Patrick O.

López Negrón Linguistic Assessment

1. Purpose of assessment: Alternative assessment on reading and writing comprehension in a

multimodal platform
2. Description of test takers: college students from Puerto Rico with an intermediate
proficiency level in English.
3. Tests constructs:
Microskills: Writing
Produce writing at an efficient rate of speed to suit the purpose
Use cohesive devices in written discourse
Macroskills: Writing
Appropriately accomplish the communicative functions of written tests according to form and
purpose
Convey links and connections between events and communicate such relations as main idea,
supporting idea, new information, given information, generalization, and exemplification
Distinguish between literal and implied meanings when writing
Correctly convey culturally specific references in the contest of the written text
Develop and use a battery of strategies, such as accurately assessing the audience’s
interpretation, using prewriting devices, writing with fluency in the first drafts, using paraphrases
and synonyms, soliciting peer and instructor feedback, and using feedback for revising and
editing
Microskills: Reading
Process writing at an efficient rate of speed
Recognize that particular meanings may be expressed in different forms
Macroskills: Reading
Infer context that is not explicit by using background knowledge or schemata
Infer links and connections between events, cause and effect, etc.
Distinguish literal and implied meanings
Topical Knowledge: Information on the Tahrir Square revolution and the role of social media in
it. Who is Wael Ghonim.
4. Objective of test:
Students will write a response to a question posted in a forum similar to Parlio, moderated by the
instructor.
Peers will evaluate the multiple responses and have a dialogue about the alternatives to such,
providing a score and constructive comments to substantiate their decisions.
5. Specifications:
5.1. General description: Students will employ critical thinking to argument on a given topic.
Peers will read and evaluate the student’s response and react to grammar and discourse strategies
at the end of a session.
5.2 General structure: The students will be provided reading material throughout the semester
about different subjects. In this case, social media and its uses to find a mass consensus. The
students will respond to the subject in a forum similar to Parlio. Using a rubric, the students will
evaluate each other and provide a comment, the instructor will have them calibrate their rubrics
and assessments with that of the teacher’s and make sure that they are reading into the post.
5.3 Time allocation: 80 minutes
5.4 Response attributes: The expected response belongs to the academic writing genre/personal
writing and stage 5 reading. The expected performance type is responsive. Students will write a
post that contains the main idea and relevant evidence of the article. The reaction will combine
the information about the situation portrayed in the article and provide a substantiated opinion
and angle. The readers will evaluate these responses using the rubric and will be evaluated
themselves in the precision of their work.
5.5 Sample item/Instructions: Using the rubrics, the students will assign a score to a peer’s
writing and provide a comment that would validate the reasons for the score provided to their
writing.
Total points for writer: 30 see rubric for details.
Total points for reader: 20 points
Total points: 50 points
5.6 Criteria for evaluating the response: Writers will be evaluated with the rubric. Readers will
be evaluated on their rubric work and the precision of their evaluations.
 Not good Ok Good Excellent Score

No new There is new There is new The post is

information is information, information very
provided in but it is poorly and the style informative,
the content of stylized. lends itself for and the style
Information __/10
the post. further lends itself for
reflection. a profound
delivery and
reflection.
The provided The provided The provided The provided
information is information is information is information is
not accompanied accompanied accompanied
substantiated by unreliable by a reliable by a reliable
with informative source that source that
Sources additional link/multimedia does relate to relates to the __/10
material. that does not the topic. topic and
fully relates to provides an
the topic. angle or
developmental
direction.
The post The post The post The post
contains many contains contains a few contains no
grammatical several grammatical grammatical
mistakes such grammatical mistakes, mistakes,
as misspelled mistakes such misspelled misspelled
Writing words and as misspelled words, but words, and __/10
poorly used words, and uses demonstrates a
transitions and poorly used transitions great use of
format. transitions, but well and the transitions and
the format is format is format.
legible. legible.
Total __/30

Comments:
1. Purpose of assessment: Assessment on listening and speaking. Identifying speech patterns
and delivering a speech.
2. Description of test takers: college students from Puerto Rico with an intermediate
proficiency level in English.
3. Tests constructs:
Microskills: Speaking
Produce fluent speech at different rates of delivery
Monitor one’s own oral production and use various strategic devices- pauses, fillers, self-
corrections, backtracking- to enhance the clarity of the message.
Macroskills: Speaking
Convey facial features, kinesics, body language, and other non-verbal cues along with verbal
language.
Develop and use a battery of speaking strategies, such as emphasizing key words, rephrasing,
providing a context for interpreting the meaning of words, appealing for help, and accurately
assessing how well your interlocutor is understanding you.
Microskills: Listening
Process speech at different rates of delivery.
Process speech containing pauses, errors, corrections, and other performance variables.
Macroskills: Listening
Use facial features, kinesics, body language and other non-verbal cues to decipher meaning.
Develop and use a battery of listening strategies, such as detecting key words, guessing the
meaning of words from context, appealing for help, and signaling comprehension or lack thereof.
Topical Knowledge: Watch the TED talk by Wael Ghonim.
Topic: Social Media, Creator or Destroyer?
4. Objective of test:
After watching the TED talk by Wael Ghonim, the students will prepare an oral report and
deliver it to the class while their peers evaluate the student by using a rubric.
5. Specifications:
5.1. General description: Students will employ critical thinking to argument on the given topic
and state whether social media is a Creator or a Destroyer of mass consensus. Peers will listen
and evaluate the student’s oral report and respond to their employment of different delivery
strategies.
5.2 General structure: The students will watch the TED talk by Wael Ghonim and will be asked
to deliver an oral report regarding the topic “Social Media: Creator or Destroyer”. The students
will deliver the oral report and their peers will provide constructive criticism both by voice and
/or written down. The listeners will then be evaluated on their use of the rubrics.
5.3 Time allocation: 15 minutes
5.4 Response attributes: The expected response belongs to the academic. The expected
performance type is extensive. Students will deliver a reaction speech that contains the main idea
of the TED talk and a substantiated personal opinion and angle. The listeners will evaluate these
oral reports using the rubric and will be evaluated themselves in the precision of their work.
5.5 Sample item/Instructions: Using the rubrics, the students will assign a score to a peer’s oral
report and provide a comment that would validate the reasons for the score provided to their
speech.
Total points for speakers: 30 see rubric for details.
Total points for listeners: 20 points
Total points: 50 points
5.6 Criteria for evaluating the response: Speakers will be evaluated with the rubric. Listeners
will be evaluated on their rubric work and the precision of their evaluations.
 Not good Ok Good Excellent Score

Student Student Student’s voice Student’s

stumbles and stumbles on a is clear, but the voice is clear
the speech is few occasions, message is and well-
fragmented. but the rhythmically paced,
Elocution Pronunciation pronunciation unbalanced, the pronunciation __/10
is not clear. and message pronunciation and message
are clear in and main idea are clear as
content words. are well.
understandable.
The provided The provided The provided The provided
information is information is information is information is
not relevant relevant, but relevant, but relevant and
and is biased, biased and the conclusions provides an
Knowledge filled with filled with are ambiguous angle and __/10
vague vague and without an conclusion to
inferences and inferences and angle. the subject
redundancy. ambiguous matter.
conclusions.
The ideas hold The ideas The ideas The ideas
no presented can presented are presented are
connections to be connected connected by a well
each other. but lacks rough connected
Organization cohesive employment of with a good __/10
devices of cohesive use of
speech to devices of cohesive
connect them. speech. devices of
speech.
Total __/30

Comments:
1. Purpose of assessment: Assessment on vocabulary.
2. Description of test takers: college students from Puerto Rico with an intermediate
proficiency level in English.
3. Tests constructs:
Microskills: Writing
Produce an acceptable core of words and use appropriate word order patterns
Express a particular meaning in different grammatical forms
Microskills: Reading
Recognize grammatical word classes, systems, rules, etc.
Recognize that particular meanings may be expressed in different forms
Topical Knowledge: Information on the Tahrir Square revolution and the role of social media in
it. Who is Wael Ghonim.
Topic: Social Media, Creator or Destroyer?
4. Objective of test:
After reading the article about the Tahrir Square revolution, the students will extrapolate on
content words by producing synonyms and filling up the diagrams.
5. Specifications:
5.1. General description: Students will expand their vocabulary knowledge of content words
relevant to the assigned topic: Social media: Creator or Destroyer? They will achieve this by
filling up a diagram with the synonyms of a content word.
5.2 General structure: The students will read the article about the Tahrir Square revolution lead
by Wael Ghonim and will be asked to expand their vocabulary knowledge by filling up a
diagram with synonyms of words that relate to the main content word.
5.3 Time allocation: 60 minutes
5.4 Response attributes: The expected response belongs to the academic genre. Students will
expand their lexical inventory by finding three synonyms for each word that relates to the main
word.
5.5 Sample item/Instructions:
Total points for students: 15 points
5.6 Criteria for evaluating the response: responses are synonyms for the content words.
I. Fill up the following basic radial diagram with the synonyms of the following content
words:

View

People

Opinion

Masses
Belief Estimation

Public Society

Consensus

Accord

Agreement

Solidarity Unity
1. Purpose of assessment: Assessment on grammar.
2. Description of test takers: college students from Puerto Rico with an intermediate
proficiency level in English.
3. Tests constructs:
Microskills: Writing
Use cohesive devices in written discourse
Macroskills: Writing
Convey links and connections between events, and communicate such relations as main idea,
supporting idea, new information, given information, generalization, and exemplification.
Topical Knowledge: Information on the Tahrir Square revolution and the role of social media in
it. Who is Wael Ghonim.
Topic: Social Media, Creator or Destroyer?
4. Objective of test:
After reading the article about the Tahrir Square revolution, the students will fill up a cloze
paragraph with the appropriate lexical items.
5. Specifications:
5.1. General description: Students will fill up a cloze paragraph with content words relevant to
the assigned topic: Social media: Creator or Destroyer?
5.2 General structure: The students will read the article about the Tahrir Square revolution lead
by Wael Ghonim and will be asked to fill up a cloze paragraph with the content words found in
“Social Media: Creator or Destroyer” and employ them in a cohesive manner.
5.3 Time allocation: 60 minutes
5.4 Response attributes: The expected response belongs to the academic. Students will expand
their grammar knowledge by correctly placing the words in the belonging slots of a cloze
paragraph and employing them in a cohesive manner.
Total points for students: 20 points
5.6 Criteria for evaluating the response: responses are correct distribution of the words in the
cloze paragraph
 I. Read the following fragment, paraphrase the words to their correct forms and fill up the
spaces with their corresponding words.
Worldly Affair
Social Media
Rumor
Communication
Discuss

Here is what he concluded about social media today: “First, we don’t know how to deal with
rumors. Rumors that confirm people’s biases are now believed and spread among millions of
people.” Second, “We tend to only communicate with people that we agree with, and thanks to
social media, we can mute, un-follow and block everybody else. Third, online discussions
quickly descend into angry mobs. … It’s as if we forget that the people behind screens are
actually real people and not just avatars.

“And fourth, it became really hard to change our opinions. Because of the speed and brevity of
social media, we are forced to jump to conclusions and write sharp opinions in 140 characters
about complex world affairs. And once we do that, it lives forever on the Internet.”

Fifth, and most crucial, he said, “today, our social media experiences are designed in a way that
favors broadcasting over engagements, posts over discussions, shallow comments over deep
conversations. … It’s as if we agreed that we are here to talk at each other instead of talking with
each other.”
 Appendix A:

Social Media: Destroyer or Creator?

By Thomas L. Friedman
Feb. 3, 2016
Image

Wael Ghonim, center, in Tahrir Square in Cairo in 2011. His anonymous Facebook page
helped start a revolution.CreditDylan Martinez/Reuters

Over the last few years we’ve been treated to a number of “Facebook
revolutions,” from the Arab Spring to Occupy Wall Street to the squares of
Istanbul, Kiev and Hong Kong, all fueled by social media. But once the smoke
cleared, most of these revolutions failed to build any sustainable new political
order, in part because as so many voices got amplified, consensus-building
became impossible.

Question: Does it turn out that social media is better at breaking things than at
making things?

Recently, an important voice answered this question with a big “ yes.” That
voice was Wael Ghonim, the Egyptian Google employee whose anonymous
Facebook page helped to launch the Tahrir Square revolution in early 2011
that toppled President Hosni Mubarak — but then failed to give birth to a true
democratic alternative.

In December, Ghonim, who has since moved to Silicon Valley, posted a TED
talk about what went wrong. It is worth watching and begins like this: “I once
said, ‘If you want to liberate a society, all you need is the Internet.’ I was
wrong. I said those words back in 2011, when a Facebook page I anonymously
created helped spark the Egyptian revolution. The Arab Spring revealed social
media’s greatest potential, but it also exposed its greatest shortcomings. The
same tool that united us to topple dictators eventually tore us apart.”

In the early 2000s, Arabs were flocking to the web, Ghonim explained:
“Thirsty for knowledge, for opportunities, for connecting with the rest of the
people around the globe, we escaped our frustrating political realities and
lived a virtual, alternative life.”

And then in June 2010, he noted, the “Internet changed my life forever. While
browsing Facebook, I saw a photo … of a tortured, dead body of a young
Egyptian guy. His name was Khaled Said. Khaled was a 29-year-old
Alexandrian who was killed by police. I saw myself in his picture. … I
anonymously created a Facebook page and called it ‘We Are All Khaled Said.’
In just three days, the page had over 100,000 people, fellow Egyptians who
shared the same concern.”

Soon Ghonim and his friends used Facebook to crowd-source ideas, and “the
page became the most followed page in the Arab world. … Social media was
crucial for this campaign. It helped a decentralized movement arise. It made
people realize that they were not alone. And it made it impossible for the
regime to stop it.”

Ghonim was eventually tracked down in Cairo by Egyptian security services,

beaten and then held incommunicado for 11 days. But three days after he was
freed, the millions of protesters his Facebook posts helped to galvanize
brought down Mubarak’s regime.

Alas, the euphoria soon faded, said Ghonim, because “we failed to build
consensus, and the political struggle led to intense polarization.” Social media,
he noted, “only amplified” the polarization “by facilitating the spread of
misinformation, rumors, echo chambers and hate speech. The environment
was purely toxic. My online world became a battleground filled with trolls,
lies, hate speech.”

Supporters of the army and the Islamists used social media to smear each
other, while the democratic center, which Ghonim and so many others
occupied, was marginalized. Their revolution was stolen by the Muslim
Brotherhood and, when it failed, by the army, which then arrested many of the
secular youths who first powered the revolution. The army has its own
Facebook page to defend itself.

“It was a moment of defeat,” said Ghonim. “I stayed silent for more than two
years, and I used the time to reflect on everything that happened.”

Here is what he concluded about social media today: “First, we don’t know
how to deal with rumors. Rumors that confirm people’s biases are now
believed and spread among millions of people.” Second, “We tend to only
communicate with people that we agree with, and thanks to social media, we
can mute, un-follow and block everybody else. Third, online discussions
quickly descend into angry mobs. … It’s as if we forget that the people behind
screens are actually real people and not just avatars.

“And fourth, it became really hard to change our opinions. Because of the
speed and brevity of social media, we are forced to jump to conclusions and
write sharp opinions in 140 characters about complex world affairs. And once
we do that, it lives forever on the Internet.”

Fifth, and most crucial, he said, “today, our social media experiences are
designed in a way that favors broadcasting over engagements, posts over
discussions, shallow comments over deep conversations. … It’s as if we agreed
that we are here to talk at each other instead of talking with each other.”

Ghonim has not given up. He and a few friends recently started a
website, Parlio.com, to host intelligent, civil conversations about controversial
and often heated issues, with the aim of narrowing gaps, not widening them. (I
participated in a debate on Parlio and found it engaging and substantive.)

“Five years ago,” concluded Ghonim, “I said, ‘If you want to liberate society, all
you need is the Internet.’ Today I believe if we want to liberate society, we first
need to liberate the Internet.”
Appendix B: