I TENOR I
2.3 Assessment and Response
The final area of methodology that needs to be investigated is assessment of, and response to, student writing. Genre-based approaches have stressed the necessity of mediating learning by providing scaffolds that open leamers to the 'zone of proximal development' (Vygotsky 1978).
This mediated learning allows leamers to go beyond the boundaries of independent learning. A crucial aspect of mediation/scaffolded learning in the area of writing pedagogy is that of assessment. Zamel (1985) stressed the need for response behaviours that established a collaborative relationship between teacher and student writer; responded to writing as work in progress; focussed on meaning and macro-structure issues first;and gave explicit strategies to writers to help them out of communicative problems. Hyland (1992) argues that the genre approach creates the possibility of constructive assessment as it provides the 'objective criteria for precise and constructive evaluation' (17). These criteria enable teachers to provide positive feedback and strategies for improvement on the basis of an explicit understanding of text requirements.
Macken and Slade (1993) develop a detailed description of genre-based assessment practices and the principles which guide them. They criticise traditional and progressivist assessment practices
for particular shortcomings which they argue genre approaches respond to. Traditional practices are criticised on the basis that they are norm-referenced. Students are marked relative to each other criteria for assessment are unclear, and marks are allocated on the intuitions ofthe teacher., This gives learners little understanding of their shortcomings and how to rectify them. Progressivistassessment practices are seen as inadequate because oftheir decontextualised notion of learning processes. Their emphasis on mental skills and capacities such as reasoning,problem solving and critical thinking divorces 'the context of knowledge ... from considerations of the language processes in which content comes into being' (Macken and Slade 1993: 209). This separation of skills from the language in which they are encoded results in vague criteria focussed on learning skills and processes which do not provide clear guidance in how, for example, the ability to reason is conventionally encoded in characteristic language patterns.
Macken and Slade maintain that in order to be effective, assessment practices need to be linguistically principled, criterion-referenced, diagnostic, formative, and finally summative. This means that assessment needs to be based on explicit criteria against which students' writing and language performance can be evaluated. They argue that systemic functional linguistics offers a model oflanguage that provides a contextualised view oflanguage.Itenables explicit criteria to be developed that are contextually and linguistically informed and provides teachers with the tools to systematically relate purpose and audience to language itself.Elsewhere in this chapter it has been demonstrated how a text is shaped by four environmental/contextual factors, namely, genre, tenor,field and mode which are relevant to the interpretation and production of a text and thus its evaluation. Genres are shaped by the social purposes of their users which, through repetition in a culture, stabilise over time and become conventionalised means of achieving these purposes.
As a result these conventional, socially constructed genres reveal their different purposes in their overall structure.A narrative will be structured differently to an exposition to achieve the different social purposes. The link between the three aspects of register (context of situation) field, tenor and mode and corresponding ideational, interpersonal and textual meanings enables a systematic description of the interaction between text and context. A text can be seen as integrating three kinds ofmeaning in response to three functional and contextual pressures,with genre combining these meanings in ways allowable in a culture. In relation to evaluation, these four contextual dimensions enable teachers to relate the purpose of text to its conventional structural and
linguistic realisations. Teachers can develop guidelines and criteria around the structure ofa genre and the linguistic patterns that are conventionally employed to achieve a particular social purpose.
This is illustrated by Butt et al (1998: 147):
Structural features Grammatical features
Position statement A GOOD TEACHER
A good teacher needs to be Human or non-human participants understanding to all children.
Justification of argument (series He or she must also be fair and Present tense of arguments supported by reasonable. The teacher must
evidence) work at a sensible pace and not Conjunctions showing reasons and one thing after another. The conditions
teacher also needs to speak with a
clear voice so the children can Modality understand.If the childrenhave
worked hard during the week Material, mental and relational there should be some fun processes
activities.
Summary (restatement of position That's what I think a good teacher
recommendation) should be like.
Macken and Slade use the four contextual dimensions to develop explicit criteria for the evaluation of different genres. They transform each aspect of the context into 'probes' which can guide assessment for different writing tasks.
Genre Tenor
Field
Mode
Does the text reveal a clear sense of purpose? Is it well organised into stages?
Does the text construct a consistent reading position for the reader?
How well does the writer exploit the interpersonal resources ofthe grammar in this task?
Does the text project a coherent 'possible world'?
How well does the writer exploit the ideational resources of the grammar in this task?
Is the text cohesive?
How well does the writer exploit the textual resources of the grammar in this task?
(Macken and Slade 1993: 228)
Thesebasic probescan be translated into a fine grainedanalysis ofa particulartext type.Macken and Slade(229)provideanexample for assessing scientificreport writingwhich isadapted below.
Purpose:Classifying and Describing Phenomena
Generic staging:General Classification followed by Description Tenor: Growth of Objectivityin Report Writing
InterpersonalResources: Interactionbetween interlocutors
Non-interactant subjects; generic participants;impersonal.
Non-attitudinal;rather than expressionof personalfeelings.
Non-modalised, untagged declarative .
Field: Moving from Commonsense to Technical Knowledge Ideation al resources: Representationof experience
Information selected from the field - classifying, gradin g,measuring and describing phenom ena.
Clauses - relational ;material.
Lexisoruse oftechnicaltermswhere relevant,buildingup lexicaltaxonomies.
Use of language which extends,enhances and elaborates on the information (clause complex).
Verbal and nominal groups- generalised Events (time) and Participants (reference);
consistentuse of present tense.
Mode: Creatinga Context-Independent Text for the Reader via Text Textualresources:Presentation as text
Constructing itsown context.Referenceinside rather than outside text.
Integratingclauseswithinthe sentence and appropriatepunctuation.
Monologic-topicalthemes;progressionthroughthese.
Thecontextu almodel outlined above provides the tools for effective assessm entpractices. Itis criterion-referenced in that it links the purpose of a text to the conventional structural and linguisti c realisations that areemployed to achievethat purpose.This enables teachers to make clear to learners exactly what is required of them in the production of different texts . It is diagnostic and formative as teachers are able to use the criteria to pinpoint problem areas in learners' writingand provide them with specific strategies to overcometheirdifficulties.Lastly, teachersareable toprovidea clearerrationale for theirfinalsummative assessmen t basedon the established criteri a.I haveusedthisapproach to developself-evaluationquestion sfor first-year universit y students writing academic argument. These are present ed in a preliminary form in
appendix 1.