Describes the difficulties in assessing writing improvement in high school students based on national reports. Discovers that students' fluency, their use of dialogue, and their ease in moving between the abstract and the concrete is increasing. Suggests the resources of the National Assessment of Educational Progress might yield the information…

The author argues that Fagley's and Miller's criticisms of his Contexts Pyramid Model of Classroom Writing Competence (TM 510 548) reflect a misunderstanding of the purposes and the assumptions underlying the model. (BS)

In this electronic age, handwriting seems to have lost its place in America's classrooms. But while today's students do use the computer for many projects, ultimately they need to have legible handwriting--for employment applications, loan applications, formal social correspondence, note taking, and test taking. Here, the authors call for a…

Examines the modes of self-evaluation of writing quality as reported by professional writers, college students, writing instructors, and publishers. Suggests that writer resistance to self-evaluation may be healthy and that such evaluation should not come prematurely. However, without such evaluation, writers gain little from having written. (HTH)

Describes a 1988 article entitled "Composing as a Woman" as an attempt to reconcile feminist inquiry and composition studies and to persuade composition specialists that the feminist view has a bearing on their field. Explains that a study of the relationship between gender and reading produced a new perspective on student papers. (SG)

Describes a classification of organizational patterns for whole essays and a method by which both teachers and researchers may use it to analyze student essays. Reports the results of such an analysis applied to a controlled study of undergraduate writing. (HTH)

While Mosenthal's Context Pyramid Model of Classroom Writing Contexts is a useful framework for guiding research on writing, it is argued that the model is actually a special case of earlier conceptual frameworks for research on memory and cognition by Jenkins and Bransford. (BS)

Presents a systematic strategy for examining topic-related knowledge prior to writing. Discusses a theory-based rationale for the measure, a formalized method for analyzing topic knowledge, and a guide for using the instrument. (JD)

Until experimenters can achieve some measure of control over access to information associated with their writing stimuli and outcome measures, research in composition will have a difficult time providing meaningful information on the unique effects on writing of such things as training programs, ethnicity, previous education, and sex. (HOD)

Reflects on three major issues that confronted researchers conducting a comparative study of achievement in written composition as they attempt to measure performance in writing across many languages and cultures. Concludes that most assessments of writing simply measure perceived drafting quality, which is a highly subjective judgment. (MG)

Reviews a survey of members of the College Section of the National Council of Teachers of English concerning their use of grading scales in the evaluation of freshman writing. Concludes that the theoretical interest in the scales is apparently not matched by their use by teachers. (FL)

Reviews briefly accounting writing skill research, discusses the subject bias prevalent in that research, and relates this weakness to a potential bias toward grammar and syntax in curriculum development. Argues that the user of accounting information is an important but neglected party in the communication process, whose input should be…

Research on the context and process of essay writing demonstrates its utility in developing reflection and self-appraisal. Essay writing teaches students to be evaluative in their writing and in their learning. (SK)

Presents an approach to the reading and responding to students' written texts that moves beyond the separation of experience and writing. Envisions personal and public authority, content and form, people and texts, as inseparable. Utilizes Mikhail Bakhtin's theory of dialogism in forming such an approach. (HB)

Every writing program contains implicit information on the amount of writing that should be assigned, how the essays should be evaluated, the type of grammar--if any--students should study, and the type of composition instruction that will be most effective. Research has not identified an optimal level of writing frequency, and although frequent…