This paper reports findings from a project called "The National Panel of Raters" (NPR) that took place within a writing test programme in Norway (2010-2016). A recent research project found individual differences between the raters in the NPR. This paper reports results from an explorative follow up-study where 63 NPR members were…

This chapter will describe the ways wikis can benefit students, teachers, and administrators as well as provide examples of ways they can be used in the language and culture classroom for Virtual Exchange (VE). It will specifically examine how the tool was used for a collaborative research paper and explore how students can think critically to…

This paper describes college students' writing development process during their foreign language classes throughout a semester. Self and peer correction were implemented to promote error awareness along with the use of an error code and error log in a fifth semester class. The results show that both strategies benefited students' writing skills…

By 2013, all 50 states and the District of Columbia had adopted college- and career-ready standards in English language arts and mathematics, placing a greater emphasis on argument writing to prepare students for life after high school. Solving the specific problem of how to help teachers teach to new standards for argument writing as well as the…

Designed for educators actively involved with the teaching of writing, this summary report contains an overview of the background, major findings, and recommendations of the 1979 Manitoba (Canada) Writing Assessment Program. Various sections of the report provide the following information: (1) highlights of the general report of the program; (2)…

Contributes to the knowledge of portfolio systems for writing evaluation by sharing evaluative procedures and their results. Reports on the results of a survey of students evaluated using a portfolio system. Finds that students preferred the portfolio system. (RS)

Designed for educators actively involved with the teaching of writing, this report contains an overview of the procedures and a detailed presentation of the findings and recommendations of the 1979 Manitoba (Canada) Writing Assessment program. Following an introduction, the five major sections of the report provide the following information: (1)…

In July 1992, American College Testing convened a 5-day meeting to set achievement levels in writing for grades 4, 8, and 12 to be recommended for use in reporting the 1992 National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP). Sixty-six panelists (teachers, non-teacher educators, and non-educators) attended the meeting and participated in the…

Every year approximately 1,300 first-year students at the Rochester Institute of Technology complete a 50-minute placement essay during summer and fall orientations. The essays are scored holistically, and the students are placed into one of three levels of an English composition course. At the end of the 10-week quarter of instruction, students…

A study examined the background, methods, and results of the pilot year of Vermont's Writing Assessment program. Students and teachers from 46 Vermont schools were invited to participate in the 1990-91 pilot year of portfolio assessment. Students in grades 4 and 8 chose samples of their best writing from the school year. Each portfolio was…

The New Brunswick Writing Assessment Program implemented in grades five, eight, and eleven in New Brunswick (Canada) public schools in 1978 is described in this report, which includes the specific assignments for each grade, a discussion of the general holistic scoring approach used, and characteristics of the responses at each grade, including…