Presents insights that the Oral Proficiency Testing Program of the Foreign Service Institute can give writing teachers and focuses specifically on how these insights can help them to identify and articulate appropriate objectives for basic writing courses and to develop curricula appropriate to those objectives. (EL)

Reviews the Stanford Writing Assessment Program that has three intended uses: district-wide survey of students' writing ability, diagnosis of classroom or district-wide instructional strengths and weaknesses, and staff development through training for administering and scoring of writing samples. Notes that of these uses, none is necessarily best…

Describes the efforts of the Crediton Project, an ongoing research project in Devon, England, to develop an assessment scheme that accounts for cognitive, affective, moral, and stylistic development in children's writing. (DF)

Examines the language of writing groups at fifth, eighth, and eleventh grade levels to determine what students say when they critique one another's work. Analysis of idea units revealed that the highest proportion focused on the content of writing. The rubric for coding ideas is appended. (HOD)

Describes recent research studies in the areas of writing (contexts, status surveys, instruction, processes, text analysis, assessment rhetoric), language (processing, development, interrelationships, language and schooling), literature, and teacher education. (HOD)

This monograph examines the shortcomings of conceptualization and practice in the evaluation of student learning and the uses of evaluation for teachers, principals, district supervisors, and state and national authorities. A new paradigm is proposed for assessing educational potential, effective learning, educational achievements of large…

Describes a small study on student writing errors and generates three guidelines that university professors can follow to improve student writing: vary assignment types, utilize self- and peer grading, and make more use of essay exams. (CRH)

Concludes that structure of topic makes a difference in writing quality, fluency, and total error but not in any error ratio. Suggests that, for placement testing, educators should first decide which types of students they wish to identify, because each topic structure distinguishes low, average, and high ability students differently. Topic…

Argues that holistic scoring, widely used as a reliable method of rating student writing, can be used effectively as a teaching device. Having students evaluate other students' writing helps ease the teacher-student antagonism generated by the necessity of assigning grades and helps reinforce the connection between abstract idea of quality of…

Discusses the use of holistic evaluation, the use of rubrics and checklists, peer evaluation, and small group peer evaluation as means of making writing evaluation effective while keeping the paper load manageable. (FL)

Discusses various informal measures of writing proficiency. (FL)

Educators who teach students to write often teach students to create using the writing process. Students are encouraged to brainstorm topics, write a first draft, revise based on the response from a teacher or fellow student, proofread, and generate a final draft. Teachers maintain that students are often motivated by the use of technology to…

Intended for new and experienced teachers in grades K-8, this book takes readers through a process of thinking about how to put portfolios into action. The book models a process for making decisions about the type of portfolio, what to place in it, how to structure the interactions with it, and how to use it to evaluate student progress and report…

This manual contains a description of the procedures to be used when administering the Nevada fourth- and eighth-grade Proficiency Examinations in Writing, along with detailed instructions to be read to students. Test administrators should make sure that students understand these instructions thoroughly before the testing session so that students…

This paper reports on the preliminary stage of a research project examining the kinds of writing that teachers are required to produce as part of their study when undertaking masters-level courses in education. The paper states that of particular interest is the way in which the particular writing these writing teachers do for these courses…