Formative assessment of writing: a didactic proposal to tackle the students’ writing processes

Abstract

[eng] While the teaching of writing compositions is a specific objective of the English curriculum, how to successfully meet the demands of such a complex task is still an ongoing concern. In this dissertation, this concern has been addressed in three main parts: firstly, a revision of the main writing composition models is presented in order to gain a deeper understanding of the cognitive writing processes and shed light on the main problems that inexperienced writers confront. The revision shows that it is essential to pay attention to the writing processes and not only to the product in order to enhance students competence and performance. Secondly, a didactic proposal in the framework of the English subject in secondary and upper secondary levels of the Spanish school system has been designed. It is theoretically based on the aforementioned models and the communicative approach and it consists of a writing task and three formative assessment tools (a flow chart, a set of cards and a checklist) to intervene in the students’ writing problems before, during and after the writing of compositions. It also includes an analytic rubric for summative assessment. Thirdly, an implementation of the proposal has been carried out with a group of 1st of Bachillerato, with the aim of validating the proposal. In order to learn about the students’ perceptions of the writing assignment and the formative assessment tools, a questionnaire was administered at the end of the implementation. Results reveal a high degree of satisfaction with the material and indicate some possible improvements. From these results can be deduced the need to continue developing teaching materials to tackle the writing processes in accordance with students’ needs and be able to overcome the difficulties derived from the lack of standardized materials.