Uneasy writing: The defining moments of high-stakes literacy testing [An article from: Assessing Writing]

This digital document is a journal article from Assessing Writing, published by Elsevier in 2005. The article is delivered in HTML format and is available in your Amazon.com Media Library immediately after purchase. You can view it with any web browser.

Description:
The authors report on an exploratory study that investigated Grade 10 students' responses to a large-scale, high-stakes literacy test, the results of which determine high school graduation in Ontario, Canada. Through focus-group and individual interviews, the authors found that students perceived the test as evaluating their English skills rather than their cross-curricular literacy as is the stated purpose by the test administrators. Furthermore, the test contributed to students' narrow definition of writing. Rather than promoting writing as a powerful tool for thinking and expressing ideas, students understood writing to be a fill-in-the-blanks response to particular genres. The authors conclude by pointing out the power of such tests to define unintended learning in schools.