This paper investigates the approaches taken to essay writing by five Asian international students at an Australian university. Analysis of their in-depth interviews reveals links between their perceptions of learning, their perceptions of essay writing, their motivation for completing the task, and their awareness of the structural conventions of…

The primary purpose of this study was to investigate the efficacy of formulaic writing such as the five-paragraph theme (FPT) or essay for the purpose of earning high scores on high-stakes writing assessments. This qualitative descriptive study analyzed more than 1000 essays from Delaware Grade 8 and 10 writers, written for a statewide…

Free-response (FR) item formats, such as essay questions, are popular in educational assessment. The criticisms against FR items are that they are more expensive to score, take up more testing time, provide less content coverage, and are less reliable than multiple-choice (MC) items. For these reasons, FR items are often combined with MC items.…

This book presents essays written by school reformers that discuss the reform movement and examine the partnership that inspired the creation of small, intimate school communities known as charters. They also reflect on the comprehensive changes that inform each charter and the personal and collective struggles to institutionalize these new…

The amount of variability contributed to large-scale performance assessment scores by raters is a constant concern for those who wish to use results from these assessments for educational decisions. This study approaches the problem by examining the behaviors of essay scorers who demonstrate different levels of proficiency with a holistic scoring…

When test-takers are offered a choice of essay questions, some questions may be harder than others. If the test includes a common portion taken by all test-takers, an adjustment to the scores is possible. Previously proposed adjustment procedures disregard the test-makers' efforts to create questions of equal difficulty; these procedures tend to…

A study of 24 composition anthologies that reprinted E. B. White's "Once More to the Lake" reveals a number of disturbing assumptions among the editors of these anthologies. Four areas of examinations were concentrated on: (1) classifications of White's essay; (2) thematic categories; (3) suggestions for writing; (4) study apparatuses;…

The utility of schematic maps as tools for the early stages of both peer counseling and self-counseling was explored in two studies. In experiment 1 (self-counseling), 42 students (18 males and 24 females) from undergraduate general psychology classes participated to fill course requirements. Participants were assigned to a schematic map or essay…

Many textbooks in educational measurement and classroom assessment have chapters devoted to specific item formats. There may be attempts to relate one item format to another, but the chapters and item formats are largely seem as distinct entities with only loose and uncertain connections. This paper synthesizes these discussions. An item format…

A short story assignment incorporates creative writing into the syllabus of a freshman composition class, while erasing the misconception that creative writing is something a "regular" student cannot do. Students write a rough draft both of a personal experience essay and of a short story. Based on peer-reviews of both, students choose…

The degree to which process writing deconstructs traditional notions about a fixed final product came to the attention of a high school instructor and her students when they attempted to select their best "essays" for a contest the school was holding. The students in this class found that some of their best writing occurred not in their…

The collaborative student essay invites exploration of various points of view in multiple voices. The co-written essay brings out language's heteroglossic richness, as shown by the students' collaborative writing experiences in a college writing class. Students worked within the frames of two assignments: (1) an analysis of a text or trend; and…

Measuring the effects of computer-managed instruction (CMI) on the teaching of and student writing about literature involves more than having students write and then evaluating their performance. Measurement is made difficult by the fact that the computer technology used in instruction is in a state of flux. Variation of computer technology,…

A five-part computer program helps college students generate essays. Its first part, a list generator, forces students to consider a number of subjects and to select one that is reasonably defined. The second part of the program asks a series of questions to elicit information about the chosen topic and to shape the information into appropriate…

Developed by instructors from the Los Angeles Community College District, this guidebook provides materials to aid community college instructors teaching in a variety of subject areas to integrate writing and student learning in their classrooms. Chapter 1 addresses a number of common concerns that instructors have about using writing in their…