Assessment
There are several approaches to writing assessment, but I will discuss only two of the
most commonly used and researched: portfolio assessment and curriculum-based measurement.
Portfolios are purposeful collections of authentic student writing and associated products
accumulated over time to represent a body of work that can help inform teachers’ instruction and
permit students to set meaningful goals for their writing (Au & Valencia, 1997; Valencia & Au,
1997). As such, portfolio assessment is viewed as more valid method for evaluating writing
performance than standardized tests or on-demand direct writing assessments, because it
represents the complexity of the types of writing tasks students perform in the curriculum (e.g.,
Wolf, 1989). Portfolio assessment is a response to the inherent limitations of these other methods
of writing assessment, which have been criticized for evaluating students’ writing capabilities in
a narrow set of genres, requiring students to respond to dry and irrelevant topic prompts, if theyare asked to produce extended written discourse at all, and circumventing the writing process in
the interests of time (Freedman, 1993; Tierney, Carter, & Desai, 1991).