Writing assessment can be used for a variety of purposes, both inside the classroom and outside: supporting student learning, assigning a grade, placing students in appropriate courses, allowing them to exit a course or sequence of courses, certifying proficiency, and evaluating programs. Given the high-stakes nature of many of these assessment…

This study investigates how teachers understand and position AI tools in middle school writing instruction, drawing on 27 teacher interviews collected during a study called Project Topeka that used an interactive argumentative writing platform with AI-generated scores and feedback. Based on the interviews, we generate an initial theoretical…

In this article, I present the results of a national study of response to student writing and argue for an approach to response I call "Responding for Transfer" (RFT). My corpus includes peer and teacher responses to 1,054 rough and final drafts of student writing from across the curriculum as well as 128 student self-reflection essays…

Feedback is powerful but variable. This study investigates which forms of feedback are more predictive of improvement to students' essays, using "Turnitin Feedback Studio"--a computer augmented system to capture teacher and computer-generated feedback comments. The study used a sample of 3,204 high school and university students who…

Drawing on results from a survey distributed nationally through the WPA and WCenter listservs, we examine the affective aspect of failure in teachers' responses to student writing, aiming to pinpoint teachers' perceptions of why students fail. Overall, we posit that writing studies needs to pay closer attention to teachers' emotional responses to…

Much research work on teacher feedback has concentrated on the perceptions of students and teachers on feedback, but few studies have addressed the extent to which students respond to their teachers' written feedback, particularly at the tertiary level. This study analysed the extent to which students made appropriate revisions based on the…

One of the dilemmas that teachers frequently face is grading student papers. As a teacher, the author regularly reads research regarding instructional practices, grading, and assessment, but struggled to translate theory into practice in her own classroom. The intent of this article is to share one method of instructing and grading writing that…

College and university instructors who assess student writing, including but not limited to teachers of first-year composition, sometimes keep the gate. Gatekeeping by writing instructors is an activity directly related to grading practices and, in many cases, to grading practices which emphasize formal, mechanical, usually sentence-level choices…

Education leaders and much literature exhort teachers and school leaders to use data more often and more effectively to guide planning and decision making--called, "data driven decision making." This term is ubiquitous in literature and reform discourse, but "on the ground," so to speak, practitioners face significant challenges in analyzing,…

Describes a correction system that supplements and visually reinforces teacher responses to student papers by utilizing examples from those papers and emphasizing the positive aspects of the assignments. (HOD)

Discusses a "write-back" strategy for use when there is insufficient class time for conferencing with peers or the teacher. Notes that the teacher agrees to respond to students' drafts within 24 hours. Discusses 3 options available to students: (1) write back/respond; (2) edit; and (3) writing back. (RS)

Presents a positive, detailed scheme for evaluating students' papers. Includes an example of student writing with marks from the guide. (HTH)

Discusses a basic news reporting class in which students were graded on how well they graded peer papers. (HOD)

Presents ideas about how to involve students in the evaluation of their own writing, including peer evaluation, self evaluation, and primary-trait scoring. (MM)

Points out the disadvantages of checkmark grading. States that many students will not be able to revise their work with the help of only a few symbols on their papers and that students will set their sights as low as the grading system lets them. (EL)