In March 1977, the New Jersey Board of Higher Education created the New Jersey Basic Skills Assessment Program. To direct the program, the Board created the Basic Skills Council, which was charged with developing a test in reading, writing, and mathematics for all freshmen entering all New Jersey public colleges and universities. The purpose was…

A semester-long high school English course brings local professionals into the classroom to help the teacher introduce students to the language arts skills associated with the working world. The five major areas of the course are composition, career interests, income tax, insurance, and goal setting. The first content area, composition, covers…

The five articles in this journal issue are intended for use by school administrators, and provide information on how to organize effective programs for achieving student writing competency. The first article discusses the development of New York State's Preliminary and Regents Competency Tests in Writing, analyzes sample student responses to one…

The first of three volumes of an integrated course in intermediate Persian is presented. Emphasis is on the "four skills approach," involving speaking, comprehension, reading, and writing. Ideally students completing all the volumes should be able to read most texts of medium difficulty independently using a dictionary, carry on simple free…

This booklet contains selected proceedings of the 1979 conference entitled "Competency Testing and Beyond: Improving Student Writing" held in Albany, New York. Topics covered in the 17 selections are: the "real" world and the teaching of English, what has been learned about competency testing in writing, the composing process, diagnosing student…

THE OBJECTIVES OF THE STUDY WERE--(1) TO DISCOVER VARIATIONS IN LANGUAGE ACHIEVEMENTS OF CHILDREN AT DIFFERENT LEVELS OF MENTAL RETARDATION, (2) TO DISCOVER "OPEN CHANNELS" FOR CURRENT EDUCATION OF THESE CHILDREN, (3) TO CHART THE FREQUENCY OF SPECIFIC DIFFICULTIES IN THE INTAKE AND OUTPUT IDEAS THROUGH LANGUAGE, AND (4) TO IDENTIFY…

Competency testing in New York State began in the nineteenth century, first with a local testing mandate and later with the "preliminary Regents examinations," which were administered at the end of the eighth grade. Optional competency tests were introduced in 1962, and in 1976 the Board of Regents mandated the passing of a series of…

From 1974 through 1978, three methods of assessing Scottish high school students' (O level) English achievement were studied: (1) Ordinary (O level) examinations; (2) assessment of writing skills (folio assessment); and (3) criterion referenced tests developed by the Scottish Council for Research in Education (SCRE) to measure the objectives of…

As one of five modules focusing on writing skills, this module on proofreading, composing, and editing is intended for use in a one-semester course on written communication or as a supplement to other courses where written communication skills are included. Designed for both teacher-directed and individualized learning situations, this module…

This guide provides educators with descriptions of specific techniques for teaching skills in reading, writing, listening, and literature; suggestions for planning a year's work; and models for changing a curriculum in the language arts. Specific topics discussed in the eight sections of the guide are: (1) the process of changing the curriculum;…

Teaching poetry and fiction writing is most effective in classes where the student population is heterogeneous. The experienced writers help the beginners improve and the beginners provide a critical audience for the more advanced writers. Diversity in age and worldliness challenges the creative writing instructor to provide the opportunity for…

A computer-assisted analysis was conducted of the capitalization skills taught in nine series of language arts textbooks. The results indicated that while textbook authors generally agreed on the inclusion of certain basic capitalization skills, significant differences existed with regard to introductory levels, grade-level sequencing, the amount…

Designed to enable special needs students to write resumes and complete application forms with employable accuracy, this set of activities on applying for a job is the fourth unit in a nine-unit secondary level careers course intended to provide handicapped students with the knowledge and tools necessary to succeed in the world of work. Chapter 1…

To investigate differences in the writing processes of novice and expert writers, a test of writing skills was developed that required subjects to write a business letter in defense of a particular system of public transportation in response to a letter objecting to that system. In the first of three experiments, significant differences were found…

This paper provides a brief overview of three direct measures of writing assessment--holistic, analytic, and primary trait scoring--and several variations and combinations of the three. It then relates these measures to eight types of educational decisions: (1) diagnosis of individual learner strengths and weaknesses, (2) student placement, (3)…