School officials say writing assessments coming Tuesday
At least one group of Warren County residents should get a good night’s sleep and make sure they eat breakfast Tuesday morning, because that’s when Warren County Schools fifth-, eighth- and 11th-grade students will take the annual writing assessment test.
“This is our first accountability test for the year,” said Bobby Cox, director of instruction for Warren County Schools. “We want to make sure parents know that this is an important test.”
The test will be held Feb. 1. Dianna Zadeh, director of testing, said each grade will write a different kind of essay.
“The fifth grade writes a narrative, eighth grade writes an expository, and 11th grade writes a persuasive essay,” Zadeh said, adding that this year there will be an alternative test for certain special education students that meet the criteria.
Students are given a prompt from which they will write their essays, which are graded on a scale of 1 to 6.
“They go in cold and it’s graded like a rough draft, because it is a timed test,” said Zadeh. Teachers use examples of essays to help students see what a 6 essay looks like. Students are not tested based on what they know, but rather how well they organize their thoughts into a cohesive piece of writing.
“Most of these topics are not necessarily knowledge based,” said Zadeh. “They try to make them topics that students know. They try to work with teachers to get topics that are student friendly.”
When grading the tests, the readers take into account several different factors, according to Cox. Each year the standards for grading are reset.
“This year we have two teachers who will be part of that scoring committee,” said Zadeh. “They actually set the standards on which the essays will be scored.”
Tests are sent to North Carolina for grading with the predetermined scale.