Twenty-four high schools in 18 Georgia school systems were selected to participate in a project to check the potential validity, reliability, usefulness, and costs of several direct and indirect measures of writing: holistic, analytic, primary trait, writing mechanics (error counts), and indirect measures (objective multiple choice items). Another…

Presents an experimental primary trait rubric designed to assess a writer's support for an argument, and structured as an eleven-cell grid on which a rater can plot a student's score. Describes the grid, and its use in a study of 1,892 eleventh-grade essays. Also describes ways to use the grid to teach invention and arrangement. (JG)

Sketches some of the dilemmas in language assessment and presents exemplary practical approaches to assessment in the language arts areas of listening, oral language, reading, and writing. (SD)

Most research conducted on the amount of time English language learners (ELLs) require for the acquisition of academic English suggests that 4-10 years are required to be near or on par with fully proficient English (FEP) peers. In this study, data from three administrations (1999, 2000, and 2001) of the FCAT writing test of the Florida Writing…

Intended for classroom teachers at all levels and for undergraduate students in teacher education programs that included a practicum or field experience, this book provides both a guide and a resource for meeting the needs of readers experiencing difficulty. This fourth edition focuses on providing teachers with techniques for recognizing readers…

The purpose of this study was to compare how learning outcomes are influenced by a number of key student composition (language background, socioeconomic status, ethnicity, and gender) and school context variables on a direct writing performance assessment. The sample was randomly selected from a population of 13,604 third graders in 175 public…

An instructional module designed to help prepare college-level teaching assistants (TAs) for their duties in second language instruction is presented. The module's focus is on second language writing instruction. It first considers the role that writing plays in the teacher's life and the lives of the students, the teacher's attitudes toward…

This document includes the left-hand column ("What All Students Should Know") and the center column ("What All Students Should Be Able To Do") from "Missouri's Framework for Curriculum Development in Communication Arts K-12." Next to these two columns has been added a column which includes assessment notes for those…

This document includes the left-hand column ("What all Students Should Know") and the center column ("What All Students Should Be Able To Do") from "Missouri's Framework for Curriculum Development in Communication Arts K-12." Next to these two columns has been added a column which includes assessment notes for those…

Offers basic guidelines for college teachers in responding to students' writing in the disciplines, with the central principle that teachers' comments should reflect their instructional goals for individual students. Suggests that fewer, more carefully designed comments are likely to be more effective than many unfocused responses. Examples of…

Discusses the lack of clarity in which proficiency in written English was taken into account in the assessment of the academic writing of second-language students at a South African university. Argues that, if universities are to be accountable to their students, the criteria used in the assessment of assignments and examinations should be made…

Discusses three studies: (1) the effectiveness of semantic analyses of written narratives of students with hearing losses in determining language ability; (2) written-language characteristics of writers matched by reading abilities alone and matched by reading ability and age; and (3) written-language characteristics of writers with hearing…

Evaluates the writing of Hispanic students in bilingual and submersion programs, comparing it with the writing of native English speakers in regular programs. Five dependent variables are evaluated: rhetorical effectiveness, overall quality of writing, productivity, syntactic maturity, and error frequency. (46 references) (Author/OD)

Examines the effect of raising university students' awareness of term paper conventions through formal instruction in L2 on producing this genre in the same language or another language (L1). Results indicate that, although formal instruction is important, variations in professors' evaluation of these aspects are the main factor affecting whether…

Discusses writing techniques and assessment methods used in an interdisciplinary writing course. Recommends freewriting, small-group writing assignments, and peer tutoring. Supports assessment by more than one faculty evaluator, peer feedback, and optional versus mandatory rewriting. (CFR)