This 1999-2000 report of student performance in writing provides information on student performance on the North Carolina Writing Assessment at Grades 4, 7, and 10. Noting that the annual writing assessment, a component of the North Carolina Testing Program, is also a component of the ABCs Accountability Program at Grades 4 and 7 and at Grade 10…

Intended primarily for Kentucky classroom teachers and administrators, this idea book first identifies three major issues that members of the Writing Advisory Committee felt should be addressed so that writing instruction will not suffer because of use of the writing portfolio. The broad issues emphasized in the idea book are for teachers to: (1)…

Comprehensive and practical, this book provides resources, strategies, and assessments that seamlessly weave writing into everyday classroom routines. The resources in the book include reproducible student worksheets, transparency masters, teacher and student examples, and technology tips in the form of Web site addresses. Strategies throughout…

This document contains samples and explanations from Colorado's state reading and writing comprehension test for Grade 7, hereby released to the public (parents, teachers, and any other interested parties). It presents one multiple-choice reading comprehension item based upon a poem and includes the correct answers. Next, it presents two short…

Examines ERIC materials on the nature of and supporting the use of invented spelling in elementary school writing. (HTH)

Examines the differences in quality ratings that 20 teachers in each of three high school curricular areas gave samples of written argument by college freshmen and investigates the relationship between the three groups of quality ratings and eight syntactic and mechanics-of-writing variables. (FL)

Research suggests that good writers differ from poor writers. Teachers who develop prewriting exercises, emphasize multiple draft assignments, help the student think about revision, and evaluate the product can help undergraduates write and think more clearly. (Author/AM)

Makes certain observations relating to the use of general-impression marking as a partial determinant of admission to tertiary educational institutions in Western Australia. (HOD)

Reports on an experiment during which English teachers collected pieces of writing that their students had prepared for assessment and gave them to other English teachers for grading. (HOD)

Outlines a technique for improving student writing across the disciplines through postwriting evaluation sessions. (FL)

Discusses the findings of a study of teachers' written comments and evaluations of student essays. Among the results of the study are the fact that most teachers' comments were not text specific. (HTH)

Examines how the relationship between teacher and student alters the connection between the writer's authority and the quality of the reader's attention. Discusses how teachers assess student writing from the perspective of an "ideal text," at the expense of discerning what the student is actually trying to say. (HTH)

Offers several strategies that can be used by social studies teachers to incorporate more writing into their classrooms. (FL)

Suggests activities for using newspapers in the composition classroom. Activities include using information from newspapers during the creative process, using journalistic style to illustrate composition techniques, and using the paper as a tool in learning how to evaluate writing. (HTH)

Discusses a basic news reporting class in which students were graded on how well they graded peer papers. (HOD)