An investigation of academic writing in secondary schools to inform the development of diagnostic classroom assessments

Llosa, Lorena; Beck, Sarah W.; Zhao, Cecilia Guanfang

doi:10.1016/j.asw.2011.07.001

Cited by 41 publications

(23 citation statements)

References 13 publications

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“…Such comments reflect Rinard's () observation that accountability pressures can lead to writing instruction focused more on test preparation than authentic communication and Llosa et al. 's () finding that writing instruction may be limited to the genres included on high‐stakes tests.…”

Section: In‐service Teachers' Views On Ell Writingmentioning

confidence: 77%

“…Nonetheless, Sherry (public high school ELA) suggested that ELLs must be made aware of differences between their current writing proficiencies and those expected on high-stakes tests, explaining, "I feel like I have to prepare them for that, so we kind of bring two different [expectations or] perspectives to the table, which is hard to balance" (Focus Group, 4/24/12). Such comments reflect Rinard's (2010) observation that accountability pressures can lead to writing instruction focused more on test preparation than authentic communication and Llosa et al's (2011) finding that writing instruction may be limited to the genres included on high-stakes tests.…”

Section: Teachers' Perceptions Of Ecological Tensionsmentioning

confidence: 78%

“…In the same vein, Rinard (2010) found U.S. federal requirements for increased ELL test scores and school and district rubrics and requirements led to teaching five-paragraph essays instead of argumentative or persuasive genres, with more concern for test performance than communicating clear purposes to specific audiences. Similarly, Llosa, Beck, and Zhao (2011) found exposition to be the genre most taught in their study of high school teachers in New York and the genre most assessed in their high-stakes tests.…”

Section: Institutional Issuesmentioning

confidence: 91%

“…When collaboration happens, difficulties can occur because of different (and not mutually reinforcing) disciplinary and instructional foci, in that content-area teachers may focus on content teaching while ESL teachers may focus on the language demands and accessibility of content (Creese, 2010). Indeed, as mentioned above, ESL and other content teachers perceive different components of writing as being important (Hartman & Tarone, 1999;Llosa et al, 2011). There is also a certain marginalization of ESL teachers, who might be viewed by ELA and other content teachers as mere support and not as experts in their own right (Creese, 2010;.…”

Section: Institutional Issuesmentioning

confidence: 99%

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In-Service Teachers' Perspectives on Adolescent ELL Writing Instruction

Kibler

Heny

Andrei

2015

TESOL J

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As writing has assumed increasing importance in discussions of pedagogy for diverse classrooms, attention to the contexts in which secondary teachers develop and implement writing instruction for adolescent English language learners (ELLs) is of great importance. Drawing on ecological language learning theories and situated teacher learning theory (van Lier, 2003;Borko, 2004), the authors present findings from participants in a focus group (N = 10) and follow-up interviews (N = 6) conducted with a set of secondary English language arts and English as a second language (ESL) teachers. Within overlapping institutional/professional and pedagogical contexts, teachers identified teacher expertise, high-stakes testing, classroom assessment and grading, placement and tracking, and disciplinary disconnects as the ecological factors most influential in their instructional choices related to ELL writers. Implications of these findings for research and teacher education are discussed.

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Section: In‐service Teachers' Views On Ell Writingmentioning

confidence: 77%

Section: Teachers' Perceptions Of Ecological Tensionsmentioning

confidence: 78%

Section: Institutional Issuesmentioning

confidence: 91%

Section: Institutional Issuesmentioning

confidence: 99%

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In-Service Teachers' Perspectives on Adolescent ELL Writing Instruction

Kibler

Heny

Andrei

2015

TESOL J

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“…We argue in this paper that while teachers are well aware of differences in writing performances across students in their classes, more precise research-based tools to identify adolescents' strengths and weaknesses in academic writing are sorely needed to inform more individualized instruction. Currently, students are assessed in schools mostly through wholistic rubrics that offer useful global judgments but no precise information to guide targeted teacher feedback (Alderson, 2007;Beck, Llosa, & Zhao, 2011). The present study is motivated by our conviction that educational linguistics can be instrumental in generating relevant findings for teachers and researchers to work together towards the design of pedagogically informative research-based tools.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Mastering Academic Language

Uccelli¹,

Dobbs²,

Scott³

2012

Written Communication

117

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The Harvard community has made this article openly available. Please share how this access benefits you. Your story matters Paola Uccelli studies socio-cultural and individual differences in early language development and in academic literacy. With a background in linguistics, she explores how different language skills (at the lexical, grammatical, and discourse levels) interact with each other to either promote or hinder advances in language expression and comprehension. She is particularly interested in the challenges and possibilities faced by struggling students as they try to learn the academic discourse valued at school. Her current research addresses questions such as how struggling students expand their academic vocabulary and how they learn to use a variety of discourse structures flexibly and conventionally for diverse communicative purposes. Acknowledgements:This research was possible thanks to the support of the Milton Grant, Harvard University. First, we want to thank our co-Principal Investigator, Nancy Sommers from the Harvard Graduate School of Education. We also thank Suzanne Lane, from MIT, for sharing her expertise and leading the wholistic scoring training workshop; Rose Wongsarnpigoon and, Jin Kyoung (Ani) Hwang for their careful CLAN transcriptions; Sabina Neugebauer for her support at the earliest phases of this project; the high school teachers who scored the essays; and, of course, the students, teachers and principal who made this study possible. LANGUAGE OF ACADEMIC WRITING 2 Abstract (144 words)Beyond mechanics and spelling conventions, academic writing requires progressive mastery of advanced language forms and functions. Pedagogically-useful tools to assess such language features in adolescents' writing, however, are not yet available. This study examines language predictors of writing quality in 51 persuasive essays produced by high school students attending a linguistically and ethnically diverse inner-city school in the Northeastern U.S. Essays were scored for writing quality by a group of teachers; transcribed and analyzed to generate automated lexical and grammatical measures; and coded for discourse-level elements by researchers who were blind to essays' writing quality scores. Regression analyses revealed that beyond the contribution of length and lexico-grammatical intricacy, the frequency of organizational markers and one particular type of epistemic stance marker, i.e., epistemic hedges, significantly predicted persuasive essays' writing quality. Findings shed light on discourse elements relevant for the design of pedagogically-informative assessment tools.

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Assessing Responses to Literature

Beach¹

2013

The Companion to Language Assessment

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This chapter examines research on issues of validity and reliability in assessment of students’ literary responses associated with their experiential transaction with a literary text. It describes the uses of summative assessment of learning literary responses as well as formative assessment for fostering learning of literary responses. It posits that effective summative assessment of literary responses involves open‐ended writing tasks or uses of student‐generated portfolios based on students’ written responses over time in lieu of multiple choice items, while at the same time taking into account the influence of differences in language proficiency, requiring development of prompts and tasks designed to accommodate for variations in language proficiency. It posits that effective formative assessment of oral literary responses involves facilitation of classroom or online discussions whereby students can generate ample responses for teachers to assess based on shared criteria or rubrics that can also be used to foster students’ self‐assessing of their discussion responses. And, to provide effective formative assessment of students’ written literary responses, it recommends creating engaging, open‐ended writing assignments with clearly specified criteria for defining effective interpretations so that teachers can provide descriptive feedback through individual conferences, written comments, or audio recordings to foster student self‐assessing and revision of their writing, as well as training peers to provide feedback.

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An investigation of academic writing in secondary schools to inform the development of diagnostic classroom assessments

Cited by 41 publications

References 13 publications

In-Service Teachers' Perspectives on Adolescent ELL Writing Instruction

In-Service Teachers' Perspectives on Adolescent ELL Writing Instruction

Mastering Academic Language

Assessing Responses to Literature

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