Describes how the author developed an approach to teaching writing and to grading student writing that gets students themselves to understand their technical mistakes in using language, but also lets them know the strengths in their writing upon which they can build. Notes that this approach unexpectedly cut down on the time she spent reading and…

Describes a "distant service learning" unit in a first-year composition course in which students wrote for a nonprofit organization in the classroom. Discusses program activities in relation to the first-year composition curriculum, program activities and the nonprofit organization, classroom implementation and assessment (including scoring guide…

Evaluates a three-year pilot project in mainstreaming basic writers at the City University of New York. Suggests that the social and political contexts of a project need to be taken into account in the earliest stages of evaluation. Claims the empirically verifiable account that researchers sought was compromised by the socio-political forces…

Discusses several ways in which tape-recorded responses by the instructor to student writing can benefit commuter students. Discusses how the audio cassette responses are paired with a series of questions on the writing process and how the author shapes his tape-recorded comments. Notes student responses about the advantages of this approach. (SR)

Outlines three forms of electronic portfolio based on a student's work, a class project about a specific topic, and a class seminar on a broad topic. Discusses logistical problems of management, access, and cross-referencing; technical problems of input, access, and copying; and theoretical issues of the lack of realia, of ownership and copyright,…

States that theories of intellectual development offer writing teachers productive ways to analyze student writing; help students develop strategies for improving their writing processes; and consider the implications of writing assignments. Finds that frameworks posited by Jean Piaget and by others contribute useful ways of understanding why…

Presents research that demonstrates how local institutional practices can preclude benefits of portfolio evaluation. Finds that communal portfolio assessment shifts the primary site of authority negotiation for new composition teachers (teaching assistants) from their relationships with students to their relationships with their more experienced…

Describes Apex (Assistant for Preparing Exams), a tool for evaluating student essays based on their content. By comparing an essay and the text of a given course on a semantic basis, the system can measure how well the essay matches the text. Various assessments are presented to the student regarding the topic, outline, and coherence of the essay.…

Considers what high school activities helped prepare students to write papers in college. Discusses how students' responses help teachers to see what students found useful (or not) in their high school preparation. Concludes that students addressed four aspects of their high school writing experience that affected their level of preparation:…

Using FACETS, investigates how judgments of trained teacher raters are biased toward certain types of candidates and certain criteria in assessing Japanese second language writing. Explores the potential for using a modified version of a rating scale for norm-referenced decisions about Japanese second language writing ability. (Author/VWL)

"Developing and Assessing an Online Research Writing Course" discusses how the Writing Program at the University of California at Santa Barbara (UCSB) created a hybrid, online research writing course, Writing 50, and assessed that course. The assessment, which is at the center of this piece, was dovetailed with assessment literature in…

A study determined the effectiveness of using a computer word processor as compared to the traditional paper-and-pencil method for process story writing. Students in a first-grade classroom in the Mark Gardiner Hoyle Elementary School located in Swansea, Massachusetts, were randomly divided into a control group of 12 students and an experimental…

A model-based approach to rater reliability for essays read by multiple readers is presented. Variation of rater severity (between-rater variation) and rater inconsistency (within-rater variation) is considered in the presence of between-examinee variation. An additive variance component model is posited and the method of moments for its…

Keeping writing center records is perhaps the director's most dreaded chore, and it is often seen as a negative duty detracting from the more important business of helping tutors and student clients. However, research data that computers now make almost instantly available reveals surprisingly positive results and ways of presenting those results…

A study was conducted at California's College of the Canyons to determine whether evidence existed of disproportionate impact by age, gender, ethnicity, or disability in placement recommendations made based on the college's writing sample assessment test. The sample consisted of 617 students who took the writing test and writing sample test for…