Both of us were drawn into the writing assessment field initially through our lived experiences as schoolteachers. We worked in radically different contexts -- Martin was head of a languages department and teacher of French and German in the late 1990s in the UK, and David was a Grade 12 teacher of Academic English in Alberta, Canada, at the turn…

We evaluated the narrative and expository writing samples of 12 adolescents with language-learning disabilities (LLD) in Grades 6 to 12 for elements of microstructure (e.g., productivity, grammatical complexity) and macrostructure (genre-specific text structure elements) using an experimental measure. Writing samples were elicited with…

In today's society, writing with paper and pencil has largely been replaced by writing using a computer. Students are expected to compose on a computer as they move through school and into the workforce. Reflecting the changes in technology, eighth- and twelfth-grade students taking the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) writing…

The purpose of the 2011 NAEP (National Assessment of Educational Progress) Writing Framework is to describe how the new NAEP Writing Assessment is designed to measure students' writing at grades 4, 8, and 12. As the ongoing national indicator of the academic achievement of students in the United States, NAEP regularly collects information on…

This report presents results of the 2011 National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) in writing at grades 8 and 12. In this new national writing assessment sample, 24,100 eighth-graders and 28,100 twelfth-graders engaged with writing tasks and composed their responses on computer. The assessment tasks reflected writing situations common to…

Test-based accountability programs are designed to promote improved standards of teaching and learning within the systems of education that they are connected to. Brenan [Brenan, A. L. (2006). "Perspectives on the evolution and future of educational measurement." In: Robert (Ed.), "Educational measurement" (4th ed., pp. 1-16).…

A goal of this double issue of English Teaching: Practice and Critique is to collectively consider what we mean when we talk about knowledge about language. How have our understandings changed over time? What are the implications of these new understandings for pedagogy in the field of language teaching? These are necessary and important…

Only one out of five high school teachers believes that students are learning to write well according to research from Public Agenda. Test results confirm their opinion. In 1998, the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) administered a writing assessment to gauge fourth- and eighth-grade students' proficiency in writing narrative,…