Writing assessments have taken two primary forms in the past two decades: direct and indirect. Irrespective of type, either form needs to be anchored to making decisions in the classroom and predicting performance on high-stakes tests, particularly in a high-stakes environment with serious consequences. In this study, 11th-grade students were…

People are writing as never before--in blogs and text messages and on MySpace and Facebook and Twitter. Teenagers do a good deal of this writing, and in some composing environments--for example, the text-messaging space of a cell phone--they are ahead of adults in their invention of new writing practices and new genres. At the same time, teenagers…

This document presents writing samples that have been annotated to illustrate the criteria required to meet the Common Core State Standards for particular types of writing--argument, informative/explanatory text, and narrative--in a given grade. Each of the samples exhibits at least the level of quality required to meet the Writing standards for…

In North Carolina schools, the grade 10 writing assessment will be given once a year in the spring semester to all 10th-grade students. This change from an English II End-of-Course Test to a grade-specific test emphasizes the need for writing across the curriculum. This document is designed to illustrate correlation between high school courses and…

Intended for English-language arts teachers, principals, curriculum and testing specialists, and superintendents, this handbook assists educators in preparing students for California's writing assessment. The handbook begins with a program overview and a discussion of writing assessment and the curriculum. The handbook then provides high school…

Developed by classroom teachers during the development phase of Minnesota's Graduation Standards, this performance package is made up of locally designed assignments that, taken together, show whether a student has learned and can apply the knowledge and skills related to writing in the English language for a variety of technical purposes,…

This booklet outlines the California state guidelines for writing which assert that students should be carefully taught to read and compose many types of discourse to prepare them for higher education, the job market, and citizenship in democracy. The booklet summarizes the purposes for which the California Assessment Program (CAP) was developed,…

Developed by classroom teachers during the development phase of Minnesota's Graduation Standards, this performance package is made up of locally designed assignments that, taken together, show whether a student has learned and can apply the knowledge and skills related to writing for a variety of academic and technical purposes, situations, and…