A Common Language and Criteria to Boost Students' Writing

Asked to conjure up an image of writing assessment, many of us picture a teacher sitting alone at her desk with a pile of papers, systematically judging content and mechanics and assigning grades. While this image represents a conventional vision of assessment, we've experienced the development of a scoring system that approaches evaluation of writing as a conversation with the text—one that starts with looking at the writing's strengths—followed by a literal conversation among teachers or between a teacher and student that illuminates student writing. The National Writing Project's Analytic Writing Continuum (AWC) is a valuable catalyst to this kind of collaborative assessment.

The Analytic Writing Continuum is a scoring system envisioned and developed by a team of writing assessment experts and National Writing Project-affiliated teachers who were familiar with writing assessments in multiple states. Because U.S. teachers were somewhat familiar with the 6+1 Traits system developed by Ruth Culham,¹  the National Writing Project received permission to adapt that system in creating the AWC.