While many people still have questions about whether the standards used to judge the writing portion of the Washington Assessment of Student Learning are a moving target, educators still want to help their students do well on the test. And in some respects, nearly all teachers are writing teachers. The following explanation comes from an OSPI question and answer sheet that talks about where students may have gone wrong. See page 3 for the exact writing prompts. Students who wrote more extensive essays tended to have difficulty organizing their thoughts.
Some students appear to have misread the newspaper prompt.
Instead of writing about something 'funny, interesting, or unusual' that happened at school, they identified an event and tried to explain why it was funny, interesting and unusual. Students had difficulty tying these details together. A number of students adopted a sportscaster's voice telling about a sports event. This led to brief papers with weak organization. Fourth grade students often had difficulty with spelling, even of commonly used words.