In the introduction of "Performing Live", Richard Shusterman challenges the reader to decide of the book, "Do its diverse texts manifest an individual style, or at least a reasonably consistent one?" In reflecting on this question, Higgins answers, "Yes." For her, the essays in the book, although written over the course of a decade, do exhibit…

This study investigated student engagement in class discussions in a university-level, literature-based writing class. The research questions were 1) Does multiple-source learning provide a new lens for the observation of reflective teaching and learning practices? 2) Is there evidence that shows that the practices adopted by one teacher actually…

Background: Recent changes in higher education in the UK have led to much discussion about the performance of men and women students with different methods of assessment. Aim: To see whether or not there were differences between the marks awarded to men and women final-year psychology students as a function of the modes of assessment used. Method:…

Educators often have to choose among different types of rating scales to assess second-language (L2) writing performance. There is little research, however, on how different rating scales affect rater performance. This study employed a mixed-method approach to investigate the effects of two different rating scales on EFL essay scores, rating…

In this essay, the author suggests that performance studies--a large and varied body of work that takes the fluidity of self and the relationship between word and action as its central concepts--offers theories and methodologies for writing teachers to use to help students construct discoursal identities. Although the performative screen offers…

Educational administrative practitioners evaluate theories, implement practices, and refine leadership strategies daily. The exploration of the leadership gap between theory and praxis is a quantum undertaking. Leadership from the educational perspective takes many forms and presents many challenges. This document examines leadership from several…

"Teaching for Joy and Justice" is the much-anticipated sequel to Linda Christensen's bestselling, "Reading, Writing, and Rising Up." Christensen is recognized as one of the country's finest teachers. Her latest book shows why. Through story upon story, Christensen demonstrates how she draws on students' lives and the world to teach poetry, essay,…

While today's curriculum is largely driven by standards, many teachers find the lack of specificity in the standards to be confounding and even intimidating. Now this practical book provides middle and high school teachers with explicit guidance on designing specific objectives and developing appropriate formative and summative assessments to…

Within large scale educational assessment agencies in the UK, there has been a shift towards assessors marking digitally scanned copies rather than the original paper scripts that were traditionally used. This project uses extended essay examination scripts to consider whether the mode in which an essay is read potentially influences the…

This report describes the development of grade norms for timed-writing performance in two modes of writing: persuasive and descriptive. These norms are based on objective and automatically computed measures of writing quality in grammar, usage, mechanics, style, vocabulary, organization, and development. These measures are also used in the…

The present reconfiguration of education by neo-liberal forces worldwide is taken as a basis for this essay. Drawing on examples of how this reconfiguration operates on national arenas through decisive and dishonest discourses of commoditisation and privatisation, management and efficiency, education for all and student-centred education, the…

This article presents a written assignment designed to achieve several goals. First, it offers students the chance to identify and examine the "pre-understandings" with which they enter the class, and to consider how these were formed. Once they have been elaborated, these "pre-understandings" inform the instructor and the student about biases and…

This investigation is a case study of peer educators in a community-based teen pregnancy prevention program. Research questions focused on identifying ways in which peer educators differed from other teens and exploring the perceptions of the peer educators about their experience in the program and the ways in which it has affected them. Data were…

Possible integrated and independent tasks were pilot tested for the writing section of a new generation of the TOEFL[R] (Test of English as a Foreign Language[TM]). This study examines the impact of various rating designs and of the number of tasks and raters on the reliability of writing scores based on integrated and independent tasks from the…

The majority of high-stakes tests from elementary school through postsecondary education include the timed impromptu essay as a measure of writing performance. For adolescents with writing disorders, this type of evaluation often presents a significant barrier. The purpose of the current study was twofold. First, we investigated the influence of…