Seeing voices: Assessing writerly stance in the NWP Analytic Writing Continuum

This paper describes the process by which a rubric development team affiliated with the National Writing Project negotiated difficulties and dilemmas concerning an analytic scoring category initially termed Voice and later renamed Stance. Although these labels reference an aspect of student writing that many teachers value, the challenge of defining the construct for assessment purposes remains fraught with difficulty. This account of the category- and rubric-development process and related research includes a rationale for the decision to negotiate these challenges, as well as a description of how category-definition and score-point language were formulated and progressively refined across an initial and subsequent year of rubric use, evaluation, and revision.

Research highlights► This paper describes the development of an analytic rubric including Voice/Stance. ► The rubric refinement process was guided by mixed-methods research across two years. ► Rubric- and scorer-training revisions resulted in closer attention to text. ► The rubric was designed for accountability and instructional improvement purposes. ► Voice/Stance remains important to writing teachers but difficult to assess.