US 26622 version 5: Write to communicate ideas for a purpose and audience
Updated October 2024 for version 5.
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Naturally occurring evidence (Explanatory Note 2)
Evidence for this standard can come from any activity in the candidate’s everyday life, including formative and summative assessments, so long as the main purpose of those assessments is not the one-off assessment of standard 26622.
Naturally occurring evidence (Explanatory Note 2) attributed to the candidate and ongoing transferable competency against the unit standard as a whole (Explanatory Note 3)
The assessor must be satisfied that the candidate has demonstrated these skills. This means learners must do the writing themselves with no editing by the assessors.
Templates must not be used to guide the learners in their writing.
A form which is filled in does not demonstrate the skills required to achieve this standard.
Sufficient complexity (Explanatory Note 5)
Text of sufficient complexity would include some of the following features, as described by step 4 of the Write to Communicate strand of the Learning Progressions for Adult Literacy on the Literacy and Numeracy for adults website:
- reasonable fluency and coherence
- a clear structure including a logical ordering of ideas
- ideas related and linked within and between paragraphs
- the use of appropriate language for the purpose and audience, including specialised words and phrases
- a variety of sentence types.
Opportunity to revise and edit (Explanatory Note 6)
If a learner has not had the opportunity to plan, compose, revise and edit their writing (e.g. in a science test), that evidence may be used to support an assessment decision of Achieved for 26622, but must not be used to support an assessment decision of Not Achieved.
Level of guidance allowed (Explanatory Note 6)
Learners must be able to revise and edit their writing independently, without specific assistance. It is acceptable for learners to have been given general reminders to check their work for spelling or punctuation errors.
However, texts where specific feedback has been provided on individual errors (for example by circling or marking errors within the text) will not provide valid evidence for this standard.
Use of voice activated software (Explanatory Note 6)
If a learner uses voice activated software or writer assistance as part of their everyday life, learning and/or work, they would be entitled to this special assessment condition for the assessment of 26622.
However, the assessor must be satisfied that the learner has met the requirements of the standard by detailing all words and punctuation used in the written piece.
Write to communicate ideas for a purpose and audience (Outcome 1)
Learners must write to communicate for an audience other than themselves.
There needs to be a sense of this audience in the writing.
Self-reflection or self-expression is acceptable as a purpose, providing the text is written with a sense of audience outside of self.
Organisation of ideas (Evidence Requirement 1.2)
Learners must demonstrate the independent organisation of ideas in their writing, including within continuous and paragraphed text.
The text(s) selected for the portfolio of evidence must show that learners have expressed and organised the ideas themselves.
Short answer questions, writing frames or templates (such as for letters or curriculum vitae) may not allow learners the opportunity to demonstrate sufficient levels of organisation of ideas.
Continuous and paragraphed text (Evidence Requirement 1.2)
In the context of the standard, ‘continuous’ refers to text that develops ideas over a series of linked paragraphs.
Texts that contain a series of paragraphs that are not linked (for example diary entries with a single paragraph for each date) will not meet the requirement for continuous and paragraphed text.
The portfolio as a whole must demonstrate the learner’s independent and conscious use of paragraphing as a means of organising related ideas and increasing the readability of the text for the audience.
This means that all texts in a portfolio should demonstrate the use of paragraphing, if the text requires it.
Technical accuracy (Evidence Requirement 1.4)
Learners must demonstrate the level of technical control of the writing process described by step 4 of the Write to Communicate Learning Progressions for Adult Literacy (in particular, language and text features, spelling and revising, and editing progressions).
Texts with this level of technical control are likely to demonstrate use of:
- basic punctuation to show where sentences begin and end
- complex punctuation where required to assist meaning, e.g. commas in complex sentences or punctuation to indicate direct speech
- verb tense
- subject-verb agreement
- noun-pronoun agreement
- spelling, including more specialised words and words of three or four syllables.