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...determined applied hypermedia-authored narratives of children in second and third grade. Children (n = 60) from four intact classrooms produced hypermedia narratives (text, audio, graphic, and video elements) over a 4-month period in a school-based computer laboratory. Raters (n = 5) with knowledge of the teaching of process writing and use of hypermedia software judged the hypermedia narrative productions. Raters judged all students' (n = 60) hypermedia narrative productions individually without resolving differences through discussion. Two analyses were used to determine reliability: percentages of agreement and Pearson correlations. Percentages of agreement for the WWYR rubric averaged across 10 pairs of raters found high percentages of agreement among raters (.70 for [+ or -] and .99 for [+ or -] 1). Pearson correlations averaged across 10 pairs of raters found acceptable interrater reliability for four of the five subscales. For the five subscales (Theme, Character, Setting, Plot, and Communication), the r values were .59, .55, .49, .50, and .50, respectively. Developmental validity of the WWYR scores was examined with one-way MANOVA to evaluate the WWYR scores of children grouped as low, medium, or high ability based on their Iowa Test of Basic Skills (ITBS) National Percentile Rank for Literacy Skill. Evidence for the developmental validity of the WWYR scores was supported across the three ability groups, F(2, 36) = 2.59, p <. 01. Concurrent validity was examined through correlational analysis between students' mean WWYR score and ITBS score. Scores from the two measures were positively correlated, r = .83, p < .01, providing evidence of the sensitivity of the WWYR assessment to measure the developmental literacy competency of the third-grade students. Results support teachers' use of a validated rubric developed for pen-and-paper-created narratives applied to hypermedia narratives, despite additional visual and audio narrative elements inherent to hypermedia. Implications for literacy teaching and learning with hypermedia address core questions about the similarities and differences between written textual expression and visual and verbally recorded expression. A revised and expanded WWYR rubric is proposed to begin to address these core questions generated by teachers' use of the hypermedia writing environment.
Introduction
The very notion of "writing" is increasingly being transformed by new digital computer technologies in society, homes, businesses, and schools. Today, one's ability to represent thought electronically is more important than ever. The extreme pace of change in society dictates that early childhood educators consider how to facilitate children in learning to express themselves digitally in computer environments in developmentally appropriate ways. This article addresses the curriculum, instruction, and assessment of children's written expression in hypermedia, a computer environment that supports text, audio, video, and graphics. The hypermedia curriculum and instruction are described, and a technical analysis of a proposed assessment is applied and discussed.
Emerging Trends
Prior research has addressed the reliability and validity of a narrative rubric useful for both teaching and learning (value) and large-scale (utility) literacy assessment. As literacy curriculum and instruction continue to transform to include new computer-based learning environments, researchers must correspondingly develop and technically evaluate assessments for the new environments. Hypermedia represents a powerful electronic environment through which literacy expression can be facilitated by the manipulation of text, graphics, audio, and video elements, and this technology and integration are reflected in the new literacy K-12 standards (IRA and NCTE, 2001). The qualities of hypermedia that support higher-level cognitive processes such as synthesis, organization, evaluation, and reflexivity have been well documented (Yang, 1996; Mott, Sumrall, & Hodges, 1997). However, there is a glaring absence of ways to reliably and validly assess students' hypermedia products. To address this absence, a narrative process writing curriculum and instruction environment was merged with hypermedia. These terms are defined as follows:
* Process writing curriculum and instruction: writing using discrete stages (brainstorming, drafting, conferencing, revising, editing, and publishing) administered via "mini-lessons" applied to address the needs of the individual writers in whole-group instruction. See Graves (1983) for a detailed description.
* Hypermedia: Hypermedia comprises two main components: (1) hyper: the ability to program electronic links, or hyperconnections, to connect information to any other Internet-based source or simply to link locally to a hard drive or diskette, and (2) media: the ability to manipulate multiple meaning-based symbol systems representing a variety of sources--text, graphics, audio, and video clips.
This article addresses the reliability and developmental and concurrent validity of a previously validated narrative writing rubric, Writing What You Read (WWYR) (Wolf & Gearhart, 1994; Novak, Herman, & Gearhart, 1996), applied to hypermedia narratives created by students in grades 2 and 3 (see Table 1). The technical qualities of the process-oriented classroom rubric, valuable for teaching and learning on a day-to-day basis, are linked to the utility of the narrative rubric for measuring elementary students' literacy competencies as identified via a validated large-scale instrument, the Iowa Test of Basic Skills--Literacy Competency. Thus, five main issues are addressed relating to rater judgments of elementary students' hypermedia narratives (stories with text, graphics, audio, and video elements authored using HyperStudio hypermedia software):
* Reliability of interrater judgments is examined using the WWYR of hypermedia narrative quality.
* Developmental validity of the WWYR scores is examined with one-way MANOVA used to evaluate the WWYR scores of students grouped as low, medium, or high ability based on their Iowa Test of Basic Skills...
NOTE: All illustrations and photos
have been removed from this article.
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