Assessing Writing to Support Learning Turning Accountability Inside Out by Sandra Murphy

"The negative impact of the high-stakes, test-based approach to accountability on writing curriculum and instructional practices has accelerated the need for finding ways to reform and restructure our assessment systems. This book proposes turning accountability inside out to help teachers through the use of formative assessments and assessment as inquiry, and bringing the outside in, by bridging the gap between the writing that people experience in the worlds of school, college and career and the writing that students are asked to do in standardized writing assessments. The book brings together reviews of research on the consequences of high-stakes assessments with scholarship on evolving theories of the nature of writing to propose ways The book provides examples of ways assessments have been designed to include multiple kinds of writing, integrate reading with writing, incorporate dgtl technology, and/or collaborative writing and multi-modal artifacts, from elementary school through college. Addressing the central role that teachers necessarily play in systemic reform, the book provides examples of assessments developed with intensive teacher involvement that support learning and, at the same time, provide information for the evaluation of programs and schools. It concludes by arguing for an ecological approach to assessment in both large-scale and classroom assessments to create a healthy ecosystem that supports all components of the system as well as the relationships among them"--