Writing portfolios, which provide samples of a student's writing over a period of time, are an excellent vehicle for giving faculty a new resource for teaching students self assessment. Since the portfolios include concrete evidence of a variety of writing assignments, students also learn that writing is a developmental process. This development…

Teachers in Kentucky are using portfolios to determine strengths and weaknesses of individual students. Consequently, instruction is centered totally around the student. The implementation of portfolios sends the message to students that their first efforts should not be their last. Revision is part of improvement, and students are expected to…

Presenting the full range of students' writing, this paper provides administrators, teachers, and students with samples of students' writing that exemplify the criteria used to score responses to the June 1992 Grade 6 English Language Arts Achievement Test. After an introductory section, the paper presents a general commentary; the writing…

A study investigated the organizational processes accessed during the composing process by elementary student writers whose teachers had been instructed by the Project READ/Inquiring School Initiative at the University of Pittsburgh in helping children develop organizational structures. Subjects were 28 fourth-grade students in the experimental…

Parents can help their children master the skills needed to become good writers. While preschool pupils, in most cases, cannot do their own writing, the parents can: ask their children for ideas to include in letters to friends or relatives; write down, and then read back, ideas dictated by the child; read interesting library books to their…

A study examined the development of reading, written expression and listening comprehension over 3 years. The participants were 77 students in Brisbane, Australia, who were identified by school staff as having a learning difficulty at the end of grade one and who were matched with the same number of normally achieving children attending the same…

This booklet, which concerns student writing on a social studies examination given to Alberta (Canada) students, addresses two major purposes. First, the booklet illustrates and compares two important levels of expectations, or standards, that have been set for student writing on this examination: satisfactory and excellent. Second, it provides…

This report presents the results of the evaluation of the 1988-89 Comprehensive Instructional Management Systems-Communication Arts (CIMS-CA) program, which focused on developing a holistic communication arts curriculum and staff development program reflecting the most recent research for students in kindergarten through eighth grade;…

This digest examines issues related to the grading of students' classroom writing, including the relation of the writing process to the grading process, ways to construct effective writing assignments, fairness and professional judgment, ways to include students in the assessment of writing, and guidelines that professors can use to provide…

In 1998 for the first time, the NAEP (National Assessment of Educational Progress) administered a writing assessment at the state level. This report describes the writing achievement of Department of Defense Domestic Dependent Elementary and Secondary Schools eighth-grade students and compares their overall performance to students nationwide…

In 1998 for the first time, the NAEP (National Assessment of Educational Progress) administered a writing assessment at the state level. This report describes the writing achievement of Department of Defense Dependents Schools eighth-grade students and compares their overall performance to students nationwide (using data from the NAEP national…

Researching what gains are made in independent writing as a result of interactive writing, a study examined the relationship of interactive writing to independent writing in kindergarten and first grade. Researchers collected samples of children's independent writing, interactive writing, student reflection sheets, individual conferencing, and…

This study examined students' beliefs about themselves as writers and about their experiences of learning through writing. A sample of 30 students enrolled in 2 freshman composition classes at a medium-sized Midwestern university completed a 74-item inventory measuring student writing approaches. Following administration of the inventory, 13…

This study examined the SAT® II: Writing Subject Test as a predictor of writing performance in college English courses. Writing performance was based on eight writing samples submitted as part of regular course work by students in eight colleges. The samples consisted of drafts and final papers submitted in response to four take-home writing…

Introduced to aid writing, word processing can cause unexpected problems for those who use it. Describes four studies in which raters gave word-processed essays consistently lower scores than handwritten essays. Reasons for the discrepancies were higher expectations for typed essays, ease of spotting text errors in typed text, and more difficulty…