A competency test for writing that tests writing competency as an interdisciplinary skill called "academic writing" has been developed at The American University. The test focuses heavily on the subject and lightly on the writer or on the writer's sensibility. It avoids asking the student to write introspective "meditations," to take and defend a…

Suggests that those who feel the need for competency testing in their program should find or construct a test that reflects the faculty's expectations, locate a coordinator to put the test into the curriculum, and find ways to bring the marginal student up to expectations. (EL)

Examines three standardized college composition tests in terms of the context of the assignment and the impact of social influences and the testing situation. Stresses inadequacies inherent to standardized composition testing. (HTH)

A writing competency exam has been developed at a Vermont state college as a uniform method of judging attainment of a specified minimum standard for writing. The test was designed to meet four primary criteria: to judge student ability to create discourse, to yield specific evaluative information, to involve all academic divisions in test design…

Competency testing in composition fixes goals that convey to students, teachers, parents, and the general public inaccurate notions about the nature of composition and what competency in writing comprises. The trend toward competency testing comes from the public's realization that many high school and college graduates are functionally…

Georgia Institute of Technology has created a preparatory workshop that avoids focusing composition courses on the state competency exam while helping its students pass the exam. In checking the exams of students who had failed, three problems appeared: lack of motivation, lack of awareness of the standards for grading the exam, and an inability…

Reports on an experiment designed to identify positive variables in the essay writing of Black college students and to use the variables in a new writing course. Suggests that instruction in concepts, skills, and relationships, when combined with consideration of students' diagnosed needs, can result in writing improvement. (AOS)

The President of Miami University of Ohio explains why he has proposed a test of basic reading and writing skills as a graduation requirement at his institution. (SJL)

Because of consistent faculty involvement from its earliest stages, the writing assessment program at the University of Missouri at Kansas City (UMKC) represents a competent, fair, and useful procedure for the large-scale testing and evaluation of student writing. UMKC's assessment curriculum builds on the existing sequence of three composition…

This bulletin presents a description of the general education subtests of the Florida Teacher Certification Examination. Information is provided on: (1) competencies and skills tested in the reading subtest; (2) general subtest and item specifications of the writing tests--methods used in evaluating writing ability and rating rationales for…

To assure that students graduating from the institutions of higher education in Georgia possess basic academic literacy, an essay test was devised to provide system-wide information on the status of student competence in the areas of reading and writing and to identify those students who do not attain the expected levels of competence. The…

The faculties of the postsecondary institutions in Florida, using the authority of the State Board of Education, have implemented a testing program that increases the assurance that all students who complete their sophomore year in college have achieved the communication and computation skills expected of them. (Author/MLW)

In 1972, the Board of Regents of the University System of Georgia instituted the Regents' Testing Program (RTP) to provide systemwide information on the status of student competence in reading and writing and to provide a uniform means of identifying those students who fail to attain minimum levels of competence in these areas. Since 1972, some…

This booklet by a committee appointed to assess the teaching implications of the Reading and Writing tests of the New Jersey College Basic Skills Placement Test (NJCBSPT) is intended to provide ways of helping teachers assist students to improve their skills in reading and writing by, in part, pinpointing the major weaknesses of students taking…

A cooperative writing assessment program between a college and seven public school districts was designed to demonstrate that the writing skills necessary for adequate composing were not those that could be measured by an objective test. The goals of the program were to (1) analyze the rhetorical skills of sixth and eighth grade students, (2)…