Culminating views on assessment

When students enter my first-year writing class, their explanations of how they know their work is good often comes down to the teacher’s judgment. The teacher decides whether the writing succeeds, and the grade communicates that decision. I want students to develop their own reasons for recognizing quality: “I’m proud of the specific details I used because they help the reader picture the moment,” or “I captured how that experience felt without simply naming the emotion.” I also want them to recognize what needs attention: “My point makes sense to me, but I need another example to help my reader understand it.”

As a writing instructor and teacher educator, I want assessment to help students develop that independence. Clear expectations, practice examining their work, and opportunities to act on feedback can help students make informed judgments about their writing (Shatri & Zabeli, 2018). A grade may communicate my evaluation, but students also need to understand what makes their work effective and which choices they can carry into their next piece. That means attending to drafts, discussions, revisions, and the reasoning students articulate alongside their completed work.

Identify Learning Priorities

Assessment involves gathering and interpreting evidence of learning to inform subsequent steps. This process includes decisions regarding instruction, revision, support, and final achievement, each of which requires evidence appropriate to its purpose (Stiggins, 2018). For example, a classroom conference may guide a writer’s revision choices, while an annual test can reveal broader patterns of achievement. Each form of assessment holds value based on the decisions it enables students to make.

I establish lesson objectives by referencing course outcomes, identifying the cognitive skills students must demonstrate, and analyzing their existing work. I then specify the evidence that indicates success and design instruction to prepare students to produce it (Pellegrino, 2014). For instance, in a rhetorical analysis lesson, the objective may be to explain how a textual choice influences an audience, supported by specific evidence. This approach is more effective than merely asking students to identify an appeal, as it clarifies what I should model, assess, and where feedback is most impactful.

Purposeful Performance Assessment

I prioritize performance assessment in writing because it requires students to apply their knowledge to achieve a specific purpose for a reader. Authentic tasks enable assessment of both the composing process and the final product (Ortega & Minchala, 2017). For example, I designed a task in which students explain a campus message to another first-year student. This task provides rhetorical analysis with a communicative purpose, as the writer must help another individual understand how the message functions. The resulting response allows me to assess both the student’s interpretation and the rhetorical choices made for the intended audience.

I also recognize the value of integrating multiple assessment formats within a lesson or unit. Selected-response items efficiently assess distinctions and misconceptions, while open-ended responses reveal students’ reasoning. Performance tasks demonstrate how students synthesize these resources. These categories may overlap, and the optimal choice depends on the learning objective (Pellegrino, 2014). Because performance tasks are time-intensive and require defensible scoring, I pair them with targeted checks and accessible response options to keep the focus on intended learning rather than superficial presentation.

The Role of Effort in Grading

Effort grades assess how students engage with learning, including their preparation, persistence, help-seeking behaviors, and use of feedback. When developing effort and participation rubrics, I emphasize observable actions such as revising work after receiving feedback or thoughtfully responding to peers’ ideas. However, visible participation does not always indicate psychological engagement (Waggett et al., 2017), so I seek evidence of both students’ contributions and their approaches to the work.

While I do not support awarding points for perceived effort, I uphold my attendance and participation contract, which constitutes 15% of the final grade. Writing workshops rely on students’ presence and their contributions to collective learning. My contract clarifies these responsibilities, ensuring that students understand what participation entails. This evaluation is based on documented participation rather than subjective perceptions of effort. This distinction is essential, as this portion of the grade reflects something distinct from writing achievement. Because grades can shift focus from learning to point accumulation (Brook, 2022), I design the contract to highlight meaningful contributions and accessible participation, supporting the classroom's collaborative work.

Students Need Practice Making Assessment Decisions

Student self-assessment means examining one’s work against clear expectations, supporting a judgment with evidence, and deciding how to improve. Explicit criteria, practice interpreting feedback, and action planning provide students with a structure for this approach (Shatri & Zabeli, 2018). I want students to explain what their writing accomplishes and what it still needs, rather than simply predict the grade I might assign. After all, my goal is for students to own their work outside the classroom and evaluate whether their writing is effective without my judgment.

I begin with a shared example, discuss what makes it effective, and have students locate comparable evidence in their own drafts. Each writer identifies a strength, chooses one consequential revision, and explains what changed. I also support student participation in developing assessments: students can help clarify descriptors, identify meaningful audiences, and propose ways to demonstrate learning. The instructor remains responsible for alignment and fairness. For writing, I prefer holistic judgments that consider how the whole piece works, supported by task-specific expectations and focused comments. Rubrics can clarify quality, but overly rigid criteria can constrain complex work (Chowdhury, 2019). I want expectations students can use without making every successful essay look alike.

Growth Portfolios Make Revision Visible

A growth portfolio is a purposeful collection of work over time, accompanied by reflection explaining development. In composition, I would include an early draft, feedback, a consequential revision, a later piece, and a reflection connecting those artifacts to learning goals. The collection should show the decisions behind improvement, including struggles a showcase of polished work might hide.

The benefit I value most is that students build an evidence-based account of their growth. A portfolio becomes “assessment as learning” when assembling and interpreting that evidence develops students’ capacity to evaluate their writing (Lam, 2016, p. 1900). It also creates material for richer conferences and reveals processes a timed performance misses. Yet collecting more work does not automatically produce a fairer judgment. Workload, uneven selection, and inconsistent scoring require deliberate attention, especially when portfolios serve both learning and grading purposes (Lam, 2016). I would limit required artifacts, schedule brief checkpoints, and use shared examples. A polished revision would show progress on that piece; a later independent task would help establish transfer.

Graph the Data

Tables organize details, while graphs make patterns easier to notice and discuss. The sample graph shows how an overall pattern can prompt a closer look at student work. The pattern alone cannot explain why scores changed. A closer analysis needs to distinguish related skills: students may find appropriate sources yet struggle to use them effectively in an argument (Markowski et al., 2018). That distinction leads to a more focused instructional response than an overall score alone.

Figure 1.

Class Mean Across Five Assessments in a Sample Dataset

Note. Author-created graph using the *Sample Class Scores* practice dataset, containing 16 sample student records. The data are illustrative and do not represent my students. The vertical axis begins at 55%, which visually emphasizes differences.

The mean falls overall, with a temporary rebound. That pattern deserves investigation; it does not establish declining ability, a particular misconception, or ineffective teaching. Assessment difficulty and content may differ. In a writing class, I examine responses to locate the difficulty. If students accurately summarize a text but struggle to explain how it works, I model the move from a textual detail to an interpretation of its effect on an audience. If the difficulty lies elsewhere, the lesson should address that evidence. A brief independent response afterward helps determine whether the instruction supported the intended learning.

Feedback Takes Practice and Trust

My strongest commitment is to assessment that changes the next learning opportunity. The RISE feedback model gives students a structure for making their responses useful: Reflect on what stands out in the writing and explain why; Inquire about the writer’s meaning or choices; Suggest a specific improvement to the current draft; and Elevate the conversation by considering how the work could develop in future iterations (Wray, 2017). This sequence helps turn a general reaction into a conversation the writer can use.

This week, I completed the same writing assignment I had given my students and shared my writing with them. Before sharing it, I delivered a mini-lesson on the RISE feedback model. Then students practiced giving me RISE feedback on my writing in small groups and through whole-class discussion before using the model independently with one another. Giving them a shared piece of writing to discuss created an opportunity to practice the feedback process together before applying it to a peer’s work.

I found this effective not only for practicing skills but also because, as the instructor, I modeled vulnerability and kept the focus on the work rather than taking comments personally. Sharing my own writing made that distinction concrete: my work could benefit from feedback, just as theirs could. The importance of that distinction extends beyond writing instruction. In research using classroom scenarios with children, criticism of personal traits led to more negative perceptions of the student–teacher relationship than criticism focused on process (Skipper & Douglas, 2015). Although that setting differs from my college classroom, it reinforced my commitment to responding to choices in the work without judging the person.

The experience also contributed to classroom community and trust, which I see as essential to an effective assessment relationship. Feedback conversations can build rapport, make instructors more approachable, and create opportunities for students to support one another’s learning (Crimmins et al., 2016). Making time for those conversations can also build trust in teaching staff and encourage students to seek further support. That connection helps explain why the relational part of this activity mattered to me: students practiced offering criticism while seeing that I was willing to receive it.

For educators trying this approach, I would begin with a piece of your own writing and a brief explanation of the four RISE moves. Give students time to practice together before asking them to respond independently, then leave time for writers to decide how to use the feedback. Combining written response with reflection and dialogue helps students interpret what they receive (Crimmins et al., 2016). The goal is for students to become more confident giving feedback, more open to considering it, and better able to decide what their writing needs next.

The same attention to evidence should guide how we use standardized tests. A broad score can prompt inquiry into learning needs, but it cannot fully describe a learner or teacher. A coherent assessment system connects different measures through shared learning goals while preserving their distinct purposes (Pellegrino, 2014). For me, that means combining common measures with drafts, performances, observations, and students’ interpretations of their work. Whether we are developing new assessment practices or refining established ones, we can begin with one manageable change: clarify an expectation, invite a student to explain a judgment, or build time to use feedback. Each creates an opportunity for learners to take greater responsibility for their next steps.

References

Brook, A. (2022). (Un)making the grade: An instructor’s guide to mitigating the negative impacts of grades within a neoliberal university system. McGill Journal of Education, 57(2), 195–211.

Chowdhury, F. (2019). Application of rubrics in the classroom: A vital tool for improvement in assessment, feedback and learning. International Education Studies, 12(1), 61–68. https://doi.org/10.5539/ies.v12n1p61

Crimmins, G., Nash, G., Oprescu, F., Liebergreen, M., Turley, J., Bond, R., & Dayton, J. (2016). A written, reflective and dialogic strategy for assessment feedback that can enhance student/teacher relationships. Assessment & Evaluation in Higher Education, 41(1), 141–153. https://doi.org/10.1080/02602938.2014.986644

Lam, R. (2016). Assessment as learning: Examining a cycle of teaching, learning, and assessment of writing in the portfolio-based classroom. Studies in Higher Education, 41(11), 1900–1917. https://doi.org/10.1080/03075079.2014.999317

Markowski, B., McCartin, L. F., & Evers, S. (2018). Meeting students where they are: Using rubric-based assessment to modify an information literacy curriculum. Communications in Information Literacy, 12(2), 128–149.

Ortega, D. P., & Minchala, O. E. (2017). Assessing students in an authentic and ongoing manner in the English classroom. Theory and Practice in Language Studies, 7(3), 159–165. https://doi.org/10.17507/tpls.0703.01

Pellegrino, J. W. (2014). Assessment as a positive influence on 21st century teaching and learning: A systems approach to progress. Psicología Educativa, 20(2), 65–77. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.pse.2014.11.002

Shatri, Z. G., & Zabeli, N. (2018). Perceptions of students and teachers about the forms and student self-assessment activities in the classroom during the formative assessment. Journal of Social Studies Education Research, 9(2), 28–46.

Skipper, Y., & Douglas, K. (2015). The influence of teacher feedback on children’s perceptions of student–teacher relationships. British Journal of Educational Psychology, 85(3), 276–288. https://doi.org/10.1111/bjep.12070

Stiggins, R. (2018). Better assessments require better assessment literacy. Educational Leadership, 75(5), 18–19.

Waggett, R. J., Johnston, P., & Jones, L. B. (2017). Beyond simple participation: Providing a reliable informal assessment tool of student engagement for teachers. Education, 137(4), 393–401.

Wray, E. (2017, August 3). RISE digital poster. https://www.emilywray.com/blog/2017/8/3/rise-digital-poster