Teaching True and To the Test in Writing

In this article, we focus on what we have learned from six exem-plary teachers of writing who teach within high-stakes account-ability systems in Kentucky andWashington. Based on what we

have seen in their classrooms anddiscussed with them and their students, our response to the reality of high-stakes testing is the need to “Teach True and Tothe Test in Writing.”

Our first response—true—aligns withour interest in how writing teachershelp their students prepare forannual tests while remaining com-mitted to effective pedagogy. Thesix teachers believe that they must

Shelby Anne Wolf andKenneth Paul Wolf

Researchers share what they learned from six exemplary

teachers of writing who teach within high-stakes

accountability systems while remaining true to sound

theory and practice in teaching their children to write.

Teaching True and To the Test in Writing

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Teaching Trueand To

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SElson

Copyright © 2002 by the National Council of Teachers of English. All rights reserved.

be true to sound theory and practicein teaching their children to write.They encourage daily writing intheir process classrooms and givemany opportunities for topic choiceas well as conferencing. They em-phasize craft through the study ofpublished models and lessons onvoice, developing ideas, organiza-tion, and convention. In short, theyencourage authentic writing for dif-ferent audiences and purposes.Nonetheless, the emphasis on teach-ing to the test is an inescapable re-ality in their classrooms. Thus, theypay attention to the required testingdemands, and in many states, in-cluding Kentucky and Washington,the demands are high.

We begin this piece with back-ground on writing reform and as-sessment and then introduce theteachers and schools. Finally, andmost important, we address fivepoints that we feel are essential to sound theory and practice inpreparing children to write well andscore well on assessments: (a) un-derstanding the criteria; (b) analyz-ing various models; (c) respondingto others’ writing; (d) reflecting onone’s own writing; and (e) rehears-ing the performance.

REFORM AND ASSESSMENTIN WRITING

It was the best of times, it was theworst of times, it was the age ofwisdom, it was the age of foolishness,it was the epoch of belief, it was theepoch of incredulity, it was theseason of Light, it was the season ofDarkness, it was the spring of hope,it was the winter of despair, we hadeverything before us, we had nothingbefore us, we were all going direct toHeaven, we were all going direct theother way. (Dickens, 1981, p. 1)

Current issues in writing remind usof the oxymoronic opening of A Taleof Two Cities. To contemplate writingreform is to live in the season of

Light. The “conditions that encouragegood writing” (Graves, 1994) are vis-ible in many classrooms, offeringchildren time to write and topicchoice as well as opportunities toshare their work and to benefit fromteachers’ demonstrations of writers’craft. In process classrooms, writingis embedded in children’s socialworlds and allows them to talk withand talk back to others’ words andworlds (Dyson, 1997). Literature pro-vides children with exemplarymodels for discovering new topicsand new ways of saying what theywant to say (Harwayne, 1992). AsRay (1999) explains, they are learn-ing to “do the sophisticated work ofseparating what it’s about from howit is written (p. 10).

On the other hand, to contemplateassessment is to dwell in the seasonof Darkness. Kohn (2000) suggeststhat “standardized testing has swelledand mutated, like a creature in one ofthose old horror movies, to the pointthat it now threatens to swallow ourschools whole” (p. 60). For Newkirk

(2000), the monster is no less menac-ing: “Driven by state testing, teachersare being pulled toward prompt-and-rubric teaching that bypasses thehuman act of composing and thehuman gesture of response” (p. 41).He feels that rubric-based assessmentis “capitulation” rather than “prepara-tion”—a view that leans on the darkside of Dickens’ (1981) quote to indi-cate that under such a system, ratherthan attaining Heaven, we are “allgoing direct the other way.”

However, educational measurementexpert Lorrie Shepard (1991) takes amore balanced view, explaining thatauthentic assessments have the po-tential to measure “complex perfor-mances that directly represent theultimate goals of education. Thuspractice on such tasks would leadinstruction in a positive direction”(p. 235). Her words align with theview that it is best to “build assess-ments toward which you want edu-cators to teach” (Resnick & Resnick,1992, p. 59). Writing assessmentsthat ask students to collect theirwork in portfolios or to providewritten responses to prompts werecreated to point educators in such apositive direction.

Still, measurement experts are notblind to the potential flaws. Shepard(1997) explains that “even with per-formance assessments, students mayrely on familiar, rote routines andpretend to know” (p. 20). And Linn(2000) believes that even the bestassessment systems can be distortedwhen high-stakes accountability isattached. As Calkins, Montgomery,and Santman with Falk (1998) ex-plain: “Because of the high stakesassociated with test scores, far toomany educators across the nationare staffing their schools, groupingtheir children, and designing theircurriculum with one goal in mind:to raise test scores” (p. 3). Still, thereality of high-stakes accountabilitylinked to performance assessmentshas forced individuals who formallykept at a distance from testing to tryto “help teachers live thoughtfullyin the presence of tests and to do sowithout selling their souls” (p. 8). Inthe next section, we introduce sixteachers who have learned to dojust that.

EXEMPLARY TEACHERS’PASSION FOR WRITINGFor the past five years, our team hasbeen researching the assessment

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Even the bestassessment systems

can be distorted when high-stakes

accountability is attached.

Teaching Trueand To

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reform efforts in Kentucky andWashington through surveys andcase studies of exemplary sites.Using exemplary sampling (Heath &McLaughlin, 1993), we located ourschools after discussions with stateand district leaders as well as sitevisits with principals and teachers.We were not searching for “nowonder” schools with populationsfrom high socioeconomic communi-ties or magnet schools for thegifted. We didn’t want our selec-tions to invite comments like, “Well,no wonder they can do it. Look attheir population and resources.” In-stead, we wanted schools and teach-ers where we would have to lookdeeper than surface explanations forwhy good things were happening.Descriptions of the teachers in six ofthe schools follow. The teachernames are pseudonyms selected bythe participants themselves.In Kentucky, Ms. Jazz taught fourthgrade in a rural Appalachian schoolwhere eighty percent of the childrenqualified for free and reduced lunch.While Ms. Jazz paid close attentionto the ongoing as well as the annualassessment requirements, she feltmore driven to help her children seewriting as a way of thinking. In oneof our visits, she told her class,“You’re not writing to answer thistest question. You’re writing to learnfor the rest of your life!”Two hours up the road in a ruralschool with seventy percent freeand reduced lunch, Mr. Bass taughthis seventh graders in similar ways.He balanced instruction of genrestypically assessed in state promptswith insights into the beauty ofother forms. He was a poet whoshared his writing with his students:“I really love teaching poetry . . .[and] talking about how to make thesenses available to the reader whenyou’re writing poetry.”

A fourth-grade teacher, Ms. Olinskiseamlessly integrated writing and

reading into her daily workshop in asuburban Kentucky school withforty percent free and reducedlunch. She was also a writer whoshared her pieces to garner helpfulcriticism from her students. She

considered writing experts mentorsfrom afar and believed that DonaldGraves’ (1983) “Let the childrenteach us”—was the impetus for herwork. After one observation of herclass she told us, “Writing is mypassion. I was called to do this.”

In the seventh grade, Ms. Morgan’sKentucky middle school had thirty-five percent of its students on freeand reduced lunch, and she was no-table for her exquisite organiza-tional skills. When she taught a newgenre, she provided packets of ma-terials which included benchmarkpieces, informational articles, aswell as revision and editing check-lists. When asked about her goals asa writing teacher, she explained:“You’ve got to give them the toolsto be successful.”Ms. Wright taught fourth grade in ahighly diverse elementary school insuburban Washington, where fifteenlanguages other than English werespoken. Their free and reducedlunch count was at sixty-eight per-cent. Ms. Wright integrated literacywith social studies, and she placed aspecial emphasis on genre. She ex-plained: “If you’re going to havethem write a genre, they have toread it. I know that’s common sense,but it makes such a difference. Theyhave to read it so they can write it.”The Washington middle school hadtwenty-five percent racial and ethnicdiversity and twenty-six percent ofthe students were on free and re-duced lunch. As a seventh-grade

teacher, Ms. Underwood loved to as-semble “bits and pieces” from vari-ous resources (e.g., anthologies,writing experts’ books) to createoriginal curriculum. She rejectedmaterials that were too prescriptive

or too oriented toward the annualtest: “My bottom line is responsibil-ity to the kids. Some districts havegone to exclusive [testing] packets.‘You can’t do this. You can’t do that.’And I couldn’t teach that way.”

FIVE POINTS OF TEACHINGTRUE

AND TO THE TEST IN WRITING

Figure 1 illustrates the key ideas wewant to share about the ways thesix teachers teach writing. At thecenter of the figure the notebookimage offers some of the forms stu-dents learned, and the circle ofarrows emphasizes the continual in-tegration of the language arts. Mostimportant, the students did not justwrite to focus on the test; instead,as Ms. Jazz explained, they wrote“to learn for the rest of their lives.”Still, in the high-stakes environmentof state testing, these teachers gavetheir students substantive opportu-nities to show how well they werelearning to write. In considerationof the required performance assess-ments, the teachers had “developedthe understandings necessary totransform their instruction and tomake the new kinds of tasks an in-tegral part of it” (Shepard, 1991,p. 237). The points of instruction arethe five points of the star, which weexplore in the following sections.

Understanding the Criteria

One of the first things the sixteachers did was to help studentsunderstand the established criteria

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Teaching Trueand To

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We wanted schools and teachers where we wouldhave to look deeper than surface explanations for

why good things were happening.


for evaluating their writing. Thesecriteria included the general goals orstandards that a state hopes childrenwill meet, the specific rubrics forscoring children’s writing, and thegenres students are expected to use(See Table 1). In terms of standards,Washington has the Essential Aca-demic Learning Requirements inWriting (Office of Superintendent ofPublic Instruction, 2000), while Ken-tucky sets writing under the first ofsix Academic Expectations (KentuckyDepartment of Education, 2000).

These generalized standards arethen placed in the context of morespecific rubrics for scoring chil-dren’s writing. In Washington,where children complete two on-demand writing prompts in theannual Washington Assessment ofStudent Learning (WASL), pieces arescored with a “focused holistic” ap-proach. Kentucky provides two dif-

ferent kinds of scoring criteria. Chil-dren’s writing portfolios, as well astheir on-demand CommonwealthAccountability Testing System(CATS) pieces, are scored with a“holistic” rubric. On the other hand,open-response items are scored witha 0 to 4 rubric that attends to theinformation the child provides.Open-response items are not an of-ficial part of the Kentucky writingassessment, but the exemplaryteachers included them as a part oftheir instruction because studentshave to read a content area passage(e.g., science, social studies) andanswer a question in writing.

The emphasis on genre is also criti-cal, and both states are clear aboutthe genres children should produce.Washington fourth graders areasked to complete two prompts, onenarrative and one expository, whileseventh graders address expository

and persuasive prompts. Kentuckychildren must respond to similarprompts in particular forms, such asa letter, an article, or an editorial. In addition, their portfolios mustcontain different genres of literarywriting and transactive writingwhich is produced to “get some-thing done” in the real world—suchas a persuasive piece.

So how do teachers help children un-derstand the criteria involved in stan-dards, rubrics, and particular genres?First, the six exemplary teachershelped their children think carefullyabout what they wanted their writingto express. What is the purpose of thepiece? Who is it for? How can ideasbe selected and language chosen toeffectively deliver the piece? In short,why is it important to say thesethings in just this way, and is there amore powerful way to express it? Theteachers stressed their state rubrics,providing students with a clear targetand guide. And they often asked theirchildren’s opinions of the criteria:“What makes a distinguished piece ofwriting?” and “If you wanted tomove this piece from a novice to anapprentice paper, what would youdo?” They used the rubrics’ technicallanguage, and terms like “purpose,”“audience,” and “organization”became a part of the children’s vo-cabulary. Still, the focus on rubricswas never allowed to take precedenceover the human act of composing.

Indeed, anyone who has usedrubrics knows that even the bestrubric cannot capture the uniqueways in which a piece of writingcalls out to its readers. The point isnot to wrench a piece in line withstandardized rubric criteria, but tomeet and then push beyond theboundaries of established rubrics totake the writing to the next level.

The teachers placed strong emphasison personally understanding theirstate rubrics through professional

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Teaching Trueand To

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Understandingthe Criteria

Writing forms:• Persuade• Tell a Story• Express an

Opinion

• Report on Research• Compare/ Contrast

READ

AnalyzingVarious Models

Reflecting onOne’s Own Writing

Responding toOthers’ Writing

Rehearsing thePerformance

WRITE

SPEAK

LISTEN

READWRITE

VIEW

DISPLAY

Figure 1. Five Points of Teaching True and To the Test in Writing


development. The Kentucky teachersparticipated in and led scoring con-ferences where they discussed therubrics with other professionalsboth in and beyond their schoolsites. Mr. Bass explained: “It’s muchmore effective when you get to-gether with a group of teachers andsay, ‘Oh, this is why it’s apprentice’or ‘This is why it’s proficient.’ ”More important, these discussions of

students’ writing allowed the teach-ers opportunities to see beyond theestablished criteria to acknowledgethe unique character development,the careful craft of an argument, orthe flash of language that lifted apiece off the page and into the mindand heart of the reader.

With knowledge of the rubrics re-fined through professional conver-sations, the teachers were better

equipped to do the most difficulttask in helping children understandcriteria: genre study (Wolf &Gearhart, 1994). They were able tooverlay the more generalized rubricsonto specific genres, stretching andfitting them to demonstrate howcertain generic principles of writingwork within particular forms. Forexample, “organization” is a princi-ple that looks quite different in a

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Teaching Trueand To

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Standards

Rubrics

Genres

Washington

Essential Academic Learning Requirements (EALRs) in Writing

• write clearly and effectively,

• write in a variety of forms for dif-ferent audiences and purposes,

• understand and use the steps of thewriting process, and,

• analyze and evaluate the effective-ness of written work.

WASL (Washington Assessment of Student Learning)

Two on-demand pieces scored with a“focused holistic” approach,

• 4 points for content, organization,and style,

• 2 points for mechanics

WASL On-Demand Prompts

Fourth grade: one narrative and oneexpository piece.

Seventh grade: one expository andone persuasive piece.

Kentucky

Academic Expectations (1.11 for Writing)

Students write using appropriate forms, conventions, andstyles to communicate ideas and information to different au-diences for different purposes.

CATS (Commonwealth Accountability Testing System)

Both the portfolio and the on-demand pieces are scored witha “holistic approach” in which readers attend to purpose/au-dience, idea development, organization, sentences, language,and correctness.

• novice

• apprentice

• proficient

• distinguished

Open-response questions are scored 0 to 4 depending on theamount of information the child provides.

CATS On-Demand Prompts

Students may be asked to narrate, persuade, or respond totext, graphic, or chart.

Fourth grade: students are asked to write letters and articles.

Seventh grade: students write letters, articles, and editorials.

Kentucky Portfolio

All portfolios contain a table of contents.

Fourth grade: 4 writing areas including (a) reflective writing(letter to the reviewer), (b) personal expressive writing, (c) lit-erary writing, and (d) transactive writing.

Seventh grade: 5 writing entries—1 in each category above,plus 1 extra in either personal, literary, or transactive.

Table 1. Standards, Rubrics, and Genres in Kentucky and Washington


story or a report. Indeed, in terms ofunderstanding criteria, the teachersworked the hardest to explore thespecific features of multiple genreswith their children.

When teachers felt unsure about aparticular genre, they sought advicefrom writing experts. For instance,Ms. Jazz knew that the nuances ofpersuasive pieces would be new forher Kentucky fourth graders and

invited her region’s writing coordi-nator to provide a lesson. The coor-dinator began with sound adviceabout the genre, explaining thatpersuasion is to “convince some-body of something we want them todo. And it’s hard. Sometimes wewant to just whine and cry.” Shethen humorously read a mock piece,with exaggerated moans and multi-ple “pleases,” and the children

giggled at the pleading tone. Next,she seriously read a piece with con-vincing explanations and asked,“Now you tell me which one is themost persuasive.” The children unan-imously voted for the serious sample.The coordinator’s use of sample textsleads us to our next section on thevalue of analyzing models. While itis important to lay out the criteriafor specific genres, the featuresbecome clearer with examples.

Analyzing Various Models

Even in Kentucky, where the com-mitment to professional developmentis high, having a writing coordinatorconduct model lessons is unusual. Sohow can teachers learn more aboutthe genres they have to teach? Bothstates provided multiple models,often benchmark papers whichteachers could analyze to understandhow the rubric criteria would playout in particular pieces of writing.These models were available for dis-cussion in state-organized work-shops, assembled in “handbooks” or“assessment samplers,” and even ob-tainable on CD-ROM.

In Kentucky, Ms. Morgan consideredbenchmark papers to be an essentialtool. When her seventh-grade stu-dents were working on a portfoliopiece in which they were asked to“defend a position,” she helpedthem carefully analyze a distin-guished benchmark piece releasedby the state. With the model on theoverhead, she and her students dis-cussed the benchmark’s pros andcons. One student noted how theopening “grabbed the reader’s atten-tion and had a clear thesis state-ment.” After their discussion, Ms.Morgan reviewed how the studentauthor restated her thesis, gave ex-amples, and then “made a call toaction,” something she expected ofher students. This benchmark piece,as well as other helpful materials,went into their packets which in-

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Bang, Molly. Goose. (Scholastic, 1996).

A baby goose is raised by a loving family of woodchucks, but as she growsup she feels different.

Bynum, Jane. Otis. (Harcourt Brace, 2000).

Otis, a young pink pig, is sad because his disdain for dirt keeps him frommaking friends with other pigs who love to wallow in the mud.

Fleischman, Paul. Weslandia. Illus. K. Hawkes. (Candlewick Press, 1999).

Wesley, an outcast in his school, plants a summer garden that he uses tocreate a whole new civilization.

Lionni, Leo. Frederick. (Knopf, 1987).

Frederick’s stories provide pleasure and warmth for his mouse friends duringa cold winter.

Lowry, Lois. The Giver. (Houghton, 1993).

The idea of sameness is explored in a utopian society where citizens havegiven up their humanity to eliminate negative aspects of life. See alsoLowry’s Gathering Blue.

Morgenstern, Susie. A Book of Coupons. (Viking, 2001).

When the children in Monsieur Noel’s class receive a book of coupons fromtheir teacher on the first day of school, they realize that their teacher will bewonderfully different.

Myers, Christopher. Wings. (Scholastic, 2000).

In a modern, urban retelling of the myth of Icarus, Ikarus Jackson has wingsto fly.

Spinelli, Jerry. Stargirl. (Knopf, 2000).

The students of Mica High are unsure how to deal with Stargirl Caraway, a new student who refuses to conform to their values. Also see Wringer.

—Marilyn Carpenter

Children’s Books about Conformity and Standardization


cluded a wide range of informationthat her students could draw on indeveloping their own papers.

Ms. Olinski used a benchmark enti-tled “Sore Foot” by “a real fourth-grade writer.” She asked her studentsto read the piece in partners and dis-cuss “Why this is a piece of goodwriting. Think about the criteria thatwe know so much about.” After thepartner discussions, the childrentalked as a whole class:

Ms. Olinski: Tell us why you think it’sa pretty good piece of writing.

Ashley: It described the way she felt[when she stepped on a nail].

Rick: The ideas flowed together real well.

Maria: “[The blood] looked like cherryJell-O” was my favorite sentence!

Rick: I think she has good idea development, ’cause it had“thought shots” and it toldwhat she felt.

Ms. Olinski: Focused on a purpose,good organization, and ideasflowed logically. I didn’t strug-gle reading it. I can see theblood dripping off! [The chil-dren laugh.]

Nate: But her piece didn’t have aconclusion to it.

Ms. Olinski: If the author were here,what would you say?

Nate: I think you should write astronger conclusion, ’cause itkind of drops off.

In Washington, benchmark pieceswere not as available as in Ken-tucky for two reasons. First, thereform was younger. Kentuckybegan its current reform in 1990while Washington began in 1993,making writing tests mandatory infourth grade in 1998 and in sev-enth grade in 2000. Second, itstesting did not include a portfolio

with a representative range ofgenres; instead, students respondedto two on-demand prompts. As aresult, the exemplary teachers oftenmade their own models. For exam-ple, when teaching her studentshow to write literary criticism of a poem, Ms. Underwood wroteher own analysis of a poem byJohn Updike.

In addition, teachers in both statesoften turned to published pieces ofliterature and exposition to demon-strate models of writing. Ms. Un-derwood encouraged her studentsto analyze the dialogue in S. E.Hinton’s (1995) The Outsiders, tomake their dialogues more effec-tive. Ms. Wright stressed the impor-tance of exaggeration when shetaught her students about tall tales.Together they brainstormed theirown responses to the openingphrase, “It was so hot . . .”

Alice: . . . that you couldn’t spit.

Ryan: . . . their words melted.

John: . . . that I melted into a pool of goo.

Daren: . . . that my plow evaporated!

She then asked her fourth graders toread the story of “Davy Crocket”(Osborne, 1991) and write down theexaggerations they found. The chil-dren immediately recognized theimprobability implied by construc-tions like “Davy, who could carrythunder in his fist . . .” One studentread the first page, raised his hand,and exclaimed: “Ms. Wright, we’ll

have to write down the whole story.The whole thing is exaggerations!”Laughing, Ms. Wright told themthey could write down the first five

they encountered, but the pointabout exaggeration had been made.

Responding to Others’ Writing

Another point that the exemplaryteachers consistently made was theneed for feedback, especially fromteachers and peers. In Washington,one of the four Essential AcademicLearning Requirements stressed theneed to “analyze and evaluate theeffectiveness of written work”; inKentucky the mantra among teach-ers and children was “the writing’snever done.” As Ms. Olinski told herfourth graders:

You’ve heard the expression fromfamous writers who say, “Writing isnever finished. You just decide tostop.” But we’re not stopping yet. Ibelieve the pieces that you’ve devel-oped show you as awesome writers.But we can get more awesome! Thismonth, we’ll take a look at the piecesthat we’ve selected [for our portfo-lios] and think about the criteria thatwe use in order to develop our writ-ing. Peer conferencing can help youdiscover the hidden treasures thatyou have.

Hidden treasures were often discov-ered through questioning. Ratherthan offering direct advice on whatan author should do, teacher andpeer readers formulated questionsabout an author’s choices and ex-pressed their curiosities about aspectsof the writing (McIver & Wolf, 1999).

In her conferences, Ms. Olinski usedquestions to show her stance as acurious and analytical reader, and

her children took up her stancewhen they read their peers’ work.We watched a peer conference be-tween two girls. One had written a

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Indeed, anyone who has used rubrics knows that eventhe best rubric cannot capture the unique ways inwhich a piece of writing calls out to its readers.

Teaching Trueand To

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story about a monster lurking underJessica’s new bed—a monster thatturned out to be her father’s cardi-gan. After a lengthy discussion, thechild offering feedback wrote downher most important queries:

• Could you explain if Jessica wasrushing her dad to put the bed together?

• After she found out that the monster was just her dad’s oldsweater, did she go back to bed?

• Was Jessica still scared?

• Does Jessica like the bed now?

We asked the author if she foundthese written questions helpful. Shenodded and replied, “When I read itagain, I understand more ’cause sheexplained more.” She also felt thatquestions gave her more room toexpress herself as a writer, referringback to her teacher’s emphasis onauthorial choice: “Some kids haveto write exactly what the teachertells them to. But I think it’s prettycool that we get to write what wewant. We don’t have to write aboutthe time in our life when we wentcanoeing. We can write what weneed to write.”

When students were asked to writein a particular genre, choice andquestioning remained essential. InMs. Wright’s fourth-grade class-room, the children were writing re-search papers on the AmericanWest. Ali was writing about Saca-jawea. Ms. Wright asked her: “Howare you going to lay out your bodyparagraphs?” Ali replied, “I could gofrom when she was born to whenshe died.” Ms. Wright nodded, “Isthat the way you want to do it?Chronologically?” Later, in a peerconference Ali received two morequestions to consider. Dee read herintroduction and asked, “Did youtell us why you chose that topic?And [what’s] your focus question?”In her next revision, Ali responded:

“My focus question is ‘Why is Saca-jawea important to our history?’ ”

Conferencing in the elementaryclassrooms centered on questions—whether voiced orally or writtendown. The middle school classrooms,however, provided more routines forresponse. In reviewing their peers’position papers, Ms. Morgan askedher Kentucky seventh graders tohighlight supporting arguments ingreen and underline transition wordsin blue. She asked them to highlightthe introduction in purple “if thefirst paragraph grabs the reader’s at-tention.” The specificity required bysuch tasks demanded that peer re-viewers visually justify what thepiece contained and what might bemissing. Still, the emphasis on

needed parts was only a way to getto the meaning of the whole piece.On the Revision Sheet she created toaid effective peer reviews, Ms.Morgan stressed that Making Sensewas the most important categoryand she continually encouraged stu-dents to help each other throughasking questions.

Helping each other was critical toMs. Underwood’s seventh-gradeclass in Washington as well. Sheasked students to write a LiteraryAnalysis of a poem, exploring atleast two elements (e.g., rhyme andimagery) that they found essentialto their selected piece. After draft-ing, she asked them to seek peer response, explaining: “First of all—and don’t you [the author] tellthem—can they tell what two ele-ments your paper discusses? Sec-ondly, they’re going to tell you what

they like about your essay. Finally,they can tell you what they thinkyou need to work on.”

One student, Cassie, struggled withan analysis of a poem by NaomiLong Madgett (1994) entitled“Woman with Flower.” She knewthat she wanted to talk about theuse of metaphor in the piece, butshe disagreed with the central meta-phor. She felt that “flowers shouldbe nurtured,” and couldn’t under-stand why the author disagreed inthe first two lines of the poem: “Iwouldn’t coax the plant if I wereyou. Such watchful nurturing maydo it harm.” Cassie wrote bits andpieces of her analysis and finallyturned to a peer who read the poemand responded:

Ron: If a person gets too much nur-turing they—

Cassie: Drift away.

Ron: Okay, Cassie, it says “give itthe chance to find the sun-light.” So if you nurture aperson too much they won’twant to go out on their own.

Cassie: Too much nurturing? Butthat’s not what I believe. Youneed to be cared for!

Ron: It says the things we love wehave to learn to leave alone, sothat’s what the going towardsthe sunlight on their ownmeans.

Cassie: So you can help them grow?

Ron: Yes, but they have to do someof it by themselves.

Ron offered Cassie a new way ofthinking about the poem’s centralmetaphor. But he also made roomfor Cassie’s opinion on the necessityof care in learning to thrive. Indeed,Ron’s advice could be a metaphorfor our next section, for although itis critical for young writers to re-ceive thoughtful teacher and peerfeedback, they must also “do some

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When students wereasked to write in aparticular genre,

choice and questioningremained essential.

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of it by themselves” and learn to beself-reflective about their writing.

Reflecting on One’s Own Writing

Being self-reflective about writing isa goal in both states. The Washing-ton Essential Academic LearningRequirements suggest that studentslearn to evaluate their own work.The emphasis on self-reflection isalso clear in Kentucky’s portfolio re-quirement for a “letter to the re-viewer” where students reflect ontheir growth as a writer.

We debated whether to emphasizeresponding to others’ writing or re-flecting on one’s own writing first.We felt that the students oftenlearned how to be self-reflectivefrom the thoughtful response theyreceived from others about theirwork. Still, arguing which comesfirst fails to effectively acknowledgetheir reciprocal relationship. Thiswas made especially clear in our in-terview with a fourth grader in Ms.Jazz’s Kentucky classroom. We weretalking about a mystery story shehad written, and she suggested thatat one point in creating her pieceshe had had some trouble:

Tish: I got writer’s block after that,and I didn’t know what to do.

Shelby: Oh, writer’s block. How didyou get unstuck?

Tish: Ashley [another student in theclass]. She was working on herNancy Drew thing and she wassetting right beside me. I askedher how she was doing hers,and she showed me, and I fi-nally figured out what to do.

Shelby: You know, some people saythat all writers need is a quietroom, a place to write. But youseem to need to be able to talkthings out. Is that right?

Tish: Yeah. Quiet room and a friendis all I need.

In times of testing, however, childrendid need opportunities to reconsider

and revise their own writing withoutthe help of a friend, even thoughthey resisted the notion.

Students felt disadvantaged by asystem that emphasized the impor-tance of response and then denied itduring testing time. However, be-cause they were taught to provideand receive feedback and to engagein writing as good readers do, theyinternalized the processes and couldoften apply them without assistancewhen testing time came. As Charles,a Kentucky fourth grader, told usconcerning on-demand prompts:“Let’s go back to that saying, ‘Writ-ing is never over.’ I used to thinkthat writing is over once you finishyour draft. And then I got into Ms.Olinski’s class. She taught us revi-sion, feedback. I bet that’s why I’msuch a good writer now.”

Charles’ confidence, however, wasnot a casual boast. He was able toshow us specific places in his port-folio where he had taken the time toreconsider his writing, and this wastrue of many students. The teachers’daily writing workshops, especiallythe emphasis on response, became

echoes in the ear when childrenwere required to revise alone.

Teachers made other critical choicesin providing support for student self-reflection. One of their most impor-tant decisions was to make theelements of sound writing visible andavailable—posting them on bulletinboards and clipping them to theinside cover of their students’ writingportfolios. Ms. Wright in Washingtonhad large posters describing the writ-ing process and various genres forher fourth graders. Ms. Underwoodprovided evaluative opportunities for

each kind of writing her seventhgraders were attempting. In preparingtheir character dialogues, she gaveher students a handout with two self-assessment sections. First, they evalu-ated the communication styles andconventions of their draft dialogues.Second, they analyzed their sentenceson a grid to count the number ofwords in each of their sentences andthe verbs they used, which allowedthem to look for sentence variety.When we asked if the self-assessmenthelped, one girl nodded, “It woke meup to what I needed to do.”In Kentucky, visible and availableself-assessment ideas were evenmore pronounced. In addition tocommercial posters on the writingprocess and genre features, teachersdisplayed helpful acronyms. Ms.Morgan emphasized C.A.R.E. withher seventh graders: “C is forChange, A is for Add, R is for Re-arrange, E is for Eliminate—revisingis when we take C.A.R.E. of our writ-ing.” In the fourth grade, Ms. Olinskihad a C.U.P.S. poster that focused onCapitalization, Usage, Punctuation,and Spelling. Again, the emphasis

was on questions the children couldask—those for Capitalization were“Have I capitalized: beginning ofsentences? proper nouns?”Every Kentucky classroom we vis-ited had posted the state rubrics. Official descriptions of novice, apprentice, proficient, and distin-guished writing stretched abovetheir chalk boards. In Ms. Jazz’sclassroom, written reminders of the“four-column method” were lami-nated and taped to her fourthgraders’ desks to help students withopen-response items, where they

Teaching Trueand To

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Students felt disadvantaged by a system thatemphasized the importance of response and then

denied it during testing time.


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had to read a passage and answer aquestion in writing. Each of the fourcolumns is topped with a heading

and a question, and students use theremaining column space for notes:

Know: What do I need to know inorder to answer this question?

Do: What is this question askingme to do?

Examples: What examples fromthe article can I give to answereach part of the question?

Connections: How can I connectsome part of my answer to a real-life situation?

Thus, the “four-column method”emphasized student self-reflectionthrough questioning.

When Mr. Bass taught his seventhgraders how to use this tool, he useda state-released question as a model.He then created his own hypotheti-cal responses to demonstrate thelevels of response according to thestate rubric, reminding his studentsthat unlike their portfolio pieces,open-response items were not atime for a lot of personal voice:

Before you answer a question, youmust know how to break that ques-tion apart, analyze it. You can’t justfly by the seat of your pants and dowhat you want to do. You have toplan your answer. They [test scorers]are really interested in how youanswer the question. Bottom line:Answer the blessed question!

This admonition would come inhandy when his students faced theannual test. One final but essentialaspect of how exemplary teachers

teach true as well as to the test inwriting was to offer their childrenmultiple opportunities to rehearse

their writing within the test condi-tions. In short, they practice how to“answer the blessed question.”

Rehearsing the Performance

Test practice always comes with itsown ironies. Mr. Bass explained theannual conundrum he faced in bal-ancing the completion of his stu-dents’ Kentucky portfolios withon-demand test practice. In theannual test, students are given twoprompts and time to produce afinal draft response to one. In help-ing his students prepare, there weretradeoffs. For Mr. Bass, finding ahappy medium meant helping his students meet the portfoliodeadline—which was usually two to three weeks earlier than theannual test—and then using thoseremaining weeks to practice foron-demand prompts as well asopen-response questions.

When Mr. Bass’s students practicedthese forms of testing, he took themto the team room to simulate thetesting conditions. Because his writ-ing classroom was typically filledwith talk as students conferenced,they needed to feel the quiet of theconditions. They had to understandthe moment when they needed peerand/or teacher response and couldonly rely on themselves.

Still, simulating test conditionsdemand organization, especially inmiddle schools where schedulingmight not easily allow for largerchunks of time. As Ms. Underwoodexplained:

As far as preparing for the on-demand prompts, I did work onstructure, especially for both persua-sive and expository essays. We wrotean expository essay on the WASLsubject from two years ago [explain a good performance—movie, play,concert—to a friend]. They did it inclass, but we used more than one day.I couldn’t simulate the actual process,because we don’t have seventy-fiveminutes on a regular day to do it.

Scheduling simulations was some-times supported by the school dis-trict. Ms. Morgan’s Kentucky districtprovided “two Continuous Assess-ment days. This is a mock test thatis treated as the real thing. Every-thing, including special-educationmodifications and so on, are made.The papers are randomly assessedby the district office, and our teach-ers grade the rest using our statescoring guide.”

Still, Ms. Morgan more typicallyprovided her students with activitiesthat were less simulations than miniand multiple opportunities to prac-tice their performance:

As a “sponge” activity we work on aprompt every day. Drop everythingand write (including the teacher)! Italso includes a share time. Thisworks great for middle school chil-dren because . . . they need practicein being forced to write on a topic. Italso really helps in the developmentof portfolio entries, because if theylike it, they can use it.

In the fourth grade, test rehearsaloccurred throughout the year.Washington’s Ms. Wright explained,“I give ‘WASL-like’ prompts to mystudents according to the genre ofwriting we are studying. . . . Theseassessments fit right into my writ-ing program. We studied narrativewriting and had many times topractice the writing process andtake pieces to final publication.Then I gave the final ‘WASL-like’

Teaching Trueand To

the Test in Writing

One final but essential aspect of how exemplaryteachers teach true as well as to the test in writingwas to offer their children multiple opportunities to

rehearse their writing within the test conditions.


assessment.” Ms. Wright also ex-plored the features of prompts thatoften use keywords to guide youngwriters toward specific genres. Thiswas important because in an earlieryear of the test “there was a prob-lem with a lot of students writingoff-mode.”

Teachers also set the tone by en-couraging their students to do theirbest on the assessments and to pushthemselves to reflect on their workin terms of imagery or questionsthat a reader might have. Once, Mr.Bass was conferencing with a sev-enth-grade girl about a portfoliopiece—a personal narrative describ-ing a time when she had been illand her mother helped her:

Mr. Bass: I want to see this. I want tosee you lying on the couch. Iwant to feel how you felt. Iwant to hear what you said toyour mama.

Ginny: [Moaning as if she were stillon that couch.] Like, “Give mea Tylenol!”

Mr. Bass: [Nodding enthusiastically]Yes. “Give me a Tylenol.”Everything like that. Ginny,you gotta be “apprentice.” . . .Come through. Work hard!

Rather than see their state’s writingassessments as just one moreheadache, the six teachers saw op-portunities for their children to bechallenged in their writing. Still,they knew that if they wanted theirstudents to succeed, they had toprovide full-fledged simulations aswell as multiple, mini-opportunitiesfor test practice.

They also knew that a positive atti-tude toward the test was essential,and their talk was replete withphrases like “You can do this!” Justbefore the annual testing eachspring, their “can do” attitude wasevident when they combined chal-lenge with celebration. Many of theschools provided pep talks and

arranged for special ceremonies. InMs. Wright’s elementary school inWashington, the fourth graders weretreated to a feast, and they attendeda school assembly where severalfifth graders (who had taken theWASL the year before) gave enthu-siastic speeches to encourage thefourth graders in their upcoming ef-forts. Still, pizza and inspiring testi-monials are only culminatingactivities and cannot replace theperformance rehearsal that the ex-emplary teachers integrated intotheir day-to-day practice. Evenmore important, these ceremoniescould not replace the celebrationsthat took place daily within thecontext of their writing workshopclassrooms as their students learnedto express themselves in writing.

STRETCHING OUTIN A LIMITED SPACE

In one of our final interviews, wespoke with a Washington seventhgrader, Natasha, about her perfor-mance on a WASL on-demandprompt. She’d been asked to inventan award and pick a person in herschool who deserved to win it.Natasha designed a life-achievementaward for a teacher who was acancer survivor. Although shethought she had done a “good job,”she was certain she could have donebetter if she’d been able to talk with

the teacher about her experience andhave peers or Ms. Underwood re-spond to her work. And she resistedthe silence:

Can we go ask someone about some-thing? No, you can’t. You have to

write this here. You have to write itnow. It’s kind of . . . claustrophobic.But give me my own space. Let mestretch out. With the WASL, it’s justlike putting you in this little, tinybox. And they’ll say you can’t comeout until you’re finished with this,and you want to stretch out.

Still, Natasha and the many otherstudents we observed and inter-viewed had learned to create theirown space for writing in their class-rooms. Their teachers helped themprepare for testing without losingsight of the richness of human com-position. The students wrote everyday, often on topics of their ownchoice. They had time to devote totheir writing and opportunities forpeer and teacher response as well asself-reflection. In addition, theirteachers helped them understandthe standards, rubrics, and genresinvolved in their day-to-day writingas well as in assessments. And to-gether they analyzed benchmarkpieces and published texts to dis-cern the features of quality work.

Rather than despair over the springtest as the onset of a season of Dark-ness, the six teachers taught theirstudents to believe in themselves andtheir writing (Wolf, Borko, Elliot, &McIver, 2000). Indeed, in five yearsof interviewing fourth- and seventh-grade students, we did not meet asingle child who felt s/he was a poor

writer. Instead, they told us of theirsuccesses, showed us places wherethey’d reconsidered their writing orgotten help from teachers and peers,and they spoke confidently and in-telligently about genre, audience,and purpose. While they viewed the

239

Rather than see their state’s writing assessments as just one more headache, the six teachers

saw opportunities for their children to be challenged in their writing.

Teaching Trueand To

the Test in Writing


240


annual on-demand test as an activitythat couldn’t compare to their class-room writing workshops, they feltmore prepared to meet the challengeof claustrophobic spaces. Becausetheir teachers taught both true and tothe test in writing, leaning on soundtheoretical teachings, varied re-sources, and creative pedagogy, thesestudents had learned to stretch outand reach beyond the limits of “on-demand” to the very real require-ments of writing and learning in theworst as well as the best of times.

Note

Our Center for Research on Evaluation,Standards, and Student Testing (CRESST)team spent five years studying reformefforts of exemplary schools in Kentuckyand Washington. The work reportedherein was supported under the Educa-tional Research and Development Centers Program, PR/Award NumberR305B60002, as administered by theOffice of Educational Research and Improvement, U.S. Department of Edu-cation. The findings and opinions ex-pressed in this report do not reflect thepositions or policies of the National In-stitute on Student Achievement, Cur-riculum, and Assessment, the Office ofEducational Research and Improvement,or the U.S. Department of Education.

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Teaching Trueand To

the Test in Writing

Shelby Wolf is associate professor in theSchool of Education at the University ofColorado at Boulder, where she teachescourses in children’s literature and literaryengagement. Kenneth Wolf is associateprofessor in the School of Education at theUniversity of Colorado at Denver, where heteaches classes in research and evaluationmethodology.

Author Biography


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Teaching True and To the Test in Writing