Dynamic and responsive methods enable teachers to assess students' writing skills precisely and equitably, and to empower students of diverse skill levels to develop their writing. Assessing writing with equity-minded precision requires paying close attention to students' performances as writers, identifying challenges in those performances, and…

This article shares what the author has learned as a high school English teacher and researcher from speaking with teachers and high school and college students over the past five years about what sort of feedback has been most helpful in students' development as writers. When examining the data and looking for overlapping themes in responses, six…

The implementation of Common Core State Standards (CCSS) across the country necessitates revising the English curriculum, asking teachers to incorporate and analyze more perspectives in the classroom as society becomes more diverse. The authors wondered if this reform might provide an opportunity to examine social equity by studying an anchor…

Illustrates why teachers ought to evaluate their own teaching, showing how personal involvement in the evaluation enhances the significance of the results. (RL)

Describes a study on peer evaluation of students' writing. Indicates that teacher evaluation of students' writing is valuable, though results do not favor teacher evaluation over peer evaluation. (JD)

Reviews the research done on the evaluation of student compositions. (JL)

Reports findings of a study conducted to determine whether the amount of training and experience readers have had in using a particular grading scale correlates with their judgments about the quality of an essay, and whether the amount of training and experience affects the consistencies of their judgments. (EL)

Reports on a research project for which an American literature high school class was observed every day for a semester. Presents a framework for understanding teacher responses to student writing, consisting of five orientations toward that writing: interpretive, social, cognitive/emotive, evaluative, and pedagogical. (TB)

Describes a successful paper exchange program between eighth-grade students and high school seniors. States that the peer evaluations created audience awareness and motivated students' writing efforts. (MM)

Studies the effectiveness of teaching middle school students to give focused and specific responses to their peers during collaborative writing response groups using the organizational technique called "Praise-Question-Polish" (PQP). Finds that the number of specific comments rose significantly while the number of vague comments dropped…

Presents a ninth grader's written responses to Adrien Stoutenberg's story "Reel One." Describes the authors' senses of the student's readings of the story. Summarizes reflections on the authors' evaluations. Invites other teachers to do the same. (HB)

Discusses issues of fairness in the evaluation of bilingual writers. Warns of problems posed for them by the process approach to writing instruction. Describes a case study which suggests that even assessment procedures claimed to be holistic are biased against bilingual students. Compares one student's Spanish and English writing samples, noting…

Reports the results of a study that revealed that the instructional activities that precede writing are more important to student improvement than longer comments on the writing itself. (JL)

The research on students-as-responders in high school writing classes alters the teachers' responsibility to define for students and themselves just what they mean by response and urges them to look closely at what they have to do to prepare students to become good responders. The responses made by high school students during peer reviewing are…

Describes the efforts of one teacher-researcher to explore the effectiveness of different peer response strategies in the writing class. Notes that teacher-researcher projects can help to develop and assess writing curricula in ways that are outside the scope of specialists and external evaluators. (MM)