Faculty Development

Writing Narrative Assessments That Matter

About this module

Narrative comments carry weight in MSPEs, residency applications, and promotion decisions. This module teaches faculty to write specific, competency-linked narratives instead of generic praise.

Related LCME elements

Every module states its LCME elements explicitly. Tags link to the SILME standards reference (March 2026 edition); element numbers and titles below are quoted from that data.

Element 9.5 Element 9.4 Element 4.5

Learning objectives

By the end of this module, participants will be able to:

• Write behavior-specific narrative comments
• Link narratives to competencies and EPAs
• Avoid coded language and bias in written assessment

Module outline

1. Why narratives matter: MSPEs and beyond
2. Anatomy of a useful comment: behavior, context, trajectory
3. Common failures: the generic paragraph
4. Bias in narrative language: what the research shows
5. Calibration exercise with sample comments

Discussion prompts

• Audit five recent narratives: how many name a specific behavior?
• What coded phrases appear in your institution's MSPEs?

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