Since its inception in 1979, the Nevada Proficiency Examination Program in Writing has engaged in a systematic effort to raise student writing standards for all Nevada high school graduates, resulting in consistently better writing from our students. What follows is an examination of how writing has improved over the years at the high school level and an explanation of how the institution of state mandated writing assessments at earlier grades has contributed to this growth.

When the writing assessment first began, the papers were rated on a four point scale, with all scores considered passing except for the score of "one." Below, you will find examples of three of the four scores, along with accompanying commentary.

High School Prompt from 1980:

"All members of the family should help with cooking and cleaning."

Sample Student Response from 1980:

"It is only fair that all members of a household should pitch in and help with the cooking and cleaning. In the United States the housewife/mother has been typecast in the role of "eternal maid". Today this should not be so. Women with homes and families are going out and working. Usually this takes the women away from the home for at least three hours a day. The husband also works and the children go to school but everyone should have designated chores so as not to lay the work on an individual. It is not right for one member of a family to clean up after the rest. Everyone should do his or her part."

In the 1980-81 booklet where this sample appeared, it was provided as an example of the score of "four." The text which accompanied the sample read as follows: "This paragraph bases its position on the changed role of women in the United States and makes the point clearly. The paragraph is organized logically and is mechanically competent." In terms of today's rubric, this paper would most probably be rated a four. In simplest terms, this paper which was once scored as superior on the four-point scale would now be considered "adequate."

Part of this change can be explained by the very nature of the prompt itself. As you recall, the prompt instructed the student to "Write a paragraph." By nature, this tended to restrict the response which the student would generate, since the space of a single paragraph does not allow much room for development Today, development of ideas is a key element which holistic scorers are looking for. Under the score of four, on the rubric currently in place, the description of development reads as follows: "Develops ideas in a satisfactory manner with adequate organization and coherence." Given the very nature of responding to the prompt in one paragraph, we can see that extensive development of ideas was just not possible in many cases.

High School Prompt from 1980:

"All members of the family should help with the cooking and cleaning."

Sample Student Response from 1980:

"One reason for helping with the cooking and cleaning is that your mother has less to do. Another reason is the family learns good habits. One more reason is it makes the family feel closer working together. All these are good reasons why the whole family should help with the cooking and cleaning."

In the 1980 scoring where this paper was judged, it received a score of three. The following descriptive comment accompanied the student paper in the sample booklet: "Despite its brevity and lack of development the taut organization, not typical of a 'three' paper, is appealing. More detail and specificity would have resulted in a stronger argument, a higher degree of sophistication, and, quite possibly, in a higher score." In retrospect, the organization of this piece may not appear "taut" at all. I would suggest that a more accurate description of the organizational pattern might be "trite," with its methodical listing of the reasons in favor of the author's argument. Again, this rote organizational pattern may be merely a function of the prompt directions. The author, realizing that he has only a paragraph in which to advance his argument, simply resorts to a listing of the arguments supporting his position. Today, this paper would still probably be judged "adequate," but certainly it would never be considered a five, which is one step below what we would consider the best papers written in the state of Nevada during this particular testing period.

High School Prompt from 1980:

"All members of the family should help with the cooking and cleaning."

Sample Student Response from 1980:

"All members of The family should help with cooking And cleAning. For example, if the members do not help with The Cooking Their won’t be Any food Around And it gives Them some experience in cooking, it Also brings The family closer togeTher. Your members of the family Should help with The cleaning if neighbors stop By they wAnt to see a nice clean house instead of some dump, it Also gives you A fresh feeling. When The house is in nice Condition. Its better to live in A nice cleAn House Than in A dirty house it could be unsAfe heAlth hazzards, So I Think every member of The house shoold help in cooking Or cleAning it gives Them experiense in These two catigories."

When this paper was scored in 1980, it received a score of "two," which in terms of the rubric which was in place at that time was "minimally adequate." The explanation accompanying the sample stated, "Faulty sentence structure and mechanics make this a very marginal paper. Despite these obvious writing problems, the paper is not illiterate." Today, however, this paper would not be scored as passing. Rather, it would probably receive a score of three, which means that it is inadequate to meet today's standards. What this discussion suggests is that no longer is "illiteracy" the hallmark by which we judge writing adequate or inadequate. This certainly indicates that standards have risen in our state over the past decade and a half. Today, we want our students to be above the designation of borderline literacy, and our standards reflect that belief.

By way of contrast, please examine the following student writing samples. They represent the very best of the writing from Nevada high school juniors and seniors in 1993. The difference between what we expected in 1980 and what we expected in 1993 should be clearly apparent. Simply in terms of length, the 1993 samples show a great deal of development that was not present in the samples from 1980. However, there are other substantive differences as well. The writing, for instance, maintains the interest of the reader in a way that we did not see in the early days of the program. Surely these differences must be attributed, at least in part, to the continued emphasis on writing in the curriculum of Nevada's schools.

A-6 Writing Test - Topic A - 1993

High School Prompt from 1993:

"Incoming freshman (or incoming sophomores if your school is a three-year high school) have many things to learn and get used to in high school that are very different from middle school or junior high. Explain some of these differences to a freshman (or sophomore) so that his or her first year in high school will be successful."

Sample Student Response from 1993:

"Of course you’re pleased that you are no longer in piddly junior high. You no longer have to deal with the same old obnoxious students that you have gone to school with for three years, for you're going to high school. You feel so warm and bubbly inside, because everything is going to be simply grand. You'll become (or date)a cheerleader, and you'll be valedictorian. You'll be the most popular guy/gal in the school, if not in the history of the school itself. You can't stop singing 'Everything Is Beautiful', because everything is. Am I right?

"However, you should stop all of this daydreaming and romanticizing about high school life. Trust someone who has been chin deep in it for three years: it's rough. There are tons of things to worry about.

"On the top of the list is the avoidance of bodily injury. That problem has a simple solution: don’t make direct eye contact. It may be construed as a challenge to someone’s prowess, resulting in several broken bones.

"Secondly, there are grades to fret over. You may think you had to worry about grades in junior high, but that was nothing. These marks mean the difference between graduation, college, a good job, and a happy life, or an eternity of working at International House of Grits.

"Lastly, there is a social life. Really, who needs popularity? You do, that’s who. You must carefully choose which organizations you join, which clothes you wear, and which people to associate with. These decisions must be made in the first ten minutes of high school, lest you be branded an anti-social loner pig.

As you can see, high school is not as rosy as you first thought. However, if you play your cards right, you may live through it."

B-6 Writing Test - Topic B - 1993

High School Prompt from 1993:

"Tell about an experience that was important to you that involved money. It might be an experience in which you earn, lost, spent, saved, or were given money. Tell what the experience was AND why the experience was important to you."

Sample Student Response from 1993:

"I have never been good at spending money wisely. I'm too impulsive. If it looks nice, buy it, was my motto. I cannot go to a mall and leave with money in my pocket. This was my basic problem: I felt that leaving a store with money in my pocket was some kind of vilinnous act so as a rule I never did. Instead of just buying what I needed, I would buy extras I did not need, and whatever else caught my eyes. Spending money like this was no problem until my mom decided to change my ways. The day before school began I went to the mall to buy a pair of shoes. The shoes cost ninety dollars, and my mom sent me to the mall with a one hundred dollar bill, and a warning. 'Bring back the ten dollars for gas money , or you will walk to school all next week,' said she. I bought the shoes, but being foolish I also bought a nice shirt for ten dollars, thinking my moms warning was a jest. Upon returning home, I found her warning to be true, and that I would be walking to school the first week. No problem, thought I. How bad can it be? That week I walked hrough mud, dirt, water, gravel, and even through an equine leftover. This ruined my new shoes and was important to me because it taught me to less impulsive."

These examples, you can see, are excellent! They are creative, original and insightful. They surprise us with words and phrases and their twists and turns. Some lines make us laugh, some lines make us sigh with recognition, some lines we might disagree with, but whatever the emotion, we do react. A "six" paper does not mean it is perfect; it means the writer has written a paper that is close to mistake free.

The A-6 example, for instance, shows a writer in nearly complete control. She begins by painting us a mental picture of the idealized high school experience: "You'll become (or date) a cheerleader, and you'll be valedictorian. You will be the most popular guy/gal in the school, if not in the history of school itself." The next paragraph, however provides us with a warning: stop all this "daydreaming and romancing." This sage advice comes from an old hand, someone who has been "chin-deep" in high school life for at least three years. With tongue in cheek throughout, the author warns us of the pitfalls of high school. The organization of the piece is unobtrusive, but certainly effective. Each of the three warning paragraphs contains some wise advice, or more accurately some wise-cracking advice. First, she cautions us about direct eye contact, then about the necessity for outstanding grades which, if not obtained, can lead to "an eternity of working at International House of Grits," and finally the social decisions "which must be made in the first ten minutes of high school, lest you be branded an anti-social loser pig." Truly, all the parts of this piece work together to form an impressive whole: the ideas are creative, and often hysterically funny; the organization is effective and sophisticated; the personality of the writer shines through her words brightly; and the matters of mechanics and grammar are handled with ease. We have a natural writer here; Dave Barry, watch out!

The B-6 example may not be quite as strong overall as the A-6, but it does serve to illustrate that we can expect to find a range of responses within a single score. To phrase it another way, we could say that A-6 is an extremely strong six while B-6 may fall in the lower part of the six range. Clearly, however, this is an excellent writer who has crafted an effective response to the prompt he begins by identifying his major flaw in his ability to handle money matters: "I'm too impulsive." With this organizing idea in mind, he proceeds to relate an anecdote meant to illustrate this impulsiveness. In reading his story of his trip to the mall, we are often delighted by his turn of a phrase: "my mom sent me to the mail with a one hundred dollar bill and a warning" and "I also bought a nice shirt for ten dollars, thinking my mom’s warning was a jest." The author brings home the final irony of his experience in his closing sentence. Because he had no money, he had to walk to school for a week, and as a result, his new shoes were ruined. It is this overriding irony that seems to have curbed his monetary impulsiveness. This is obviously a writer who, although he has grammatical errors in his piece, can organize his thoughts, illustrate them with specific examples, and even demonstrate his understanding of the difficult idea of irony. This is a talented writer, indeed.

At the state level, because of the evidence of great improvement in the writing of high school juniors and seniors and the desire to fulfill the original intent of the Nevada Revised Statute 389.015, Nevada educators and policy makers added a sixth-grade assessment of writing in 1992 which subsequently moved to eighth grade in 1993. This additional test has had a favorable effect upon the writing ability of eleventh graders. The 1996 initial pass rate for juniors, who were not afforded the opportunity to take the eighth-grade writing test, was 82.9% while the 1997 initial pass rate for juniors, who had taken the writing test in 1993-94 school year, was 86.8%. Clearly, this indicates the positive effect which lower-grade writing instruction can provide to students.

Other Indicators of Success

One criticism of performance-based assessment has always been that the scoring is not reliable. However, extensive statistical analysis shows that Nevada's discrepancy rate for holistic scoring runs a little below four percent. In other words, there is less than a four percent chance that two separate readers scoring the same writing sample would award a score different enough from another reader that it would require a third reading. What this means for a student is that there is a very small chance that a student who can write at the proficient level would be deemed not proficient over two or more opportunities to take the test. Therefore, even though there may have been initial doubts about the reliability of state scoring of writing, over time the Nevada Proficiency Exam in Writing has shown exactly the kind of reliability that is required for a high-stakes test.

One of our proudest accomplishments has been the continuation of teacher involvement in the scoring of the state-mandated writing assessment. Because of the level of teacher involvement in the scoring, there is a strong link between writing assessment and the writing curriculum.