this.

Discussion Questions on Seloni's "Intertextual Connections between Spoken and Written Text: A Microanalysis of Doctoral Students' Textual Constructio"

1. Seloni states that “[s]tudents at the doctoral level are expected to be active participants in academic communities within their disciplinary fields by writing and speaking in certain ways.” Do you agree with this? If so, what does academic literacy skills mean to you as a doctoral student?

2. For those of you who are multilimgual multiliterate students, how would you describe your “academic socialization” at IUP? If you are a domestic student, do you think that entering academia has compelled you to make any specific literacy adjustments? If yes, how?

3. We often think of academic literacy in terms of reading and writing as doctoral students. Both activities are often thought of as being individual. Seloni argues that doctoral students engage in an academic culture of collaboration whereby people, texts and events intertwine? To what extent do you agree with this and why?

4. As part of the Second Language Literacy course, and the whole English graduate program at IUP, we do engage a lot in dialogic exchanges oral, written, and virtual. Do you think we do co-construct new textual worlds? If yes, how?

5. As far as methodology is concerned, Seloni reconstructed the lived experiences of the doctoral students’ support group in the form of a “narrative description of the transcription”. What do you think of such reconstruction? Do you think your interaction of the textuality of the data would read differently had she used another textual device?

6. The results of the study showed that the students challenged the divide between their vernacular discourses and school discourses. Their speaking and writing experiences intertwined and were fostered by the academic culture of collaboration they engaged in. in what ways do these findings reshape your definition of academic literacy in general and literacy in particular?

Writing to Read

In chapter 3 "Writing to Read", Hirvela focuses on classroom activities that link reading and writing and that can be beneficial to students. Despite their similarities, reading and writing have distinctive features. In this chapter too, he reviews research on writing-to-read and writing-to-learn. One good example is Eisterhold (1990) synthesis of research on L1 reading-writing connection and the models proposed that can be applied to the L2 reading-writing connection. These are the directional, non-directional and bidirectional models that can be exploited by the L2 teacher as well and especially the directional model. Hivela quotes Eisterhold’s (1990) assertion that “this directional perspective is the relevant one for pedagogical concerns, since it helps teachers decide whether reading should precede writing in the classroom or whether writing should precede reading” (p. 89). In fact, one aspect of this chapter that I found interesting is Hirvela’s sharing his personal experience, although briefly, while writing this chapter. It made more sense to me, and I could conceive of it because I could connect to this practice. The fact that he used writing notes helped him to understand, connect, and organize the readings he used in this chapter. Such an example made the reading-writing connection more tangible and authentic to me because this is a so common practice that we take it for granted. We do indeed write before, during, and after reading even if it is just brief notes, or remarks that help us make connections between what we read and what we already know, or what we’ve read elsewhere, etc. Although slightly different, but in the same line of thought, the scenario that Hirvela once again gives here as to “I’d never yell ‘Good luck!’ at anybody” shows how writing can further and probe reading. “[P]rior writing experience or intuition-may lead almost naturally to the notion that writing, which is a concrete act, begins to make visible the invisible or semi-visible” (Hirvela, 2004, p. 75). Elaboration and making use of our schemata knowledge is one way we can use to connect writing to reading and to expand our imagination that can further and enrich our writing and also reading.

As we are involved in much reading and writing in this program, it’s clear that both serve, advance, and expand one another. When we have to write an assignment, there is no way this can take place if we do not read. As we read, we need to write summaries, annotated bibliographies, connections between readings, etc. and this helps us generate ideas, elaborate on ideas. When we read we often times deconstruct the readings in order to re-construct and co-construct a new reading of those texts through writing.

Also, the writing-for-reading activities that Hirvela proposes in terms of summarizing, synthesizing, and responding (especially journals) can be used in different contexts (L1 or L2), and in different levels (junior, high school, or college level).

Reading-Writing Connections

I read Hirvela’s chapters on reading-writing connections and linking reading and writing through reader-response theory with much interest, both as a second language writer and second language writing teacher. I personally always thought of the relation between reading and writing in terms of the formula “the more you read, the better writer you become in whatever language”. I also believe that many people share this formula. A formula that my parents taught me in my early schooling years, and which my language teachers never stopped reiterating years and years (for Arabic, French, and then and forever for English). For me reading serves to expand one’s vocabulary base, exposes us to different genres, writing styles, forms, etc. I never thought of reading-writing connection as an established field of research.

Hirvela reports on the growth and development of the field of reading-writing connections in chronological order from early 1980s up until the present. This shows clearly that the field is relatively new and this explains the fact that few studies dealt with this topic. Also, if people take this connection for granted, this then might be another reason.

Stotsky’s (1983) study that Hirvela reports on evidences the formula I lived by throughout my languages learning history and present. Stotsky reported that “the correlational studies show almost consistently that better writers tend to be better readers (of their own writing as well as of other reading material), that better writers tend to read more than poorer writers, and that better readers tend to produce more syntactically mature writing than poorer readers” (p. 636, cited in Hirvela, 2004, p. 13). But I think that Grabe’s (2001) research suggesting that reading and writing should be taught together “by inclusion of reading in a theory of writing instruction and a theory of writing in reading instruction” (Hirvela, 2004, p. 36). They also advocate that the combination of both literacy skills enhances learning in different areas.

Reader-Response Theory (RRT) makes a connection between reading and writing in terms of writing used in connection to what has been read. “[RRT is] an approach to reading that primarily examines and values readers and how readers read texts, not how or why authors wrote them or how they are organized” (p. 46). Reading in this case is not considered as a decoding process but rather as an act of “composing,” and this explains why readers use different “composing processes,” (p. 55) that yield different interpretations. In this vein, Hirvela’s approach to teaching reading using RRT can be best applied in high schools and universities using pre-reading and post-reading activities. These activities will help the teacher to learn more about the strategies students employ to understand texts and what difficulty will they encounter.