WPP

The ERB Writing Practice Program provides a direct measure of writing ability by asking for a writing sample from each student. Schools may test their students at five levels: Elementary (grades 3-4); Intermediate (grades 5-6); Middle (grades 7-8); Secondary (grades 9-10), and College Preparatory (grades 11-12). Within each level, students write on the same prompt regardless of grade. The same scoring criteria are employed for each level. Modes of discourse and scoring standards change over the five levels of the Program, keeping pace with the progressively more sophisticated writing skills acquired by students as they move through the grades.

Based on the research of Dr. Ellis Batten Page, essays are scored analytically through a proprietary software program. This program has been in development for over forty years, and has undergone extensive testing and calibrating in order to simulate human scoring. This software accurately and reliably judges essays based on the ERB Rubric criteria, and has been extensively verified to agree with human readers over 90% of the time!

As with the WrAP, the writing prompts are developed by staff working in concert with educators at ERB member schools who are experienced in the teaching and assessment of writing. Each prompt is written to appeal to students coming from a wide range of backgrounds and experiences and to elicit the best writing the students can produce. A different prompt is used for each of the five levels. New prompts are introduced each year.

Different modes of discourse must be employed to develop the essays. The National Council of Teachers of English identifies four modes of discourse (methods of development, or types of writing): Narrative, Descriptive, Expository, and Persuasive. For the ERB Writing Assessment, students are asked to respond to writing prompts that call for essentially the same modes of discourse in a developmental sequence:

Students will have password-protected access to a secure website, available 24/7. They submit on essay online after reviewing their grade specific prompt. They have 60 minutes to complete their essay. Once they have received their scores, they will be directed to any appropriate online tutorials that may help them improve their essay. After reviewing some practice exercises through the tutorials, they may return to their original essay, revise, and resubmit it for new scores, or select a different prompt altogether. Each essay a student submits will be available to teachers through an online portfolio of each student’s work.

Each student’s essay is scored with respect to six different elements on a scale of one (low) to six (high). The six elements are:

OVERALL DEVELOPMENT: how well the writer communicates with the reader, shows awareness of the audience, task, and purpose for writing, and writes in the appropriate mode of discourse.

ORGANIZATION: the writer’s ability to develop a logical plan of organization, maintain coherence throughout the paper, and create paragraphs.

SUPPORT: the use of appropriate reasons, details, and examples to enhance the effect and/or support the generalizations and conclusions of the piece.

SENTENCE STRUCTURE: completeness, correct usage, and variety or sophistication of sentences.

WORD CHOICE: specific vocabulary, freshness and vividness of language.

MECHANICS: the correct and effective use of spelling, punctuation and capitalization.

Scores will appear directly on the screen moments after an essay has been submitted. The student will be able to view a graph indicating the score he or she received in each of the six writing traits. The scores are maintained in an online portfolio, available to the student and the teacher, so that the students’ progress may be monitored.

For ERB member schools, the cost of the program is $12.00 per student for a full year, or $8.00 per student for a half year (January 15-August 1).

For individual parents or home schools, the cost is $75 per student for unlimited access to the automated essay scoring program and tutorials from 9/1/06 to 8/31/07.