Intended for English-language arts teachers, principals, curriculum and testing specialists, and superintendents, this handbook assists educators in preparing students for California's writing assessment. The handbook begins with a program overview and a discussion of writing assessment and the curriculum. The handbook then provides high school…

This ERIC Digest was adapted from the Association for Childhood Education International's (ACEI) 1991 position paper on standardized testing. Since the publication of "A Nation at Risk" in 1983, standardized testing programs have expanded greatly. Tests may be of pencil-and-paper or performance-oriented varieties. The purposes of tests…

This ERIC/RCS Special Collection contains five ERIC Digests (brief syntheses of the research on a specific topic in contemporary education and nine FAST Bibs (Focused Access to Selected Topics--annotated bibliographies with selected entries from the ERIC database), providing up-to-date information in an accessible format. This collection focuses…

Inspired by the researcher's interest in the subject, but also in response to state-mandated assessment, Virginia Military Institute (VMI) initiated a pilot program to evaluate the portfolio method of teaching writing. Half of VMI's English department used the portfolio approach, while the other half applied other teaching methods. Prior research…

To learn more about the relationship between personality type and the writing skills of college freshmen composition students, a study was conducted to explore the hypothesis that essays written by students who were N (intuitive) preference types would be judged better in overall quality than those written by S (sensing) preference types.…

Intended to help teachers, curriculum directors, school administrators, and school board members follow through on their commitment to teach students how to become better writers, the techniques and resources described in this booklet are arranged into seven chapters. The first chapter examines whether the "writing crisis" is fact or…

The first task of the International Association for the Evaluation of Educational Achievement's International Study of Written Composition was to conceptualize the writing domain by determining the most significant parameters that have to be taken into account in all writing situations. A model was developed that used the level of cognitive…

An Oregon school implemented a program of journal writing in grades 5 to 8 and evaluated its effects upon the language arts curriculum and students' writing ability. Each of the 11 teachers in the project decided the amount of time to allocate to journal writing and the routines to establish, although all followed certain guidelines on…

The 26 articles in this journal issue discuss the use of the computer in the English classroom. Among the topics and applications discussed are (1) computer assisted invention, (2) word processing, (3) overcoming computer anxiety, (4) using computers in technical writing classes, (5) grading student essays by computer, (6) the experiences of an…

As an alternative to using written guidelines to direct peer feedback on student writing, teachers can allow students to use their own language and conversational habits in peer group conversations and then monitor peer feedback while modeling the type that is most conducive to true exchange. To create a collaboratively run writing workshop,…

Peer evaluation of writing, or conferencing, is a helping process in which the teacher or other students receive and respond to the writer's work. It promotes the writer's sense of ownership of the work and thus helps develop writing skills. A writing program that includes peer evaluation, then, is one that provides a setting in which the young…

Historically, the Composition Program at Eastern Washington University (EWU), a comprehensive university in Cheney, WA, required a single essay sample from each composition student as the final exit exam; in practice, a student passed or failed the course based on an in-class argumentative essay, written in three consecutive class periods. Such a…

Intended for students taking the Grade 12 Diploma Examinations in English 30 in Alberta, Canada, this questions booklet contains 80 multiple choice test items based on the nine selections in an accompanying readings booklet. The questions examine the students' skills in: (1) understanding meanings; (2) recalling materials read; (3) understanding…

These four issues of The Quarterly of the National Writing Project cover the calendar year 1989. The January 1989 issue contains the following articles: (1) "The Unteachables" (J. Juska); (2) "Changing the Model" (M. Griffith and others); (3) "Literate Cultures: Multi-Voiced Classrooms" (M. Roemer); (4) "Despite…

The Writing Skills Committee of the New Jersey Department of Education determined that the Eleventh-Grade High School Proficiency Test (HSPT) writing test should be based on contemporary discourse theory that is process oriented and is firmly rooted in real world application of students' skill and knowledge as writers. The committee identified two…