The focus of this chapter is on expressive writing, in which students were given freedom to write inventively, within task guidelines. Characteristics sought included ability to write coherently, to communicate personal feeling, to communicate stories or ideas clearly or even vividly and to follow conventions associated with particular forms of writing (such as poetry or speech bubbles on pictures).
Eleven tasks were identical for year 4 and year 8 students and one was administered only to year 8 students. Five are trend tasks (fully described with data for both 2002 and 2006), two are released tasks (fully described with data for 2006 only) and five are link tasks (to be used again in 2010, so only partially described here). The tasks are presented in that order.
Averaged across 36 task components administered to both year 4 and year 8 students in 2006, 24 percent more year 8 than year 4 students succeeded with these components. Year 8 students performed better on all of the components. Medium proportions of year 4 students and higher proportions of year 8 students followed the task guidelines quite well, but most students were not able to achieve the clarity, richness and personal feeling or humour that distinguished top quality writing.
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Trend analyses showed a substantial improvement since 2002 for year 4 students and a modest improvement for year 8 students. Averaged across 17 task components attempted by year 4 students in both years, eight percent more students succeeded in 2006 than in 2002. Gains occurred on 16 components, with no change on the remaining component. At year 8 level, again with 17 task components included in the analysis, on average five percent more students succeeded with the task components in 2006 than in 2002. Gains occurred on 12 components, with losses on two components and no change on the remaining three components.
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