The field of composition studies has benefitted from applications of feminist, materialist, postcolonial and similar critical theories to the teaching and study of written texts. In addition, critical theories continue to make a significant impact on the teaching and study of writing and other co-fields of inquiry such as writing center and…

During this decade there have been numerous efforts to identify instructional practices that improve students' writing. These include "Reading Next" (Biancarosa and Snow, 2004), which provided a set of instructional recommendations for improving writing, and "Writing Next" (Graham and Perin, 2007) and "Writing to Read" (Graham and Hebert, 2010),…

This examination of an evaluation of writing based on process rather than on product argues that one of the primary functions of evaluation as a part of teaching should be to diagnose the writing strategies that underlie a writer's current performance, not just textual problems. The first half of the paper discusses the various ways teachers use…

Describes a project in which researchers work with teachers to increase their knowledge of a specific genre of writing and to use the knowledge in response to student work. Finds that few teachers used the feedback response form or scoring rubric provided to them but that teachers used many of the assessment techniques in instructional design and…

Presents a systematic strategy for examining topic-related knowledge prior to writing. Discusses a theory-based rationale for the measure, a formalized method for analyzing topic knowledge, and a guide for using the instrument. (JD)

Examines some of the variables that have been found to affect topic choice and writing performance in writing assessment. (FL)

Examines the questions: (1) What criteria do raters use when making holistic judgments of brief, impromptu essays? and (2) Do raters judge such essays in the same way they think they do? (FL)

Suggests that direct and indirect measures of writing ability tend to tap similar skills. Concludes that educational decisions about competence in writing can be be made by using a combination of direct and indirect means. (FL)

Examines the implications of computerized scoring of placement essays on the theory and practice of writing assessment and writing instruction. Argues that the very feature that makes computerized scoring inexpensive--its universality--undermines its validity. (SR)

Finds main effects for group but not gender. Finds that the combined use of direct and indirect measures appeared most effective in examining the complexities of writing produced by learning-disabled and nonlearning disabled college students. (RS)

Argues that holistic scoring requires evaluators to suppress their interpretive judgment and treat students' writing differently than in any other situation, based on an analysis of videotaped reader-training sessions for an English Proficiency Essay Exam. (NH)

This report presents the results of a battery of sentence combining tasks included in the assessment of writing conducted by the National Assessment of Educational Progress in 1978-79. The first section of the report provides background information about the NAEP survey and discusses the procedures used to develop and score the sentence combining…

Based on the assumption that anxiety is not productive for composition students and that grades are frequently a source of anxiety for those students, a study was conducted to test whether grades and the way they were presented or withheld would create anxiety that would directly affect students' progress in composition. Seventy-four students,…

This book describes a procedure for scoring writing samples with holistic methods and for analyzing the results with methods from primary trait scoring, analytical scoring, and discourse scoring. Following an introduction, the four chapters in the book focus on (1) the selection of topics to be used in a writing assessment, (2) the format for…

Investigates the question of T-unit length stability in informative discourse written by freshmen near the end of an intensive course in college writing. (HOD)