Describes how one teacher uses life writing (reading and writing about transformative life experiences) in her basic writing class to engage students and to help them understand the power and purpose of reaching out to a variety of audiences. Discusses grading life writing. (SR)

Teachers from Kent School District (Washington) participated in intensive teacher training on an alternative model of writing assessment. Based on six traits of good writing, the model provides a common framework for writing goals and assessments by teachers and students themselves, and has generated enthusiasm among teachers, students, and…

Examines the relationship between teachers' perceptions of gender-related differences in grade 6 students' narrative writing and teachers' scoring of five student narrative papers. Finds that teachers observed gender-related narrative writing characteristics that were consistent with researchers' analyses of children's narrative writing. (PA)

As standardized tests increase in importance but remain fundamentally unchanged, they will guarantee the continued narrowing of instruction (as teachers concentrate on preparing students to pass them). Short-answer questions keep the focus on isolated fragments of learning. Writing samples are treated as formulaic exercises. Today's schools sorely…

Constructs a model for successful peer involvement for assessing writing produced by classmates with learning disabilities. Discusses six effective outcome building blocks: (1) cooperative learning from a student perspective; (2) peer as a learning assistant; (3) orchestrating purposeful peer interactions; (4) valuing peer assessment; (5)…

Describes a successful unit on poetry, characterized by collaborative planning, creation of the collection of poems used as the text, variation of the approaches and types of assignments, use of recorded music and poetry collected, use of local poets who read and performed for the students, online sharing and critiquing of students' poetry, and a…

Among the many possible aspects to assessing writing, one of the most problematic is coherence. The problems with marking coherence arise because it is by nature subjective. However, the reasonable probability of several readers reaching a consensus concerning the coherence of a text suggests that it may be possible to assign relatively reliable…

With the advent of English as a global language, the ability to write well in English across diverse settings and for different audiences has become an imperative in second language education programmes throughout the world. Yet the teaching of second language writing is often hindered by the great amount of time and skill needed to evaluate…

A survey of recent texts affirms there is no single, correct way to respond to student writing. The latest discussion reveals variations in what students want, systems instructors use to respond, and types of comments instructors may write.

A long-time detractor of immersion education has been the concern that a substantial proportion of teaching in and about a language other than English might potentially lead to irreparable damage to immersion students' development in English and, hence, their ability to function in an English-dominant society. The assessment in this article,…

The purpose of this study is to contribute to the existing literature on the foreign language learning of students with LLDs by conducting a comprehensive investigation of the performance of three students in middle school foreign language classes in a suburban school district in southwestern Pennsylvania. More specifically, this study documents…

This paper undertakes a review of the literature on writing cognition, writing instruction, and writing assessment with the goal of developing a framework and competency model for a new approach to writing assessment. The model developed is part of the Cognitively Based Assessments of, for, and as Learning (CBAL) initiative, an ongoing research…

There are three distinct ways that the metaphor of "clarity" is employed in rhetorical history and in daily interchanges, correlating to three ways of looking at language, in turn correlating to three approaches to teaching writing. What is being proposed is more of a taxonomy than a pedagogy, but this taxonomy is important because of…

The purpose of this document is to provide administrators, teachers, and students with samples of students' writing that exemplify the criteria used to score students' written responses on the June 1993 Grade 3 Language Learning Achievement Test and the written component of the performance assessment administered to a provincial sample of grade 3…

Developed from actual classroom need and field-tested with primary teachers across the country, this how-to book presents the "nuts and bolts" of how to implement a writing program that turns kids on to writing. Throughout the book, three teachers share vignettes about writing sessions in their classrooms. After an introduction and…