The TOWA is a two-staged, criteria-based assessment of a piece of writing completed under test conditions.
The writing is assessed against the following criteria:
- Thought and ideas (quality of analysis, response and presentation of information or issues); and
- Language: Structure and expression (effectiveness of structure and organisation, clarity of expression, control of language conventions).
There are three described levels of achievement for each criteria.
- In addition, Control of language conventions, a sub-set of language , is further assessed on the following characteristics:
- Paragraphing
- Syntax, grammar, sentence fluency
- Vocabulary
- Spelling conventions
- Punctuation conventions.