Guidelines for designing writing prompts: Clarifications, caveats, and cautions

• Published in: Journal of second language writing 1994, Vol.3 (3), p.231-255
• Main Authors: Kroll, Barbara, Reid, Joy
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• ISSN: 1060-3743; 1873-1422
• DOI: 10.1016/1060-3743(94)90018-3

Regardless of the pedagogy of any given writing program, in the academic world, students are frequently evaluated on the basis of writing products they produce in response to various writing topics in a variety of circumstances. In testing situations, the stimulus for the student to respond to is referred to as a prompt. Special consideration should attend the preparation of writing prompts when there is a significant number of test-takers who are nonnative speakers of English. Writing prompts must be carefully prepared by test developers so that the student has the best possible chance to demonstrate accurately his or her true level of writing skills. This article proposes that there are six categories that test developers must consider and control as they develop appropriate prompt items: contextual variables, content variables, linguistic variables, task variables, rhetorical variables, and evaluation variables. Using a variety of examples from topics developed for the Test of Written English (TWE) and for other testing purposes, we show step by step how to distinguish between well-developed prompts and problematic ones by detailed exploration of each of these six variables.