Zainab Banu Hassan
David Toh Hui Han
Keywords
Geography
Formative Assessment
Written Feedback
Geographical Writing
Introduction
As a discipline, Geography is rooted in the tradition of the humanities, which necessitates extended critical discussion of issues from a geographical lens. In the context of assessment, as well as teaching and learning, writing skills are fundamental for conveying this critical discussion, especially as a performance of understanding by the student. Such written performance is essential, not just as a summative gauge for promotion and accreditation, but also as valuable data that informs the teacher’s pedagogy and provides an indication of the student’s learning. It is no surprise then that the teaching of writing forms an important part of a holistic education, especially in the humanities. It is also a particularly salient issue when geography students cannot write well, and even more aggravatingly, cannot demonstrate their understanding and thoughts about geographical matters effectively through writing. Indeed, the writing skills of students is an ongoing concern, whether at the tertiary level (Cadwallader and Scarboro, 1982; Gambell 1987), or at the secondary and pre-tertiary levels.
Thompson et.al (2005) and Dummer et. al. (2008) assert that getting students to be more comfortable with writing regularly within the geography discipline can help students with deep learning (Slinger-Friedman et.al, 2012, pg. 180). Many geography instructors argue that writing as part of classroom learning is crucial for students to learn to think like geographers (Libbee and Young, 1983; Slinger-Friedman and Patterson 2012, cited in Leydon et al., 2014) and writing allows students to explore ideas in-depth (Slinger-Friedman et.al., 2012).
suhaimi.afandi@nie.edu.sg
