Intended for the growing number of composition faculty members involved in training graduate teaching assistants (TAs) and adjunct faculty to teach, as well as new teachers, this book presents essays addressing how best to prepare new teachers to teach writing, and what advice to offer new teachers about particular aspects of teaching writing.…

The objective description and identification of variables that meaningfully distinguish reasoning skills couched in written discourse was studied, comparing scores obtained from different perspectives on the same writing samples. A total of 406 writing samples on 2 topics by 203 students who had taken the Graduate Record Examinations, mostly…

To evaluate the writing ability of Colorado students, a study collected writing samples from third, sixth, ninth, and eleventh grade students in 127 public school districts and 27 private schools during October 7-11, 1985. Samples were scored in a two-day scoring session using two rating procedures--a general impression of writing characteristics,…

In this study comparing peer group conversation with conversation in other settings, five college freshmen were observed and taped in the 12th week of the semester during a group discussion about their own writing. Four types of conversational moves were tallied: structural comments, solicitations, responses, and reactions. Comparison of these…

This paper considers the effect of computer use (word processing) on the compositions written by minority college freshmen in basic writing courses, focusing in particular on differences in composition quality and the kinds of thinking evidenced in the essay, as well as determining whether any differences were gender related. Subjects were 40…

To assess the effectiveness of various composition evaluation methods, a study asked two freshman English classes to respond to three questionnaires on the writing of personal essays and methods of evaluation they had experienced. Responses indicated that all students had a fear of having their essays evaluated. Evaluation methods considered a…

The result of a workshop on the holistic scoring of compositions, this guide is intended to help elementary school teachers evaluate more thoroughly their students' writing. Following an introduction to the handbook's origins, the first section discusses elements of holistic scoring, including procedures for preparation, scoring, and interpreting…

Recognizing that no single evaluation instrument or procedure could provide a genuine measure of teaching effectiveness, the University of Southern Mississippi devised an evaluation system specifically designed for composition that consists of four components: student evaluation, observation of classroom activity, evaluation of a set of marked…

Suitable for grades K-6, the paper presents guidelines for evaluating various levels of writing ability. Also presented are a description of a four-phase writing process model and a list of components necessary for a good writing program. Characteristics of superior, typical, and weak writing are presented on a continuum according to the student's…

The role of sample papers (i.e., anchor papers, prototypes, range-finders) in holistic evaluation of writing is discussed. When, where, and how many sample papers are to be selected, and who should perform the selection are covered. The process of sample selection should proceed as follows: (1) a general reading of papers by committee members to…

A study investigated two questions regarding the validity of holistic writing evaluation: (1) How well do holistic scores predict sentence length, passage length, and spelling errors in grades 3, 6, and 9 narrative and explanatory writing? and (2) Which model best predicts these variables (across grades within type, or within grade within type)?…

The function of basic writing in the university is to teach students whose language practices are most distant from prestige forms to use language in ways which will enable their advancement in college and in the world outside. In composition studies, the awareness that the intelligent activity of students can produce apparently…

A study examined the semantic modifications students made to their texts in a structured revision task. Nineteen grade 6 students revised a book report they had previously written in class. Students: (1) added or deleted information from their texts in specific places identified by the experimenters through semantic frame analyses; (2) judged…

Writers of all ages and abilities come to the act of writing with three critical needs: (1) they need a commitment of time; (2) they need ownership over their topics; and, most important, (3) they need a response to their personal revelations. Sharing and responding to student writing can take place in writers' circles and writers' conferences. In…

The idea-centered freshman composition program at Belmont Abbey College in Belmont, North Carolina, functions not only to meet the immediate needs of freshmen writers, but also to promote the aims of liberal education. The program has three interrelated goals: (1) to engage freshmen writers in "college thinking," defined as giving…