Claims that portfolios can be reliably rated in a large-scale assessment situation. Shares the experiences of writing program administrators concerning portfolio assessment. Outlines practical methods of gaining reasonable reliability in portfolio scoring. (RS)

Describes the difficulties in assessing writing improvement in high school students based on national reports. Discovers that students' fluency, their use of dialogue, and their ease in moving between the abstract and the concrete is increasing. Suggests the resources of the National Assessment of Educational Progress might yield the information…

Discusses the dilemmas of evaluating and assessing students' poetry. (SR)

One minor but irritating problem that most composition teachers face--especially those who handle masses of papers at the high school level--involves coming up with a method of grading that is demonstrably objective but not so rigid that it allows no room for judgment. The author proposes a hybrid grading system: combining numbers and letters. The…

To teach students how to write for the workplace and other professional contexts, technical writing teachers often assign writing tasks that reflect real-life communication contexts, a teaching approach that is grounded in the field's contextualized understanding of genre. This article argues to fully embrace contextualized literacy and better…

This article examines the influence of keyboarding versus handwriting in a high-stakes writing assessment. Conclusions are based on data collected from a pilot project to move Old Dominion University's Exit Exam of Writing Proficiency from a handwritten format into a dual-option format (i.e., the students may choose to handwrite or keyboard the…

Automated writing evaluation (AWE) software is designed to provide instant computer-generated scores for a submitted essay along with diagnostic feedback. Most studies on AWE have been conducted on psychometric evaluations of its validity; however, studies on how effectively AWE is used in writing classes as a pedagogical tool are limited. This…

This study addresses the response of social science and engineering science faculty to a naturally occurring sample of second language writing. Using a matched-guise protocol, faculty participants were led to believe that the one-page essay was produced by an international student whose first language was either Chinese or Spanish. The faculty…

Japanese poetry, haiku, has been widely accepted in western countries. While previous studies have reported on the applicability of haiku poetry to teaching practices in a variety of contexts, few researchers have discussed assessment which is one of the most important factors in language teaching. The aim of this study is to produce assessment…

Despite the debate among writing researchers about its viability as a pedagogical tool in writing instruction [e.g., Helms-Park, R., & Stapleton, P. (2003). "Questioning the importance of individualized voice in undergraduate L2 argumentative writing: An empirical study with pedagogical implications." "Journal of Second Language Writing," 12 (3),…

This study examines discussions of model papers in a high school Advanced Placement English classroom where students were preparing for a high-stakes writing assessment. Much of the current research on talk about writing in various contexts such as classroom discourse, teacher-student writing conferences, and peer tutoring has emphasized the…

This article used work from the writing assessment literature to develop a framework for assessing the impact and perceived value of written, audio, and combined written and audio feedback strategies across four global and 22 discrete dimensions of feedback. Using a quasi-experimental research design, students at three U.S. universities were…

Test-based accountability programs are designed to promote improved standards of teaching and learning within the systems of education that they are connected to. Brenan [Brenan, A. L. (2006). "Perspectives on the evolution and future of educational measurement." In: Robert (Ed.), "Educational measurement" (4th ed., pp. 1-16).…

Type and quality of revisions made by students between first and final drafts of a state writing test were scored using a revision taxonomy. Scorers categorized revisions first by unit (e.g., word, phrase, sentence), and then by type (e.g., addition, substitution, spelling). They then evaluated the impact of each revision on the readability of the…

This article is a description of the process of constructing an assessment of written and oral language for pre-service teachers. This assessment was used prior to their formal admission into the teacher education programme. The rationale for this evaluation is presented along with the actual processes involved. Finally, comparisons are made…