| Direct Writing Assessment Overview |
|
The Direct Writing Assessment (DWA) is a Criterion-Referenced Test
that is designed to assess the writing skills of Utah students
who are enrolled in grades six and nine.
This untimed writing test is an element of the
Utah Performance Assessment System for Students (U-PASS).
It was first administered statewide in the spring of 2002.
The DWA will be administered in grades 6 and 9 fourteen weeks before the last week of school,
in order to return scores before the end of the school year.
|
|
| Test Scoring |
|
The DWA is scored using an analytic rather than a holistic scoring method.
That is, student responses are scored for each of the six writing traits.
The scoring rubric, which is aligned with the Utah Core Curriculum for language arts,
focuses on six components of writing: ideas & content, organization, voice,
word choice, sentence fluency, and conventions.
The responses are scored using an electronic
rather than a paper-based scoring system.
This innovative scoring process, distributed scoring, is web-based on a secure site.
The scorers are employed by Pearson,
which provides professional test scoring services.
|
|