The What Works Clearinghouse (WWC) Practice Guide, "Teaching Secondary Students to Write Effectively," offers educators three specific, evidence-based recommendations that address the challenges of teaching students in grades 6-12 to write effectively. This summary focuses on the third of the three recommendations: Use assessments of…

The think-aloud approach to classroom writing assessment is designed to expand teachers' perspectives on adolescent students as writers and help them integrate instruction and assessment in a timely way. Emphasizing learning over evaluation, it is especially well-suited to revealing students' strengths and helping them overcome common challenges…

The book introduces readers in the often-overlooked math-related fields to the ideas of writing-to-learn (WTL) and writing in the disciplines (WID). It offers a guide to the pedagogy of writing in the mathematical sciences, and gives theoretically grounded means by which writing can be used to help undergraduate students to understand mathematical…

Presents four poems of the "self" (poems that represent authors' perceptions of themselves) by secondary school students. Discusses how to assess such poems and students' development in writing poems like them. (SR)

Describes a successful use of portfolios to assess the development of eleventh grade students' writing skills by inviting self-reflection and encouraging students to assume control over their writing. (KEH)

Explores how a portfolio assessment project in the University of Cape Town's Chemistry Department developed (within staff) new understandings of the role of writing as a vehicle for learning, which resulted in a reexamination of the relationship of the written assignments to the existing curriculum. Discusses challenges of designing assessment…

Describes a way to give word-processed feedback on business communication assignments. Describes some advantages of this mode over both handwritten and audio comments, and identifies limitations of this method. (SR)

Describes how an English teacher used journal writing and how it improved the quality of the other writing his students did. Discusses specific journal writing assignments and details ways to help students maintain their journal writing. (RS)

Presents an evaluation method for written assignments in which students develop an evaluation checklist. (SR)

Describes a dual grading process for business writing assignments, initiated to expose students to collaborative evaluation and to verify instructor evaluation. Maintains that receiving feedback from both teacher and students reinforce students' confidence in the evaluation process while teaching them about audience expectations. (SR)

Describes how short assignments such as peer critiques, progress memos, and practice documents can be fairly assessed by incorporating them in a performance review at the middle and end of the business writing course. Notes that such a review also helps prepare students for the evaluation process they will face and use in the workplace. (SR)

Describes a group activity for writing and evaluating poetry on "pi." Notes that the activity worked well in a high-school geometry class and that the students in the class had fun with it. (RS)

Combining the journal writing process with the concepts of collaboration can produce more focused writing and learning. Through the channel of collaborative situations, such as group journal writing, teachers can capitalize on the benefits achieved from the collaborative process and cultivate thinking and writing skills. A group journal writing…

Describes a system to evaluate writing in which students use extensive marginal notes to comment on their own writing processes. Provides sample notes from a variety of student papers to illustrate the effectiveness of this system in increasing student knowledge and involvement. (KEH)

Describes a strategy designed to encourage critical thinking by assigning students to research and write about complex topics. Argues that the instructor's inclusion of both supporting and challenging end comments can encourage critical thinking. Provides examples of both types of comments. (SG)