Two programs for providing distance tutoring for at-risk elementary school children were implemented and evaluated in successive years. Each program employed 10 graduate education students as tutors for approximately 25 sixth-grade children, i.e., 2-3 tutees per student. Tutoring exercises were oriented around writing and language skills…

Holistic scoring is widely used to assess writing proficiency in English-as-a-Second-Language (ESL) composition. Written recall protocols have recently been used to investigate the relationship between how much holistic scorers comprehend of a given text and how high they rate the quality of that text. This study investigated whether readers…

The basis for educationally worthwhile activities in kindergarten is examined in a series of papers that also provide examples of how kindergarten programs can be organized and worthwhile learning presented to children. Long-term projects or units are seen as useful vehicles of instruction, and organizing teaching around topics or themes is shown…

The instrument for Colorado's Foreign Language Proficiency Sample Project and directions for its administration are provided in this document. The project is a voluntary, teacher-designed and -administered effort to standardize high school student language proficiency assessment techniques. The materials are used in teacher workshops. The…

This report describes a program which grew out of a study that explored writing and literacy skills in Anglo, Black, and Hispanic high school students in North Philadelphia. Section One describes writing in the lives of adolescents as viewed within the home, community, noninstitutional, and broader sociopolitical settings. Particular emphasis is…

Use of metacognitive strategies, creative problem solving, and creative thinking techniques in intermediate grade writing instruction can promote students' thinking and creativity. Metacognitive strategies can help students attack the writing task in an orderly fashion. Answering specific questions for descriptive, expository, narrative, or…

This resource book contains 10 articles on specific aspects of writing assessment. Article one addresses several key issues, among them (1) whether writing should be taught from a traditional analytic approach or from the "writing-as-a-process" perspective, (2) whether writing ability can be judged indirectly or only by actual performance, and (3)…

A project was undertaken to develop a series of program-specific vocational locator tests (PSVLTs) that would consist of subject-specific questions in three academic disciplines--writing, reading, and mathematics--for use in predicting vocational students' success in their vocational programs. As a prelude to constructing the tests, project staff…

Results of testing the validity and reliability of the Australian second language proficiency ratings (ASLPR) are presented. In addition to providing a framework for planning English as a second language programs for immigrants to Australia, the ASLPR was developed to specify second language proficiency in terms of practical language skills. The…

As human understanding is largely metaphorical, what metaphor is, how children use it, and how they can be taught to use it more effectively are important educational concerns. A direct or indirect comparison between two apparently unlike things, metaphor consists of a topic, a vehicle of comparison, and ground--or traits--linking the topic and…

A teacher guide and six student workbooks are included in this supplementary writing program which provides daily writing practice in sentence and paragraph skills for children in grades 1-6. Sequentially arranged writing activities isolate and focus on those essential skills that children need to be successful with classroom writing. Using a…

A unit to help junior high school students become aware of the importance of written communication contains teacher and student materials. The teacher's section contains a description of objectives, materials, and evaluation methods. In the student section, a reading on becoming a good correspondent precedes sections on personal letters, thank-you…

The last of three volumes studying the relationship between writing research and instruction, this four-part report focuses on writing assessment. The first section details specifications for an instrument assessing student writing samples and the following composition skills: word processing, sentence processing, paragraph development,…

The seven chapters of this book describe the process conference approach to writing instruction. The first chapter presents four principles used in this approach: adequate daily practice time, student control over and responsibility for writing, emphasis on the writing process, and frequent brief conferences between teacher and students and among…

THE FOLLOWING IS THE FULL TEXT OF THIS DOCUMENT: Prior to the persuasion unit, students have spent several weeks in class utilizing library research techniques, public speaking skills, and their writing processes. The unit has been devised to give students practical experience using critical thinking and decision-making skills, persuasive…