As writing spreads across the curriculum, faculty members are becoming aware of the extent to which writing is a mode of learning, a way of incorporating new knowledge and of interpreting and analyzing. Effective ways in which a teacher can respond to student writing are discussed. (MLW)

Explores writing research on the composing process regarding the relationship of the topic selected to the score obtained, the relationship of the score to the use of both an outline and a rough draft, and the relationship of the amount of revision to the quality of essays obtained. (EL)

Describes a program of the Graduate College at Iowa State University that features an "English examiner" who screens incoming students for writing ability. (FL)

A number of studies have found that essays are scored higher when preceded by poor quality scripts than when preceded by good quality scripts. This study investigated the effects of scoring procedures designed to reduce the influence of context. Context effects were found irrespective of the scoring procedure used. (Author/PN)

The values of learning to express oneself in writing are noted, major components of writing (psychological factors, content, and craftsmanship) are identified, and approaches to evaluating written language disorders through formal and informal methods are described. Intervention information focuses on hierarchial skills, motivation, content area…

Concludes that students whose teachers participated in process-model inservice training performed significantly better on a number of writing evaluation criteria than did those of teachers who had relied on a skills-approach technique.

Discusses the trials, tribulations, successes, and failures involved in designing, setting up, and operating microcomputer programs for grading essays written by students in college English courses. (RBW)

Argues that when tests equate proficiency, competency, and literacy with writing academic essays, they maintain a severely understated and mistaken notion of what it means to write well and usefully and vigorously. (FL)

Describes a workshop approach to writing instruction that creates an environment appropriate for the writing process approach to writing. (HOD)

Argues for the use of adult-adult interactions between teacher and student (as opposed to parent-child interactions) to help stimulate the revision of student papers. (HOD)

Offers a framework for analyzing lexical cohesion in academic discourse based on a previous model for analysis of conversational and literary discourse. Discusses the implications of this new framework for teaching expository reading/writing and for research. (HTH)

Using essays written by twelfth grade students, a study explored the relationship of Halliday and Hasan's system for analyzing cohesion and instructors' ranking of textual coherence. (HOD)

Reports on a study that compared the potential validity, reliability, and costs of several direct and indirect measures of writing. (HOD)

The accuracy issues involved in detecting student writing skill deficiencies, factors to be dealt with or controlled, and procedural and statistical methods for controlling these factors are the focus of this article. The accuracy needed for effective instructional planning requires stability in writing assessment programs. (DWH)

Points out that untrained peer editors, because they are not familiar with the genre of student writing, are inexperienced in critically reading text. Makes suggestions for ways to train peer editors. (FL)