Writing Inside the Box

I am not surprised that online marking of examination scripts is causing controversy.

More and more public attention is being given to qualifications at the moment, and there is a drive for them to be more transparent. Not surprising in a world where educational success is so competitive.

But as a result of this attention, the means by which testing and examination are carried out fall under scrutiny. And that means, usually, a focus on 'writing' - a slippery medium asked to do precise work.

Writing Against the Clock

When I was at school I got better at exams after a teacher showed me an extract from an examiners' report which gave some tips on how to 'read' the exam paper and allocate time in advance of writing.

In my experience, successful exam writing depends a lot on time. Preparing for an exam is largely about training writing behaviours to manage time in discrete segments and to resist the urge to enter a discussion. There is not much call for elaboration or questioning, which take time. So a certain open-ended style of writing - and thinking - has to be suppressed.

But the advent of online marking adds a new twist to this. Now managing space is also an issue.

As those who oppose online marking suggest, people who write quickly, or who entertain too many sides of an argument, or who write too much, overspill the 'box' available for the 'answer' and may lose marks, diminishing their so-called 'marking potential'. This is because the exam sheets are scanned, and only what's in the box gets assessed (some exam boards do allow extra sheets to be used, but I wonder for how long).

So the new technology ushers in a certain approved image of the writer in the exam, one who manages time and space in a certain way, and keeps to the box.

Writing and Technology (again)

Writing practices are always shaped partly by the technologies that make them possible, even though written language has an uncanny ability to step outside history and appear transparent, perhaps more so when it is most effective. Isn't it after all through writing that examinations gain part of their aura of being neutral and objective?

When the use of technology changes - as with online marking - this shaping effect becomes more apparent and visible before it becomes new routine. Genres change, or even disappear. So, for example, online marking gives little room for examiners to give annotated feedback on a script. It has to be numbers or nothing. The marginal comment or question disappears.

I recently saw a UK A-level English Literature student script written in a mock exam and marked by the teacher. It was covered in letter and number codes (A3, B4, C6 etc) that referred to the marking criteria, but there was no written feedback at all. I wonder how written comments could reappear in the world of online marking.

So the writing practices of examination are shaped not only by technology, but by the surrounding inter-texts, in this case official lists of marking criteria and codes for assessing writing.

The Jekyll and Hyde of Teaching Writing

I prepare students for quite a few high-stakes exams. They have to not only write a lot but manage time so that all questions are covered. It's about speed, but also the segmentation of time.

The writer has to anticipate the kind of writing markers are looking for, which is not writing as communication but writing as evidence, as measured display.

A lot of the skill comes down to knowing how much to write for a particular question, and when to stop. When to give detail, and when to avoid giving detail. It is about knowing tacitly what is required and using language explicitly to show it.

The writer has to acknowledge a phantom audience but not engage it, and expect only one kind of response in a ritual of display and (dis)approval.

In order to do the job of preparing students well, I have found myself accepting this ritual and trying to simplify the ground rules. My teaching at certain times of the year revolves around the training of exam writing behaviours.

In order to conjure the phantom audience of the exam, and to dispel the myth that doing well in exams is purely about knowing the right things, I find myself increasingly using the official inter-texts - mark schemes, examiners' reports, exemplar scripts - with students in the classroom. These rather boring documents give vital clues as to how successful exam candidates should write, even though they are not always aimed at students.

Consequently, for my students preparing to write in exams becomes manifestly inter-textual.

Rather than being the end product of learning, 'exam writing' becomes a discrete sub-skill of 'writing' itself. Anticipating 'the answer' - and accepting the non-communication ritual of the exam - becomes a strategy for success. It's a kind of anti-learning; but also useful and ultimately rewarded.

It is about learning to write - and think - inside the box.

I find it weird and naggingly paradoxical, though. As real writing online becomes more interactive and collaborative and social, often associated with creativity and thinking outside the box, examined writing goes the opposite way - more closed, ritualised, atomistic.

It is like two views of 'writing' that can't be reconciled, except through the sleepwalking effect of routine.

Teaching writing today means having to wear two faces and go between them. It's a Jekyll and Hyde profession.