Describes how a seventh-grade teacher was able to devise a final examination that both reflected the goals of his process-oriented writing class and met the requirements of his school board. (ARH)

Presents an excerpt from Essays That Worked, a collection of outstanding essays on applications submitted to some of the top colleges in the country. Admissions officers were interviewed by the two Yale University student authors. Their attitudes towards, and evaluations of applicant essays, are presented. (KS)

Claims that written tests are superior to objective, scan-tron tests in literature, composition, and vocabulary because they require students to think on paper. Describes the following types of in-class written tests and examines the advantages of each: literary essay, topical composition, imitation, brief answer, timed rewrites, and vocabulary…

Based on the idea that the best way to help students write better is to have them write more, this article describes an instructional process called journal freewriting. Shows how freewriting, or writing without planning and without stopping, may be used cooperatively by social studies and English departments to enhance efforts to improve…

A study of writing samples and communications course grades of 477 applicants to a quantitatively based undergraduate school of management revealed that students were generally deficient in writing skills. Specific deficiencies included (1) failure to analyze audience or purpose, (2) lack of content, and (3) lack of organization. (CH)

Examines the CUNY-WAT program and questions many aspects of it, especially the choice and phrasing of topics. (FL)

Tells how to improve in-class essay exams by viewing them as a rough draft of a yet-to-be completed essay on which the teacher will make specific corrections, comments, and suggestions about how to improve it. Describes the grading of such exams and class discussion dealing with all aspects of the essay. (EL)

Discusses the problems of readers' different responses to essay test passages and the implications for the subsequent writing assignment. Describes a model of the writing assessment episode and discusses four generalizations about writing task interpretation. (HTH)

Describes a study of the influence of wording changes in essay questions on test performance. Results did not support the hypothesis that such changes would affect writer performance. (HTH)

Describes an exercise in which students must compare Congreve and Shakespeare and suggests that it is ultimately unfair to the student to remove the quotes from their context and pass judgment on them. (CRH)

Attitudinal data from questionnaires and student written products were used to investigate how students' attitudes relate to their performance on typical test writing tasks. (HOD)

Emphasizes the importance of having students write "artistic" responses to literature, thereby revealing what meaning the literary work has for them. (HOD)

This study examines the relation between essay length and holistic scores assigned to Test of English as a Foreign Language[TM] (TOEFL[R]) essays by e-rater[R], the automated essay scoring system developed by ETS. Results show that an early version of the system, e-rater99, accounted for little variance in human reader scores beyond that which…

In the ever-changing world of education, beginning teachers need resources to turn to as they face new, daily challenges. In a collection of 22 essays, the book's author shares insights and experiences from her first three years of teaching, using humor, honesty, and compassion to cover diverse topics. The essays can make new teachers feel like…

This issue of "Occasional Papers" is filled with stories by and about "strangers"--people of all ages who perceive themselves or have been perceived by others as outsiders either because of who they are, where they have come from, or even how recently they have arrived in this country. Successful educators know that the ability…