Assessing the written narratives of deaf students using the Six-Trait Analytical Scale

In 1992, Kansas began a writing assessment program; the Six-Trait Analytical Scale (Spandel & Stiggins, 1990) was used to assess Kansas students' writing, including students with hearing losses. The authors conducted this investigation to determine if the scale is a reliable, valid instrument for assessing written narratives were students who are deaf(*). Each fall and spring from 1990 to 1994 written narratives were collected from 206 students at the Kansas School for the Deaf; 943 written narratives were collected. Written narratives were scored by trained raters using a 5-point scale for each of six traits: ideas, organization, voice, word choice, sentence fluency, and conventions. The results of this study provided evidence of reliability and validity for the Six-Trait Analytical Scale when evaluating written narratives of students who are deaf. This scale is recommended as a valuable diagnostic instrument and an instructional tool for the process writing approach.