IB Writing Guide (for the Math Studies IA)

Formative Student Work and Formative Assessment

It must be emphasized that students are expected to consult the teacher throughout
the process. The teacher is expected to give appropriate guidance at all stages of
the project by, for example, directing students into more productive routes of
inquiry, making suggestions for suitable sources of information, and providing
advice on the content and clarity of a project in the writing-up stage.

IB Guide, Mathematical Studies (p 37)

This suggests a collaborative process in which the teacher works with the student to

complete each part of the project and compile a finished report. At the same time, the

document indicates that:

It should be made clear to students that all work connected with the project,
including the writing of the project, should be their own.

IB Guide, Mathematical Studies (p 37)

The teacher therefore adopts a supporting role and can help the student to work in what

Vygotsky refers to as the ‘zone of proximal development’ (Vygotsky, 1962; Vygotsky,

1978). This is the range of achievement between what the student can do on his/her own,

and what the student can do with support from others. The teacher offers‘scaffolding’ for

the construction of learning but only the student can do the constructing (Wood et al,

1976). The intention of the teacher must therefore be to set formative tasks and assign

formative assessments at the appropriate level of challenge for the student at a given
time. As the course progresses the requirements for each new assignment will become

increasingly demanding. For a major piece of writing such as the Mathematical Studies

Internal Assessment (IA), the support needed by most students includes: guidelines on the

structure of the student’s investigation, an understanding of the assessment criterion and

guidance in the writing process that results in a final report. The teacher can guide

students by breaking the larger task of completing a major report into smaller elements

that, with teacher guidance, can be synthesized into a complex piece of writing

appropriate for the IB internal assessment.

In this context, appropriate scaffolding has two major aspects, the expected structure of

the finished piece of writing and an understanding of the writing process itself. The ‘IB

Writing Guide’ does this by introducing students to a range of smaller project-based tasks

that prepare them to tackle the final IA in a systematic way. Since this process takes place

over more than one year, it is reasonable to expect significant student learning. In

addition to building student skill, confidence and fluidity with the writing process, the ‘IB

Writing Guide’ builds the student's self-awareness as a writer. Through practice in a

supported context (scaffolding) students should become more confident in redrafting their

own writing in terms of content, awareness of audience and structure.

The Writing Process

It is possible to see writing as a recursive process which carries the writer from initial

conception to publication but contains a number of loops, during which a draft is revised

or expanded. Writing is therefore seen as the result of several distinct skills, which can be
learned. The central idea is that all writing has an audience, serves a purpose, and passes

through some or all of several clear steps (Emig 1971). The number of steps and the

descriptions offered can vary somewhat between theorists, but a fair outline of the

process would be:

Pre-writing
planning,
outlining,
diagramming, clustering, mindmapping
Draft - in prose form
Revision: modification and organization (by the writer)
Editing: proofreading for content (preferably by another writer)
clarity,
conventions,
style
Publication

These steps are not necessarily performed in a prescribed order. For example, prewriting

techniques can be used if the writer is stuck for ideas at any stage in the process.

The ‘IB Writing Guide' employs introduction writing as a planning tool. It provides a

checklist of 9 questions which prompt the student to include relevant information

(http://ibwritingguide.wetpaint.com/page/Writing+the+Introduction). Projects 1, 2 and 3

include 'Introduction' as a focal criterion and it is anticipated that this repeated practice

will make students more adept and confident in pre-planning.

Learners will begin practicing peer assessment and self-assessment before starting Project

1, by participating in mock-grading exercises using the IB assessment criteria, applied to

project reports generated by students in previous years. Formative feedback during

Project 1 will be teacher and student generated and, as part of Project 2, students will
engage in a peer review process in which each draft report will be graded independently

by two peers. Other aspects of the writing process are implicit in the practice of drafting,

posting the draft on the ‘IB Writing Guide' wiki, accepting feedback, redrafting and

publishing.

Growing expectations and changing assessment criteria

As we have already seen, the ‘IB Writing Guide’ uses introduction writing as a critical

part of the pre-writing process. This is practiced early and repetitively. In addition,

projects 1 and 3 invite learners to focus on data collection (Information/Measurement)

while, over the four projects, students focus in turn on Mathematical Processes, Validity,

and Interpretation of Results. In each case, the assessment approximates the actual IB

assessment criteria, though these may be truncated to accommodate the level of student

learning at that point in time. As the process proceeds and student understanding

increases the assessment criteria become systematically more demanding and the full IB

assessment criteria are increasingly employed - where those aspects are the focus of a

particular project. This progression is represented graphically in FIGURE 1. By Project

4, students face a set of demands comparable to the IB internal assessment itself, assessed

by a slightly truncated set of assessment criteria covering 18 out of the 20 points of the

full IB assessment criteria. At this point, the students are well-prepared to write a final IA

with a minimum of teacher support, as they have become more proficient writers.
FIGURE 1 Project 1 Project 2 Project 3 Project 4
0 1 2

0 1 2
Introduction
(2 Marks)
0 1 2

0 1 2

0 1 2 3

Information & 0 1 2 3
Measurement
(3 Marks) 0 1 2 3

0 1 2 3

0 1 2

Mathematical 0 1 2 3
Processes
(5 Marks) 0 1 2 3 4

0 1 2 3 4 5

0 1

Interpretation of 0 1 2
Results
(3 Marks) 0 1 2 3

0 1 2 3

0 1

Validity
0 1
(2 Marks)

0 1 2

Structure & 0 1 2
Communication
(3 Marks) 0 1 2 3
BIBLIOGRAPY

“Diploma Programme Assessment: Principles and Practice” (2004) International

Emig, J (1971) The Composing Processes of Twelfth Graders

“IB Writing Guide”, http://ibwritingguide.wetpaint.com/

Murray, D (2004) Writing to Learn, 8th ed. Wadsworth.

Vygotsky, LS (1962) Thought and language, New York: Wiley.

Vygotsky, LS (1978) Mind and society: The development of higher psychological

Wood, D, Bruner, JS and Ross, G (1976) “The role of tutoring in problem solving”,
Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry, 17: 89–100.