Supporting Students' Text-Based Evidence Use Via Formative Automated Writing and Revision Assessment

This chapter describes work on developing a classroom-based formative assessment system focused on improving elementary students’ text-based evidence-use in argument writing. The chapter discusses design choices for building such a system, the development of enabling artificial intelligence technologies, and the results of classroom evaluations. The initial version of this system (called eRevise) was organized around a writing construct central to argument writing, namely, evidence use. The current version of the system (called eRevise +RF ) adds formative assessment of a second construct central to writing, namely, revision aligned with feedback. Automated scoring and feedback provided to students for both constructs are based on features aligned with rubrics used in human scoring. System validity is demonstrated via improvement in students' writing across drafts aligned with the feedback students received. Interactive effects between teaching and students' use of such systems in classroom settings are also discussed.