Some of the ways authentic writing assessment can be used in education are discussed. Using the Illinois Writing Program (IWP) as an example, this digest also looks at some of the goals, solutions, and experiences of a program that is implementing authentic writing assessment. New directions in authentic assessment are aimed at going beyond…

One teacher's experience with peer critique in a college-level composition course in English as a second language (ESL) suggests that it can be an effective classroom technique. If students are given very specific guidelines to follow, they often do a very credible job of analyzing the strengths and weaknesses of their peers' writing. Indiana…

A study to find patterns of cohesion and rhetorical structure that distinguish good from weak English essay writing is described. The corpus consisted of ten Swedish college essays written as part of the final exam in a first-year English course. Methodological problems encountered included the delimitation of units for the analysis of cohesive…

Differences between California State University, Fresno, students eligible to enroll in freshman composition and those who appeared to need reading and writing remediation were studied. Attention was directed to differences between students scoring below the first quartile on the English Placement Test (EPT) reading subscore and those scoring at…

Designed to supplement the day-to-day planning, teaching, and evaluation activities of writing teachers at all educational levels, this compilation contains 711 citations of documents that appeared in "Resources in Education" from 1966 to 1981. Section headings include (1) the prewriting stage; (2) informative, persuasive, and literary…

This collection of abstracts is part of a continuing series providing information on recent doctoral dissertations. The 18 titles deal with a variety of topics, including the following: (1) English language writing skills in Nigerian schools, (2) the effectiveness of writing as a counseling technique, (3) writing apprehension, (4) writing…

The 12 essays in this collection address the concerns of basic writing teachers and those who teach basic writing teachers. The first essay discusses the characteristics of the low achieving college students who require basic writing instruction and argues for basic writing courses that are based upon a thorough understanding of students' nature…

Workshop reports of 35 committees meeting at the Conference on College Composition and Communication are included. Nine reports discuss types of composition courses or programs which emphasize either rhetoric, literature, language, or communication. Five reports discuss the needs of and programs established for special students--superior,…

Describes the development and use of a computer-assisted language learning (CALL) laboratory in the English-language teaching unit at the Chinese University of Hong Kong. Undergraduate students in a writing skills course were trained to use word processors which were available for the students' writing assignments. (LMO)

This theme issue focuses on the challenges and opportunities of online technology as it is used by teachers and students in rural classrooms in Alaska, Arizona, Colorado, Georgia, Mississippi, New Mexico, South Carolina, and Vermont. "Computer Country" (Cynthia Baughman) is an overview of online collaborations of teachers in the Bread…

This paper explores the educational benefits and limitations of e-mail as an instructional aid to classroom-based teaching. It looks at practical ideas of how e-mail has been used to aid classroom instruction, and highlights and examines each usage of e-mail in terms of its effects on classroom teaching. E-mail systems have been used for classroom…

Some university English as a foreign language (EFL) composition teachers in Taiwan have experimented with audiotaping their commentary on students' writing to help students revise. However, there has been little research on how effective this is for Chinese students. Therefore, a study was designed to shed light on this issue by comparing…

This study compares the effectiveness of audio-taped feedback (ATF) with traditional written feedback (WF). Its focus is on the ATF and WF provided to 23 college sophomore English majors at a Taiwan university. Students were also asked at the end of the academic year to evaluate and compare both ATF and WF from their perspective. It is concluded…

Devises and validates an index of texture to be used to accurately analyze texts of developing writers as an aid in improving readability. An index reflecting conjunction, conjunctive reach, specificity, connectivity, topic, and topic shift was created. Results were a perfect correlation in rankings produced by the index and judges. (32…

This study investigated the relationship of first-language (L1) and second-language (L2) writing processes and possible effects of L2 writing instruction in an academic context on L1 and L2 writing strategies and attitudes. Specifically, the study asked whether (1) there are similarities and/or differences between Turkish and English writing…