Thirty-four tests measuring verbal ability, academic achievement, reading skills, attitudes, visual perception, spelling, and word decoding skills were compared for their correlational strengths with grade in a required freshman course in composition. The American College Testing Program (ACT) Assessment English subtest yielded the strongest and…

Hypothesizes that the relationship between L1 and L2 writing is not one of interference, but rather application of L1 to L2 writing. Includes writing samples of first-, second-, and third-grade students enrolled in a bilingual program. (EKN)

Over 2,000 writing samples were collected from four undergraduate institutions and compared, where possible, with scores on a multiple-choice test. High correlations between ratings of the writing samples and multiple-choice test scores were obtained. Samples contributed substantially to the prediction of both college grades and writing…

Contends students evaluating each other's work can help instructors address many higher institutional objectives, especially total quality management of collegiate teaching. Examines student views of a specific peer-review system wherein undergraduates assigned final grades to each other's term papers. Reveals a high degree of comfort with the…

Presents an overview of the variables that contribute to the complexity of English-as-a-Second-Language writing assessment design. (63 references) (Author/CK)

Introduced to aid writing, word processing can cause unexpected problems for those who use it. Describes four studies in which raters gave word-processed essays consistently lower scores than handwritten essays. Reasons for the discrepancies were higher expectations for typed essays, ease of spotting text errors in typed text, and more difficulty…

Describes a continuous school-wide effort begun in 1994 by Nogales High School (Arizona) to improve student writing. Nogales students in 2000 and 2001 scored at or above the state averages on the writing assessment portion of the Arizona Instrument to Measure Standards (AIMS). Advocates involving all teachers from all disciplines in the effort to…

Identifies a set of linguistic/rhetorical measures which were developed to analyze cross-cultural differences in student argumentative/persuasive writing at the same age level. Compares the writing achievement of students from America, England, and New Zealand to test these measures, and contrasts these results with those produced by holistic…

Reports on the satisfaction of college news writing students with a computer program which combines reporting simulation with a writing analysis of the students' news stories. Finds that students rated the computer program significantly ahead of the paper version of the exercise. Suggests providing more detailed feedback in the computer program.…

Identifies four phases in the study of written feedback to students' compositions and reviews research studies that have been conducted on each phase. Topics discussed include the teacher-student stimulus/response relationship, the writing teacher as audience, students' perceptions of teacher feedback, and context and scaffolding in writing…

Describes the experiences of a bilingual kindergarten teacher implementing a whole-language approach. Emphasizes the importance of integrating writing into every activity. Proposes eight developmental writing stages, suggesting that those stages could help teachers and parents to set their expectations to meet children's level of development.…

In a Singapore study of the evaluation of engineering students' writing, engineering lecturers and language lecturers marked scripts differently. Analysis showed that engineering lecturers placed more emphasis on students' understanding of a process rather than their expression of that understanding. (Contains 13 references.) (LB)

Critiques Joy Reid's treatment of the concept of "appropriation" by teachers in their responses to student writing and disputes Reid's analysis of the type of influence exerted by both process- and writer-oriented research. The article also warns against extremes of contrastive rhetoric. A response by Reid is included. (Contains 14 references.)…

Analysis of 72 reports comparing first- (L1) and (L2) second-language writing indicate differences between L1 and L2 writing with regard to composing processing and features of written text. Implications for L2 and L1 writing theory, comparative writing research, and assessment, placement, staffing, and instruction are discussed. (Contains 77…

Examines the implications of process writing and peer review in one class of argumentative writing. Classroom consensus reflected the group's sociocultural organization and discouraged the writing of one marginalized student. The instructor and the powerful students legitimated biased critique and suppressed the less powerful student. (12…