Our final example of a guided-writing test controls the content of the writing but not necessarily the grammar:
Directions: Write a paragraph of about seventy-five words describing a store or business that you know very well. Base your paragraph on answers to the following questions:
1. what is it called?
When did it start to do business?
How many employees does it have?
What do the employees have to do?
Does it have a lot of customers/clients? Why (not)?
Why do you choose to go there rather than somewhere else?
Is it a good example of what such a store/business should be?
In my neighborhood there is a….
(Note: These illustrations of guided writing have been drawn from a number of recent ESL texts.)
It is one thing to get students to write. It is quite another matter to grade their writing. As mentioned earlier, you need to decide ahead of time what to evaluate: such as the use of complete sentences, agreement of subject and verb, proper inflections (including tense), and basic mechanics. It is good to limit these to only a few criteria. (See dictation and free composition sections for the discussion on grading.)
Alternate Forms of Guided-Writing Tests.
The standard cloze test and the dictation are sometimes also used in a writing class. (See Chapter 3 for a description of the cloze test; the following section discusses dictation.)