week 14 - Hamp-Lyons

When the author mentioned about the conventional way of scoring, I started to think about the TOEFL test. In the cram school, teachers always provide students with tips about how to receive high scores for the written test. The tips are based on how students' writing would be assessed. I don't really remember every tip they gave me, but i think that they mentioned about the amount of words, paragraphs and transition words (the more the better). How to generate ideas is not mentioned in the classes. I was just wondering if it is beneficial for teachers to list all the assessment criteria. I think the assessment criteria needs to be carefully designed because we do not want to kill students' engagement and creativity with the limitation of rules of writing or how we are going to assess them. What if students just write based on how they will be assessed? I think it is hard and important to think about how to avoid influencing student writing with criteria but at the same time encouraging them to write what the know and what they want to say.