Intended for writing instructors and content instructors who require writing in their courses, this document describes a college's writing skills assessment program and reviews the implications of a campus-wide approach to evaluating writing. The paper emphasizes that the scoring of placement and developmental English exit exams is done by the…

A study was conducted to determine whether a significant correlation existed between an essay's letter grade and five important factors of syntactic maturity (clause length, t-unit length, sentence length, clauses per t-unit, and t-units per sentence). A total of 45 essays--15 A, 15 B, and 15 C papers as graded by five junior college English…

This report summarizes six studies that examined the work of the Swedish Free Writing in School (FRIS) project, which followed the language development of 191 elementary school students from different socioeconomic areas over a three-year period. Following a brief description of the project, the report discusses each of the six studies, which deal…

In order to establish competency based entrance requirements for freshman composition, a midwestern university sampled six freshman composition and four basic writing classes for errors in their essay writing. ACT English and social studies scores and several reading scores were also gathered. All this data was computer analyzed by the multiple…

Provides a rationale for content area writing, and suggests ways it can be used for social studies instruction. (JC)

Discusses some of the problems associated with teaching report writing to undergraduate chemical engineering students. Introduces a simplified cribsheet for writing formal reports and describes the Fog Index, which can be used to determine the sophistication of the writing. Includes a checklist for grading report writing. (TW)

Addresses the absence of a diagnostic instrument to help determine if a student is experiencing problems with invention. Provides two diagnostic models, one based on L. Odell's intellectual strategies, the other on the author's extrapolation of criteria from tacit informal diagnostic estimations. Includes evaluation of the instruments by 40…

Argues that the writing program serving second-language writers requires the following: a program and courses that provide and use social context for writing and language development; teachers who know about both writing and language; and assessment that takes into account principles of language acquisition and literacy development. (JK)

Describes the Analytic Writing Exchange (AWE) as a cooperative endeavor by teachers who teach students to score writing papers and provide opportunities for students to exchange and grade papers written by their peers in cooperating schools. Claims students in the program become better writers and score better on state tests.(NH)

Examines several areas about the application of writing across the curriculum principles to the teaching of literature, including the design of informal writing assignments, the handling of the paperload and grading, and the question of allocation of class time. (EL)

Describes research studies that relate to writing instruction, writing processes, language development, literature, and English teacher education. (HOD)

Describes a feedback mechanism devised by a college composition teacher to collect student reaction to his writing assignments and to enable him to help them with their individual writing problems. Explains how the resulting teacher-student relationship approximates that of an editor and a writer. (RBW)

Describes projects using computer programs to help teach the writing process to college students. (MM)

The Illinois Inventory of Educational Progress (IIEP) writing assessment is designed to assess students' knowledge and skills on curricular benchmarks. The Rating Guide for Functional Writing is criterion-referenced. The IIEP is neither mandated by statute nor connected to graduation requirements. Randomly selected students are tested each year.…

Articles in this volume, written in Spanish, focus on the following: reading and writing assessment: Some characteristics of new assessment practices; how to support active participation in the reading of expository texts; argumentative writing as a problem in the written composition of students in teacher training; reading in a workshop…