A study of stories written by 10-12 year-olds attempted to interpret the authors' meaning and intention by using three modes: primary reading, speculative questioning, and reflective reading. The modes led to multiple layers of meaning, revealing subtlety and complexity and overturning the reader's position. (SK)

This article describes how readers from a graduate program in anthropology evaluated student writing in a general education course. Readers voiced the concerns of their discipline when they focused on the stance writers assumed and how they made value judgments.

Writing across the curriculum has been a pedagogy associated with faculty development since the earliest days of the movement. Carleton College, an early adopter of WAC pedagogy and faculty development, has, in the last decade, added portfolio assessment to the combination with positive results. Among the unexpected consequences has been a…

While formal, standardized assessment instruments provide valuable and necessary information about students' various abilities and skills, the use of informal and qualitative assessment approaches has the benefit of leading directly to instruction based squarely on an individual student's needs, strengths, and existing skills. This article…

Trends in the use of the Internet in recent years, collectively coined Web 2.0, have precipitated changes in modes and uses of writing online. Blogs and social networking sites provide new opportunities and incentives for personal writing. This reading-to-write culture requires use and development of language skills. The challenge for language…

The present study employed multi-faceted Rasch measurement (MFRM) to explore the rater bias patterns of native English-speaker (NES) raters when they rate EFL essays. Forty NES raters rated 40 essays written by female Japanese university students on a single topic adapted from the TOEFL Test of Written English (TWE). The essays were assessed using…

Teaching English became a professional and academic field from a half century ago. Many researches for teacher education and teacher training have been conducted in order to raise the English as well as the foreign language trainers' knowledge and capabilities in carrying out effective lessons in classroom. During second millennium of speedily…

Congenitally, profoundly deaf children whose first language is British Sign Language (BSL) and whose speech is largely unintelligible need to be literate to communicate effectively in a hearing society. Both spelling and writing skills of such children can be limited, to the extent that no currently available assessment method offers an adequate…

In 2004, the Department of Writing Studies at Roger Williams University in Bristol, Rhode Island, the U.S., began an assessment of student outcomes for two first-year writing courses (Fall 04 to Fall 05) to evaluate performance on previously established criteria. A study of the students' Portfolio Assessment Sheets concluded that one pervasive…

High-stakes writing assessments currently exert a strong influence on the writing curriculum and instruction in schools across the United States. Under these circumstances it is important to examine the construct of writing competence on which these assessments are based, as well as the extent to which this construct supports the goals of…

The category of coherence in rating scales has often been criticized for being vague. Typical descriptors might describe students' writing as having 'a clear progression of ideas' or "lacking logical sequencing." These descriptors inevitably require subjective interpretation on the side of the raters. A number of researchers (Connor & Farmer,…

Half of a two-part English Language Arts Achievement Test, this test evaluates composition skills in Grade 6. It contains general instructions for the student, as well as the beginning of a story to be completed by the student, and blank pages for ideas/planning, for planning and drafting, and for the revised work. The instructions indicate that…

Developed to assist teachers in Ottawa County, Ohio, in monitoring students' pupil performance objectives (PPOs) in grades K-3, this writing evaluation form is the primary record keeping tool in the Competency Based Education (CBE) Program. The form consists of: (1) the evaluation checklist; (2) the intervention code; and (3) record keeping…

Notes that all assignments for writing assessment require a rhetorical transaction. Describes the rhetorical frame provided by the assessment developed at the University of Michigan, and compares versions of the test topics to discern their equivalency through an analysis of student performance. (HTH)

Reports an investigation to assess praiseworthy grading versus traditional grading. With praiseworthy grading, finds improvement in the quality of student writing, and argues that teachers give balanced and focused commentary on the strengths and weaknesses in students' writing. (JAD)