Literacy assessment as teacher agency and expertise

Purpose The paper aims to develop a coherent understanding of literacy assessment, one that draws on current conceptualising of assessment generally while accounting for the complexity of literacy and literacy development. It responds to The Foundation for Learning Literacy Touchstone #8, offering a view of assessment as an “eco-system” comprising national, system, school and classroom sites and argues for recognition of the crucial place of teachers’ expertise and professional judgement. Design/methodology/approach The paper reports on action-oriented research in which upper primary teachers worked with an education academic to improve writing pedagogy in their classroom practice. Part of a larger project which took a genre-based, disciplinary literacy approach, the paper focuses on five year five teachers who collaboratively designed and implemented a literature study in each of their classrooms. Data collected included planning documents, exemplar texts, student work samples, teacher reflections and interviews and student interviews. Data were mapped against the teachers’ goals with respect to genre and literary concepts and analysed for key concepts related to current conceptualisations of assessment. Findings The paper offers insights into the interconnection between curriculum, pedagogy and assessment. It demonstrates how the teacher–participants planned for literacy and content and how they drew on formative assessment at different points of the teaching–learning cycle to support students to successfully complete a culminating writing task. In doing so, it demonstrates the expertise of the teachers in weaving together formative and summative assessment as well as the complexity of literacy assessment that cannot be captured entirely in one-shot assessments or diagnostic tests. Such complexity requires the richness possible when curriculum, pedagogy and assessment are aligned, as is evident in the case study. Research limitations/implications The action research approach offers opportunities to develop deep understandings of the site but cannot be generalised to other sites. However, the detail with which we describe the practices means aspects of the study may be recognisable as like those in other sites. Practical implications The paper brings together a range of disparate literacy assessment practices in a coherent and accessible way that policymakers, schools and teachers will find generative. It will be useful for preservice teachers who often witness a range of practices in schools and wonder how they fit together. It also offers a means of communicating with media and other commentators about literacy and literacy assessment in an educative way. Originality/value The paper fulfils an identified need for a coherent approach which brings together the many practices and tools that currently exist in systems, schools and classrooms.