GHSWT Score Evaluation
Student Score Report
Georgia law requires that writing assessments be administered to students in grade eleven. The Georgia High School Writing Test must be passed to earn a regular education diploma. Student writing samples are evaluated on an analytic scoring system to provide diagnostic feedback to teachers, students, and parents about individual performance.
Understanding the Student Score Report
The Student Score Report provides two types of information. Overall performance is reported as a scale score ranging from approximately 100 to 350 and as a performance level. Scale scores are related to performance levels as follows: below 200–Does Not Meet the Standard, 200-249–Meets the Standard, 250 and above–Exceeds the Standard. This information appears in the top section of the report, which is labeled “Total Test Performance and Performance Level.” If the paper is not scorable, an explanation is printed instead of a scaled score and performance level. The Student Score Report also describes the student’s performance in four domains or aspects of writing. Two independent raters score each student on a scale of 1-5 in the domains of Ideas, Organization, Style, and Conventions. The final domain score is the average of the two ratings.
Four Domains of Writing
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Domain 1: IDEAS.
The degree to which the writer establishes a controlling idea and elaborates the main points with examples, illustrations, facts, or details that are appropriate to the persuasive genre.
Components:
· Controlling Idea/Focus
· Supporting Ideas
· Relevance of Detail
· Depth of Development
· Awareness of the Persuasive Purpose
· Sense of Completeness |
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Domain 2: ORGANIZATION.
The degree to which the writer’s ideas are arranged in a clear order and the overall structure of the response is consistent with the persuasive genre.
Components:
· Overall Plan
· Introduction/Body/Conclusion
· Sequence of Ideas
· Grouping of Ideas within Paragraphs
· Organizing Strategies Appropriate to Persuasion
· Transitions |
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Domain 3: STYLE.
The degree to which the writer controls language to engage the reader.
Components:
· Word Choice
· Audience Awareness
· Voice
· Sentence Variety |
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Domain 4: CONVENTIONS.
The degree to which the writer demonstrates control of sentence formation, usage, and mechanics. Note: In general, sentence formation and usage are weighted more heavily than mechanics in determining the overall conventions score.
Components:
Sentence Formation Usage Mechanics Elements:
· correctness
· clarity of meaning
· complexity
· end punctuation
· subject-verb agreement
· standard word forms
· verb tenses
· internal punctuation
· spelling
· paragraph breaks
· capitalization |
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