Addresses the development of written language in learning-disabled adolescents and describes a specific program implemented with 65 mildly learning handicapped secondary school students in El Paso, Texas. (PRA)

Asserts that writing conferences are the heart of teaching writing. Describes use of picture books and writer's circles to improve student reading and writing skills. Reports that students became more confident in analyzing writing genres and more able to write complex narratives. (CFR)

Discusses the National Commission on Testing and Public Policy's critique of current standardized testing on grounds of its inequities and its effects on curriculum. Finds that one kind of alternative assessment that can realign assessment with curriculum is authentic assessment. Focuses on performance assessment. Connects authentic and…

Examines the impact of a pilot project in which undergraduates at Roane State Community College e-mailed drafts of essays to graduate students at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock who returned the drafts through e-mail with comments. Finds that students felt the experience was helpful. Discusses benefits of collaboration between two- and…

Investigates whether training raters to interpret the scoring dimensions on a rubric would increase reliability. Compares two groups of kindergarten and first-grade teachers: one group with training, one without. Finds that training increases raters' abilities to reliably interpret scoring items. (SC)

Offers an account of three "waves" of writing assessment: objective tests, holistic scoring, and portfolios. Scrutinizes these modes of assessment for how they can serve needs beyond the institutional demands of sorting and selecting students, to discover what they can tell educators about writing, teaching, and courses and programs. (SR)

Notes many networked composition classrooms can be considered "transitional;" focus of the classes is neither exclusively on print-oriented skills nor on electronic-literacy skills. Focuses on an instructor's first-year composition courses in a computerized environment. Outlines ways teachers may employ a portfolio pedagogy in networked…

Presents accounts of two teachers using electronic portfolios. Relates how moving peer reviews and explanatory papers from manila folders to electronic portfolios helped students become more aware of peers as audience. Describes the unsettling effect of students who chose to invest their energy in dynamic online dialogs rather than in the…

Reports a year-long study of middle school language arts students. Finds that average students who are instructed in the art of reflective analysis by way of the systematic use of reflective questions and reflective events do, in fact, over time become more aware of the increasingly more sophisticated challenges that writers face. (SR)

Notes impact of high-stakes language arts assessments on teachers in Georgia rural districts. Provides additional support for what many English teachers already believe--that rich classroom discussion, reading from a variety of texts, student-centered writing assignments, and metacognitive awareness of one's reading and writing strategies…

Interviewed teachers from around the world to examine a specific purpose (SP) versus general purpose (GP) distinction in their orientations to the work they do. The difference in orientation was signaled in the criteria the teachers use to assess students' writing. (Author)

Reviews a study examining the influence of rhetorical specification in writing prompts on the writing quality of 7th-, 9th-, and 11th-grade students, and college freshmen. Analyzes the main and interactive effects of topic, purpose, and audience on writing quality. Indicates that students use different kinds of rhetorical information at different…

Examines the response of one high school to three of the explicit aims of the Kentucky writing portfolio assessment. Suggests limitations to the presumed validity of the assessment by revealing some of the intended and unintended consequences of the state's attempt to use the assessment to shape school writing programs, to encourage classroom…

Suggests that when teachers use student self-assessment to learn more about the contexts of student writing, they can respond more effectively. Argues that teachers need to (1) develop and use a variety of context-gathering tools; (2) actively solicit information about the contexts informing the production of student texts; and (3) use this…

Presents conversations with parents, teachers, and children around portfolios that provide a better picture of a child's growth and understanding than standardized test scores ever can. Concludes that the involvement of students, teachers, and parents in conversation about children's literacy development brings the potential of a common vision and…