Considers how the College Essay Program, a long-standing tradition in the North Salem Central School District, helps students prepare a written personal statement essay for needs such as college admission applications. Concludes that college essays are engaging personal statements, difficult to write down, that bring a human dimension to the…

Describes a freshman writing course in which students practiced various forms of writing. Explains that students began by reading both a personal essay (Annie Dillard's "Pilgrim at Tinker Creek") and poems (such as works by William Wordsworth). Notes that students later prepared scientific research papers. Suggests that nature writing…

Investigates the marker-marker reliability of an examination for a third-year degree course in circuit theory. Reports that the coefficient of correlation between markers fell within the range 0.94 to 0.98. (YP)

Given that writing should be an instructional vehicle in almost every curricular subject and that college students should learn to think while reading and writing effectively, what techniques might help a hypothetical history instructor challenge students to learn something new while answering essay questions? This article provides some sample…

Argues that science must not describe behavior by reporting feelings. Gives examples of words that describe the feelings that accompany the following behavior: (1) doing; (2) sensing; (3) changing; (4) wanting; (5) waiting; (6) thinking; and (7) several other attributes of mind. (FMW)

Reviews "Written Language Assessment" (WLA), a new standardized test to evaluate children's and adolescents' written language competence by having students write essays instead of answer multiple choice questions. Finds problems with the WLA in terms of interrater reliability. (RS)

Examines the relationships among an audience analysis task, the number of arguments and appeals used in college students' persuasive papers, the level of strategic adaptation of those arguments, and overall persuasiveness. Finds that giving students information about the audience relative to their paper topics significantly affects each of the…

Study compared the success rates of college students with and without learning disabilities (LD) on an essay exam, investigating the outcome of originally written and transcribed essays. Results suggest that students with LD can potentially achieve academically in college, though their writing performance is inferior to that of non-LD students.…

"Fantasia-Land" is a text composed by a young woman in a secondary school in Dresden that recounts changes in Germany in the past two years. The text is followed by two essays written in response to it by second-semester German students at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. (Author/LB)

Observation of six sections of business law classes to determine whether in-class participation helped students (n=272) improve their scores on take-home essay examinations found that the effects of active participation may depend on students' preparation prior to coming to class and the technical nature of the class. (Author/JOW)

Reports on an examination of a group of "problematical" placement essays that received divergent scores by two holistic readers requiring a third reader. It is noted that the divergence seems to result from the process of reading a text that does not fit the reader's expectations. (eight references) (GLR)

Lexical, syntactic, structural, and semantic analyses were performed on essays written by 100 younger and 100 older adults. Few lexical or syntactic differences appeared. Older adults were less able to use more complex structure and semantics. Educational level and working memory were probably responsible for the differences. (SK)

In "The Invented Indian: Cultural Fictions and Government Policies," pseudo-scholarly essays compiled by anthropologist James A. Clifton attack many recently emerged truths about Native America. Core essays dispute any legitimacy in Indian land claims, efforts toward self-determination, or attempts to publicize what has been done to…

Considers the proper definition and function of essays as topic of English instruction and as preferred mode in which students are assigned writing tasks. Tries to "denaturalize" the essay by thinking about how it has come to occupy such an esteemed position and the meaning of such esteem. (HB)

Explores the relation of essays to canon theory, explains why the only essay canon to be publicly identified in the 20th century is a powerful teaching canon. Shows "where essays live," how they arrive in the teaching canon, and why they stay there. Examines how essays are taught. Looks at the future of the essay canon. (SR)