Discusses one teacher's experiences with Kimmie, a Chinese-American first grader with violent tendencies, and how this young girl changed and became manageable, largely through writing and storytelling. Argues that writing may be a means of expression essential to troubled children like Kimmie. (HB)

Criteria that 9 nonnative English-speaking children in grades 2-6 used when evaluating writing are described. Results indicate that the students were critical evaluators, focused on meaning regardless of age and author, were idiosyncratic in the range of criteria used, and were influenced by the pedagogical focus of their…

Relates a classroom teacher's observations of how students, working in pairs consisting of one English-as-a-Second-Language student and one remedial student, help each other to move forward in the writing process. (PRA)

This review of methods for validating writing assessments was conceptualized within a framework suggested by S. Messick (1989) that included five operational components of construct validation: (1) content representativeness; (2) structural fidelity; (3) nomological validity; (4) criterion-related validity; and (5) nomothetic span. (SLD)

Annual evaluation for 5 years of the handwriting of 121 Dutch primary school children revealed that children with dysgraphic handwriting had lower fine motor ability, exhibited poorer structural performance, and, in higher grades, showed less preference for a personal style, than did other writers. Children with and without dysgraphic handwriting…

Advocates providing students more control in the writing assessment process of English classrooms. Describes how two teachers developed methods allowing students participation, individually and in peer groups, in writing assessment. Compares student criteria with Pennsylvania Department of Education criteria. (HB)

Illustrates the use of an assessment framework for observing, describing, and summarizing objectively a sample of one student's creative writing. The framework considered vocabulary, sentence structure, organization, punctuation, the amount of details, and the use of repetition. (BB)

Developers of the Intelligent Essay Assessor claim that it saves time in evaluating college students' essays and improves the assessment. This and the growing number of other automated grading programs use the same technologies that make computer-based tutoring possible. Many academics remain skeptical of grading technologies, citing the…

Describes writing conferences as a productive supplement to classroom teaching, and examines teacher behavior and the language they employ during these conferences. Supports the idea that current findings in sociolinguistics could better inform classroom practices and increase awareness and understanding of the impact of "teacher talk." Contains…

Examines students' responses and comments on facilitative (helping the student rethink a paper analytically) versus directive commentary (teacher suggestions made in an authoritative manner). Argues that directive commentary has several legitimate uses and that its judicious use can coax students into writing stronger text. (SR)

Examines the nature of literacy activities in a technology-based fourth-grade classroom, investigating how the writing process is affected when technology is part of the classroom routine. Discusses findings in five areas: defining the writing episode, examining the writing process, assessing growth in written expression, relating production to…

Describes computer-software programs that "read" and score college-placement essays. Argues they may impress administrators, but they also (1) marginalize students by disregarding what they have to say; (2) disregard decades of research on the writing process; and (3) ignore faculty's professional expertise. Argues assessment practices should be…

Finds that 86% of the 59 MBA programs completing a survey used scores from the Analytical Writing Assessment of the Graduate Management Admission Test to refine their admissions decisions, but only a few schools used the test diagnostically in making such other decisions as placing students in writing-development courses, waiving communication…

Investigated the effects of content and perceived ethnicity of authorship on teacher bias in scoring writing samples. Teachers read and scored four writing samples that included markers to promote assumptions about certain ethnocultural/racial groups and that varied in violent content. Results indicate that teachers' attitudes regarding ethnicity…

Compares students' writing in a computer classroom and in a conventional pen-and-paper classroom. Finds that students in the conventional classroom responded readily to the same pedagogical approaches without the aid of computers. Suggests that it is nearly impossible to account for the results without weighing the roles played by pedagogy,…