Writing performance objectives
Performance includes process and product

Writing performance objectives sounds like a task to get dancers or musicians ready for recitals. The term, however is usually associated with the crasser pursuit of profits.

I'm going to ignore that unfortunate association because the idea of a writing performance provides a useful framework for thinking about the various elements you and I must consider when we translate our goals for teaching writing into objectives that can be evaluated.

Goals are broad general statements of desired outcomes that cannot be measured. Objectives are specific, concrete statements of desired outcomes that can be measured. You can refresh your memory about the difference between a goal and an objective if you need to.

Before you can start

In theory, you set your goals and then devote yourself to writing performance objectives. I rarely find the two activities so cleanly separated.

As I'm writing performance objectives for one goal, I often get ideas for other goals or for totally unrelated objectives. I suspect the same thing will happen to you. The best thing to do is to make a note of the other idea and move on with the objective you already began. It is better to have one objective complete than a bushel of fragments.

Let's look at how to develop some writing performance objectives from a writing goal.

Steps in writing performance objectives

1. Assess learners

Unless they've had the students before, teachers rarely have any valid measure of what students already know about writing. In some situations, teachers have results of a diagnostic test, but in my experience such tests are more depressing than useful.

If you are teaching in a school that has a significant number of international students or students whose first language isn't English, it's wise to factor them into your assessment of entry level skills and needs.

Although you must have goals for all students to meet, some groups of students may require significant amounts of additional or different instruction than others. I hope it goes without saying that every student will need some individual help from you with something.

2. Set your course within its program

If you teach the third year of a four-year English program, you need to be prepared to do three years' worth of work in that year. Maybe the people in the first two years did a superb job of teaching, but you'd better be prepared to do what they should have done as well as your third year material.

The time you spend in preparing for the worst is nothing compared to the time you'll be forced to spend if you aren't prepared for the worst.

3. Name your ultimate objective

Within the context of teaching writing, you will have goals that will be exhibited in writing. You may have other goals that aren't going to be measured by writing.

For example, you may want students to develop confidence in their abilities as writers. How would you distinguish a student who was confident in her writing ability from one who was not confident?

Thinking about how you'd know you met your goal helps you set objectives that are measurable.

4. Find action verbs for the desired behavior

Objectives must be stated using precise action verbs. An objective like this one I found on a college web site, shows the wrong way to write objectives:

A student should be able to understand, apply, and/or demonstrate conventions of standard American English.

That statement does not tell how the student will demonstrate that s/he understands and can apply conventions of standard American English.

Words such as:

• Understand

• Apply

• Demonstrate

• Show

• Comprehend

may be suitable for a goal statement, but they do not describe a behavior or performance that can be measured. Avoid those terms in your objectives.

When writing objectives, use verbs from Bloom's taxonomy of educational objectives instead.

5. Find intermediate cognitive tasks

Each cognitive task students must master to achieve the goal should be embedded in an objective. For a single writing goal, you may need several writing performance objectives.

Aside: I've numbered the steps in the order most comfortable for me. You may find writing performance objectives is easier for you if you switch steps 4 and 5. Some folks, like me, have to start with the big picture; you may be one of those who builds the big picture from small pieces. Ultimately its more important to have objectives than to produce them a specific way.

Identify what the goal entails

Since I'm one of those folks who starts with the big picture and then figures out the details, I would probably rewrite the goal statement as an writing performance objective first and then figure out what smaller intermediate objectives I'd have to set for people working toward my ultimate objective. (I think "ultimate objective" sounds so much more positive than "terminal objective," don't you?)

You may prefer to do your learning tasks bottom up. If so, you will probably identify a series of small objectives that when combined allow a person to reach the goal. Here's where having a list of the essential terms, concepts, procedures and skills for your discipline comes in handy. You can write objectives that describe the highest level of cognitive skill required to accomplish your goal.