One elementary school writing sample written to cue under a 5-minute time limit was presented to 33 teachers who had been trained to use a holistic and a primary trait writing sample assessment system. Working on the assumption that teachers would recognize mechanical errors on sight, training in mechanical control was limited to orientation…

Supplementary to "NAEP 1996 Trends in Academic Progress," this report describes two aspects of writing for which change has been measured since 1984: writing fluency as determined by holistic scoring; and mastery of the conventions of written English as determined by mechanics scoring. The introduction discusses the layout and means of…

Eighth grade students, in response to a pictorial stimulus (either an intact picture, or a series), were instructed to write either a story (which would be enjoyable for another eighth grader) or a description (which would help another eighth grader visualize the picture). Thirty responses from each of the four task conditions were then analyzed.…