Offers personal reflections on the testing of writing, concluding that teachers make wide and effective use of a variety of test types. (FL)

Describes a replication of a study to determine what international writers and evaluators bring to their respective tasks in an effort to devise an international scoring scheme. A satisfactory list of rating criteria was developed, although the criteria were value-laden and thus embedded in a cultural context. (HTH)

Advocates modeling as an appropriate approach to teaching composition, provided teachers select models carefully and present them as paradigms of dynamic processes and as hints leading to avenues of discovery. Uses N. Scott Momaday's "The Way to Rainy Mountain" to illustrate how such a model can be used to assist student invention. (RBW)

Provides a description of how nongraded, descriptive assessment works in responding to the written assignments of some postgraduate students. (HOD)

Advantages of peer evaluation of writing are outlined, questions that arise once instructors decide to use this method are presented, and steps to develop students' awareness of what to look for and what to say about the writing of peers in English composition and other disciplines are discussed. (MBR)

Examines coherence between sentences in a paragraph, arguing that readers require coherence at this level as well as between paragraphs. Discusses continuative and discontinuative relationships between sentences, including (1) sequence, (2) exemplification, (3) addition, (4) replacement, (5) contrast, and (6) alternation. (HTH)

Concludes that mechanics had a greater influence on raters' judgments of student writing than either content or rating instructions. Findings suggest that evaluators may not be able to focus on individual criteria of writing quality. (FL)

The writing assessment program in the Cherry Creek, Colorado, schools is described. Writing assessments for students in grades three, six, eight, and 10 have been developed. A holistic approach is used by teachers in scoring these instruments. Improvement of students' essay-writing ability indicates the value of the assessment program. (DWH)

The Standardized Test of Essential Writing Skills (STEWS) has been developed as a valid and reliable means of assessing expository writing skill. Studies concerning the reliability and validity of the STEWS are presented and their implications for use of the STEWS are discussed. (Author/DWH)

The first section of this report contains the "Writing Framework for the 2007 National Assessment of Educational Progress" (NAEP) as adopted by the National Assessment Governing Board. This framework describes the basis for the writing assessment, the types of writing assessed, and the methods for scoring student responses. This second section of…

This digest describes the three most prominent approaches to essay scoring by computer: (1) Project Essay Grade (PEG), introduced by E. Page in 1966; (2) Intelligent Essay Assessor (IEA), introduced for essay grading in 1997 by T. Landauer and P. Foltz; and (3) e-rater, used by the Educational Testing Service and developed by J. Burstein. PEG…

The purpose of this research was to establish, within the constraints of the methods presented, whether the computer is capable of scoring essays in much the same way that human experts rate essays. The investigation attempted to establish what was actually going on within the computer and within the mind of the rater and to describe the degree to…

Learning to read and write is critical to a child's success in school and adult life. One of the best predictors of whether children will function competently in school and, later, contribute to the increasingly literate society is their progress in reading and writing. For this reason, the 1985 National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP)…

Suggesting that, given the right tools and encouragement to do so, all children will write, this book describes the technique of "written conversation" in which two partners write back and forth to each other. This coproduced book serves as both a means for communication and expression and as a source of data about the child's knowledge of the…

This paper presents a discussion examining personal revelations discovered through peer critique and teacher response. It begins by discussing the issue of dealing with alien terms and specialized jargon in academic papers, through the example of one instructor's different treatment of two student papers based on the instructor's familiarity with…