December 1, 2024 by Doug McCurry from BooBook Education

Assessment for Learning: Using Exemplars of Writing Standards

It is disappointing fact that the differences between levels of performance in education are commonly described but hardly ever exemplified.

All sorts of educational authorities offer descriptions of levels of performance, but there are very few attempts to offer examples of levels of performance. It is much more difficult to find an example to match the level than to describe a level.

While for many areas of educational activity it is impossible to offer examples of levels of performance, such as ‘teamwork’ for example, the area of writing is the one where examples of standards might be offered most readily. Unfortunately, it is very rarely the case that authorities offer examples of writing performance to substantiate their descriptions of levels of performance. This paucity seems a lost opportunity as such examples would offer significant substance for teaching and learning.

There are no examples of the levels of The Australian Core Skills Framework. ACARA has only offered a few very loose portfolios of levels of performance in which individual pieces of work are of undefined and of uncertain quality. The VCAA does not release scripts of any level of performance, and it has not produced a series of scripts showing different levels of performance for its literacy standards, for any VCE Study, or for the Victorian Curriculum Standards and Levels.

Why are systems reluctant to offer examples of the levels they boldly announce?
Why are examples of levels of performance important?

It is very difficult to engage with and make much sense of described levels of performance, even in an area that is directly observable and very important like writing. It is very hard to see what a described level of performance for writing adds up to (especially when a lot of detail for a level is spread over multiple pages), but it is much easier to engage with and evaluate an example of a level of performance. (See some details from the ACARA Productive Sequence of Achievement and The Australian Core Skills Framework overview of the writing levels below.)

The fact that you can engage with an example of a described level of writing is a disadvantage from the point of view of authorities who want to avoid questioning of, or challenges to, their standards. It is very difficult to claim that the level defined by a described standard is too high or too low because they are so vague, but it is both reasonable and realistic to claim that this or that example is too weak or too strong to be an example of a minimum or acceptable standard. It is so much more convenient for an authority to avoid questioning by offering no examples of levels of performance.

Perhaps the absence of ostensive definition of standards in examples would not matter much if it just meant that standards remained vague and insubstantial, but the lack of examples of levels of performance robs teachers and students of educational resources that could be crucial parts of a teaching and learning program.

Assessment for learning

The idea of ‘assessment for learning’ that developed in the 1990s is an important part of thinking about educational standards, and it deserved to have more educational impact that it has. The notion of assessment for learning in the area of writing development offers opportunities for teachers and students to examine examples of student writing and address the following questions.

• How good or successful is this piece of writing?
• What are its strengths and weaknesses?
• How does it compare with this other piece of writing?
• What level of performance is it?
• Which aspects of the described levels of performance are shown in this piece?
• How might the piece be improved?

To consider these questions, teachers and students would need a graded set of examples of levels of performance in writing that show the differences between weaker and stronger performance. Through such examples students (and teachers) could develop their understanding of criteria for assessment and quality in writing performance. Such examples would offer some simple but challenging questions for students.

• Which of these pieces of writing is most successful? Why?
• What level of performance has each piece achieved?

While learning to write is fundamentally an experiential matter, there is a place for a conceptual approach to understanding writing development for learners. Dealing with the relationship between criteria for assessment, described levels of performance and examples of writing is a kind of metacognition about writing. Addressing the way students think about writing and what makes writing good is a useful part of developing their writing ability.

I have used this assessment for learning approach in the BBE study guides about the GAT writing tests and about Section C of the English exam. As well as discussing various criteria for assessment of writing used in the VCE and elsewhere, I have developed a number of graded series of examples of levels of performance in writing. I have also created exercises in which students are asked to identify the level of performance shown in a piece of writing. These graded examples and assessment exercises seem the best way to develop critical understanding of writing development for students.

It is most unfortunate that education authorities have not offered teachers and students examples of levels of performance that can be used to both define standards and develop the understanding of students. Giving this lack of support from authorities, it would be worthwhile for individual teachers (or better still groups of teachers) to develop their own graded examples of levels of performance. As well as being useful for teaching, such graded examples would be a useful part of moderation of standards for teachers.

You can see some of the exemplars I have developed and comments on them in the blog Flirting with ChatGPT. That blog shows the value of exemplars of levels of performance for teaching and learning.

ACARA English: Sequence of achievement: 7-10 for Speaking, Writing and Creating

http://docs.acara.edu.au/resources/English_Sequence_of_achievement.pdf

The Australian Core Skills Framework Levels for Writing

The Writing core skill identifies a set of skills, knowledge and strategies concerned with the ability to shape written language according to purpose, audience and context.

The core skill of Writing recognises the following.

- Writing performance is influenced by whether the writing fulfils its purpose and meets the needs of its intended audience.
- Writing performance at higher levels includes the ability to write for an increasing range of purposes and audiences.
- Writing performance at higher levels incorporates increasing depth of knowledge and skill in writing in specialist areas.

Writing Indicators

Writing performance is described against two Performance Indicators.

- The first Writing Indicator addresses audience, purpose and meaning-making.
- The second Writing Indicator addresses the mechanics of writing.