Many teachers have had a favorable response to their experimentation with digital feedback on students' writing. Students much preferred a simpler system of highlighting and commenting in color. After experimentation the author found that this color-coded system was more effective for them and less time-consuming for her. Of course, any system…

Portfolio assessment has become the predominant best practice in writing assessment at the college level. Despite its clear superiority to previous methods of assessment, portfolio assessment has brought its own collection of challenges. Although the stated goal of much portfolio grading is to create an overall, or holistic, judgment of a…

Composition teachers have generally embraced collaborative learning in the years since Kenneth Bruffee published his first article promoting its advantages in "College English" in 1972. But assigning collaboratively written papers in an introductory college writing course is still rare. This study assesses the benefits and drawbacks of assigning a…

In two-year college writing classrooms and beyond, peer review is one of the most widely used tools for helping students improve their writing. Despite its widespread usage, however, it is one of the most diffuse, inconsistent, and ambiguous practices associated with writing instruction. This essay aims to explore the widely varying terminology…

This case study examines written peer response materials generated by small groups with varying gender compositions. Based on those observations, the author offers several pedagogical implications. She suggests that groups' gender make-up often does influence written feedback provided by group members during peer response sessions. By better…

This article explores the use of scoring rubrics in the context of deteriorating material conditions of writing instruction. The author hopes to offer a consideration of rubrics that enables a revision of rubric designs, in order to facilitate teacher response to student writing, and that offers suggestions for uses of rubrics that account for…

Argues that poststructural literary theory raises concerns about the validity of holistic scoring. Concludes that, in the case of large-scale writing assessment, failure to consider the implications of poststructural theory can result in reliable but hardly valid readings of students' essays. (PRA)

Suggests that a separation of the grammar (form) and ideas (content) in teachers' evaluations of their students' writings on literature must be maintained. (RB)

The approach to teaching composition at Drake University's Writing Workshop involves instructors acting as conversants, readers, fellow writers, and assessors. (MKM)

Reviews the literature in the ERIC system on student evaluation of teacher performance. (RB)

Recognizing that students shudder at revision and see it as a perfunctory task to satisfy only their teachers, the author offers an approach that motivates students to revise thoughtfully without increasing teachers' reading workload. Quite simply, good writing requires less time to read than poor writing. The Numbers Approach to grading can free…

Suggests methods of evaluating compositions which convey to students a positive image of themselves as potentially effective writers. (MKM)

Describes a method for grading composition papers which uses careful marking and individual conferences. Four sample grading grids are appended. (HOD)

Offers a technique to develop the student's ability to critically evaluate another's writing as well as his or her own. (HOD)

Suggests that teachers use a tape recorder, with students resubmitting an erased cassette tape with each composition, for recording responses to written work as an alternative to the less instructive comments written in the margin of a paper. (HTH)