In this article, the authors argue that evaluation courses grounded in assessment theory and situated within a cultural context of actual workplace practices enhances student learning. Giving students the tools that assessors, both formal and informal, use helps them learn to anticipate and generate those tools for writing situations they will…

Writing assessment essentially juxtaposes two elements: how "good writing" is to be defined, and how "good measurement" of that writing is to be carried out. The timed test is often used in large-scale L2 writing assessments because it is considered to provide reliable measurement. It is, however, highly inauthentic. One way of enhancing…

o complementary experiments analyzed the acquisition of text content linearization in writing, in French-speaking participants from third to ninth grades. In both experiments, a scrambled text paradigm was used: eleven ideas presented in random order had to be rearranged coherently so as to compose a text. Linearization was analyzed on the basis…

Latent semantic analysis (LSA) is an automated, statistical technique for comparing the semantic similarity of words or documents. In this article, I examine the application of LSA to automated essay scoring. I compare LSA methods to earlier statistical methods for assessing essay quality, and critically review contemporary essay-scoring systems…

Developed and put together by the Department of Humanities at Umpqua Community College (UCC) in Roseburg, Oregon, this booklet is intended to clarify (for students, faculty, staff, advisers, and community) the specific function and scope of the writing courses offered in the department. The booklet offers an overview of the department's general…

This paper deals with the problems that arise in performance assessment from the granularity that results from having a small number of tasks or prompts and raters of responses to these tasks or prompts. Two problems are discussed in detail: (1) achieving a satisfactory degree of reliability; and (2) equating or adjusting for differences of…

Conventional grading is so ubiquitous that it is tempting to see it as inevitable and to feel hopeless about making any changes. It is often not reliable nor does it have clear meaning. Also, it does not give students feedback about what they did well or badly. Even while operating under a conventional grading system, composition teachers can use…

This book presents essays by researchers, practitioners, and policy makers who study the impact of classroom portfolios in the assessment of writing achievement by elementary and middle-grade students. Essays in the book report on a national survey of exemplary projects and presents contributions to a Portfolio Conference held at Stanford…

Designed to provide teachers with ideas and resources that make it possible to nourish and build upon the skills of young writers, this guide deals with effective writing instruction within the elementary school and using the writing process with primary children. The guide addresses issues related to, and provides suggestions for, the teaching of…

Proper placement of students into either remedial writing or Composition I can be crucial to their success in higher education. Using a database of nearly 6,000 students who entered an open admissions community college in Texas, the researchers attempted to discover the best predictor of student success in Composition I. For students who took a…

Due to existing demographic trends, language minority students comprise an increasing proportion of students in the Southwest and in urban areas. For these language minority students, the lack of strong writing skills impedes academic performance at the university level and then later in the workplace. To test writing attitudes, a study involved…

A study (part of the New Zealand Writing Project) investigated how teachers respond effectively to their students' writing. Several related issues were investigated, including whether "good" teachers of writing at various levels differ in approach and techniques used, and which practices bring about improvement at different ages.…

The Computerized Inventory of Developmental Writing Traits (CIDWT) is meant to provide a valid reliable measure of program improvement, particularly for teachers implementing a process writing approach in their classrooms. While standardized tests, portfolio, and holistic scoring all have something to offer, the CIDWT is an inexpensive direct…

This discussion of strategies for improving writing evaluation in a course in English as a Second Language begins with a brief review of relevant research and then offers concrete suggestions for improvement in testing. The suggestions are in the form of five general considerations rather than specific test-writing techniques. They include the…

This handbook is one of a series developed in response to requests to provide schools with additional information concerning the written composition portion of the Texas Assessment of Academic Skills (TAAS). The handbook focuses on grades 3 through 5. Following an introduction, the handbook is in two parts. Part 1 contains general information on…