Mounting concern for student achievement in writing has refocused attention on the features of writing assessment necessary to represent a student's skill fairly, usefully and economically. If writing tests are to fulfill their intended function, the writing assignments and evaluative criteria of large scale tests and instruction must interrelate.…

As an initial review of National Assessment of Educational Progress data designed to determine whether the achievement of American youth is improving, a limited examination of changes in levels of achievement during the 1970s is presented. Benchmark assessments established in 1974-75 indicates a large degree of consistency from one learning area…

Peer evaluation was implemented in a college composition seminar to explore its effectiveness. The class of 13 students met once a week, workshop style, for 4 hours. Students wrote short papers (three to five typed pages) every week in an assigned mode (critical analysis, social commentary, familiar essay) but on topics of their own choosing. For…

Drawn from a California conference that brought together writing instructors and researchers, the papers in this compilation address problems in writing, policies affecting both writing instruction and assessment, and possibilities for improving both areas. Papers in the first section of the book represent positions of eight separate entities: (1)…

The effects of aggregation on the reliability of measures of academic performance were explored in two studies. In the first study, 30 elementary-age children were tested four times on the same forms of the Woodcock Reading Mastery Tests and the Ginn 720 Reading Passage measures. Group stability coefficients, within-subject reliability…

Intended for adult education English-as-a-Second Language (ESL) teachers and administrators, this guide provides information for identifying appropriate testing instruments and integrating them into an overall testing and assessment program. Chapter 1 focuses on testing procedures and covers organization of the testing program, test selection,…

To learn more about the kind of learning that occurs when students read and receive response to their writing, a study was designed to develop an analytical system by which to describe the language of writing groups. Nine writing groups were examined, two from grade 5, four from grade 8, and three from grades 10 through 12. The data collected…

A follow-up study of two instruments for evaluating college writing was conducted. The experimental scale (E Scale) was developed in 1976 and revised for this study. The control scale (C Scale) was described in the literature in 1977. Ten English majors graded ten essays from diagnostic entrance exams. Both the E Scale and the C Scale were used,…

Concern over the poor and illegible handwriting of the students in Somalia led to the development of this handwriting manual for primary school teachers to: (1) give teachers guidance in teaching handwriting; (2) help teachers in the methodology of teaching handwriting; (3) let teachers know the easier ways of making cheap and obtainable materials…

Intended for writing instructors and content instructors who require writing in their courses, this document describes a college's writing skills assessment program and reviews the implications of a campus-wide approach to evaluating writing. The paper emphasizes that the scoring of placement and developmental English exit exams is done by the…

A study was conducted to determine whether a significant correlation existed between an essay's letter grade and five important factors of syntactic maturity (clause length, t-unit length, sentence length, clauses per t-unit, and t-units per sentence). A total of 45 essays--15 A, 15 B, and 15 C papers as graded by five junior college English…

This report summarizes six studies that examined the work of the Swedish Free Writing in School (FRIS) project, which followed the language development of 191 elementary school students from different socioeconomic areas over a three-year period. Following a brief description of the project, the report discusses each of the six studies, which deal…

In order to establish competency based entrance requirements for freshman composition, a midwestern university sampled six freshman composition and four basic writing classes for errors in their essay writing. ACT English and social studies scores and several reading scores were also gathered. All this data was computer analyzed by the multiple…

Provides a rationale for content area writing, and suggests ways it can be used for social studies instruction. (JC)

Discusses some of the problems associated with teaching report writing to undergraduate chemical engineering students. Introduces a simplified cribsheet for writing formal reports and describes the Fog Index, which can be used to determine the sophistication of the writing. Includes a checklist for grading report writing. (TW)