Overview of Writing

Descriptive, Analytical, and Reflective Writing

 A candidate writing style is generally not directly scored in the National Board certification process for the written components (2, 3, and 4).  Candidate writing must be clear enough for the assessors to understand what the candidate writes and can indirectly impact scoring if the assessor cannot understand the candidate's writing.

It is important, however, to understand the difference between descriptive, analytical, and reflective writing.  Candidates often wonder how to respond to the guiding questions in the component instructions.  Reviewing the information about descriptive, analytical, and reflective writing provided by National Board in the General Portfolio Instructions (Links to an external site.) can assist you in answering the guiding questions and providing the information that assessors are seeking to score your work using the scoring rubrics.  Refer to pages 16 - 30 of the General Portfolio Instructions (Links to an external site.) for more information about descriptive, analytical, and reflective writing.

Review this slide deck (Links to an external site.) for more helpful writing hints. 

National Board also provides helpful information about analyzing student work, videotaped segments, and assessment results in pages 39 - 43 of the General Portfolio Instructions (Links to an external site.).