The REEP Pre and Post Writing Assessment RWA

The REEP Pre and Post Writing Assessment (RWA) Suzanne Grant Director Arlington Education and Employment Program (REEP) Arlington Public Schools, Arlington, Virginia

REEP PRE AND POST WRITING ASSESSMENT • Performance-based writing test • Measure writing gains for adult ESOL learners (SPL 2+/NRS Beginning ESL+) • Consists of: – REEP Writing Rubric (6 levels of performance measured against 5 dimensions: Content & Vocabulary, Development & Organization, Structure, Mechanics, Voice) – Performance Tasks/Prompts, including warmup activities. Scored using the Rubric. – Two forms of the test.

REEP Arlington Education and Employment Program • Adult ESOL Program • Target population: adult immigrants and refugees who live and work in Arlington • Nine levels of instruction • Provide 9, 000 class slots per year in: – Intensive ESOL – Non-intensive ESOL – Family English – Workplace Literacy

The Journey • 1995: Virginia Alternative Assessment Grant: – Need to improve placement of students into 9 levels – Development of REEP Writing Rubric and placement test prompt • 1997 -2002: What Works Literacy Partnership – Purpose: to determine the effectiveness of the REEP Writing Rubric to measure writing – Research and Development of: • timed pre and post-test prompts • warm-up activities • standardized test administration procedures and training • standardized scoring procedures and training

Research Results • A carefully designed and validated instrument with sufficiently high reliability. • Gains can be effectively and reliably measured within a 12 -week period of 100 hours. • Scoring and training procedures lead to high interrater reliability. • Forms A and B are equivalent.

Further studies • 2002: CASAS Study: Comparing REEP Rubric with CASAS Writing Rubric – Strong evidence for the validity of both instruments and that based on the observed correlations, the two assessments are interchangeable. • 2002 -present: Commonwealth of Massachusetts, Department of Education: Adoption of RWA for adult ESOL programs – effectiveness of the instrument in a variety of program settings – additional prompt development • July 2003 - Virginia adopts RWA for adult ESOL programs

Lessons Learned • Home-grown performance-based assessment can: – be an effective instrument for measuring learner gains AND – lead to positive changes within a program • Staff Development • Program Improvement • Students’ Attitude