On Teaching/Assessing Timed Writing

A few posts back clc raised the vexed issue of timed writing for discussion. By suggesting how it invites formulaic expression from most and often handicaps ESL students, she concludes rightly that it may be less helpful than exit portfolios for accurate writing assessment. She's wise to question how well such writing fits our teaching, as we know mostly from helping disparate students with drafting in the real world.

But come next March that world may start affecting us all somewhat more than it does now. For students taking the new SAT will have to write a new, twenty-five-minute essay for college entrance or placement. The requirement may even affect transfers — a prospect putting timed writing, I think, directly on our agenda.

Although I can't begin to describe the new test (you can perhaps read about it at The College Board or Time), I can add a bit about essay scoring. A while back Jocalo addressed that work in his SAT, Multiple Choice Tests and Writing Assessment. Like him I've had years of experience in scoring essays, first for the ECT (English Composition Test) and then the SAT II, and over the years in doing so I've come to regard scoring as at least usefully predictive. I know senior colleges do, since upper-end marks are the best general indicators of college success. Having given my own students such tests, I know they can rise to the challenge, particularly with careful coaching.

Partly to aid such work, I have thought to link the current SAT II scoring guide and sample essays from the College Board. How the new SAT guide will look I don't know, but it will probably be similar. Beyond grammatical correctness, the key is mostly substantive development, marking the truth of E. B. White's dictum: "Facts have an eloquence all their own."