In this teaching tip, we--a literacy professor and two K-12 teachers--encourage a rethinking of the baseline writing assessment by sharing our experiences with "The Paper Selfie," an activity that juxtaposes the arts and young people's personal writing. By centering students' identities, their hopes, beliefs, dreams, and realities,…

This study sought to identify the challenges and needs of TOEFL iBT candidates in achieving C1 level scores in the speaking and writing sections of the exam. To this end, the researcher employed a mixed-method approach to collect data from a population of 46 students, both male and female, between the ages of 22 and 30. The participants were…

The New York State Education Department (NYSED) has a partnership with NWEA for the development of the 2024 Grades 3-8 English Language Arts Tests. Teachers from across the State work with NYSED in a variety of activities to ensure the validity and reliability of the New York State Testing Program (NYSTP). The 2024 Grades 6 and 7 English Language…

As state and national curriculum standards continue to change, it is important for teachers to develop a common set of definitions for terms that appear in those standards. This column describes the four modes of discourse--narrative, descriptive, exposition, and persuasion--and links them to a variety of genres students can write in to compose…

Composition researchers have become increasingly concerned with the issue of knowledge transfer: the use of knowledge and skills learned in one setting to complete tasks in a different setting. In terms of writing-related knowledge transfer, research suggests that rigid rules and formulas for writing do not transfer as successfully as flexible…