Assessing Writing in CS: A Hands-on Workshop

Although many educators acknowledge the importance of written communication in computer science education, there are a number of challenges to using writing assignments in classes. These include assessing writing effectively and efficiently, especially in larger classes. The workshop will consist of a combination of short presentations, hands-on exercises, and discussion of a number of items related to writing assessment: the role of writing in computer science classes and how different types of assessment apply to different types of writing; how clarifying the goals of writing assignments often leads to better assessment; different techniques, such as rubrics, for grading writing; and strategies --- such as peer review and breaking a substantial writing assignment into a sequence of subassignments --- for scaling writing and its assessment to larger classes.