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…

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…

Reflecting new development in the field of rhetoric and composition, this textbook's third edition incorporates major changes which propose to turn theory into practical advice. These additions in the third edition draw on a new theoretical understanding of how writers operate within a discourse community, on a new research-based view of the…

By examining two autobiographies by Victorian women, the role of editors in the composing and publishing of autobiographical texts can be explored, and questions can be raised about the way personal writing is assigned, edited, and evaluated in classrooms today. The autobiography of Margaret Oliphant, a prolific Victorian novelist and critic, was…

To evaluate the writing abilities of American students, the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) asked nationally representative samples of fourth, eighth, and twelfth graders--approximately 20,000 students in all--to perform a variety of informative, persuasive, and narrative writing tasks. In addition, students were asked about the…

To continue upper division coursework past 15 credit hours, students at Southwest Texas State University must pass the College Level Examination Program (CLEP) General Examination in English Composition with Essay, with a minimum score of 421 and 45 semester hours of credit, and the CLEP General Examination in Mathematics, with a minimum score of…

The purpose of a project was to develop and test curriculum-based procedures and measures to monitor and assess the reading and writing progress of adults in a basic education program. The most efficient, reliable, and feasible measure of reading performance from beginning reading level through eighth-grade level was the repeated oral reading…

The Association of American Medical Colleges is conducting research to develop, implement, and evaluate a Medical College Admission Test (MCAT) essay testing program. Essay administration in the spring and fall of 1985 and 1986 suggested that additional research was needed on the development of topics which elicit similar skills and meet standard…

To improve reading/writing skills in a target group of 10 first-grade students, an intensive writing curriculum was implemented over a period of 10 weeks. The program included numerous strategies to improve beginning skills: using concrete objects for classification; using comic strips to illustrate sequencing; daily practice on correct posture…

The first in a series on content area writing instruction, this booklet is intended for elementary school teachers who have taught writing, but who want to move into content writing topics and for teachers who are novices at teaching writing but who think content writing instruction might be an important skill to teach their students. The three…

The articles in this journal issue explore the current status of writing instruction and scholarship. The titles of the articles and their authors are as follows: (1) "The Writing 'Crisis': What It Is and What It Ain't" (Rexford Brown); (2) "Freshman English Then and Now: A Report on Student Writing" (James DeMuth and Stephanie…

As part of a study conducted by the Learning Assessment Retention Consortium to develop a student outcomes evaluation model, data were collected on the characteristics and skill levels of 7,500 remedial writing students from 29 community colleges in Fall 1986. Three methods of data collection were used: pre-testing of reading comprehension,…

To characterize the influence of various constraints on students' composing processes, a study investigated the (1) type of instructions students received prior to their composing and revising sessions, (2) mode of production--whether a computer or paper and pencil was used for composition and revision, and (3) effect of skill level on students'…