This booklet has two purposes: to illustrate and compare two important levels of expectation, or standards, set for the Alberta (Canada) English 33 diploma examination writing ("Satisfactory" and "Excellent") and to provide suggestions to help students move beyond the Satisfactory level developing their unrealized writing…

This document consists of the first four issues (Volume 1) of "Literacy Works," a newsletter of the Saskatchewan Literacy Network. The premier issue reports on the board, staff, and historical perspective of the network, and also contains a brief article on education for the workplace, a review of "Writing to Read" by Martin…

Eckerd College in Florida has instituted portfolio assessment in writing classes, a method which invites students to engage in learning on a variety of levels. Portfolios encourage students to consider the responses of various readers in their revision processes, claim ownership of their writing, review the papers they have written in college,…

A critical rhetoric is needed for those interested in feminist discourse, a means of both persuasion and critique. It has been suggested that monologic, fundamentally one-sided argument is inappropriate for a feminist discourse that should instead teach methods of negotiation and mediation. Kenneth Burke proposed shattering views of ideological…

This report reviews and analyzes the results of the third statewide analytical writing assessment of Oregon eighth graders. Following an introduction, the report is in five chapters: (1) The Oregon Writing Assessment Interpretive Panel: Comments and Recommendations; (2) Strengths and Weaknesses in Student Writing--A Trait-by-Trait Analysis (giving…

A publication of the Primary English Teaching Association of Australia, this book argues that children should be taught how to write in the various genres or kinds of writing that are needed for different purposes. The contributors draw on their own experiences to show how teachers can develop their teaching of writing to realize the full…

To evaluate the writing ability of Colorado students, a study collected writing samples from third, sixth, ninth, and eleventh grade students in 127 public school districts and 27 private schools during October 7-11, 1985. Samples were scored in a two-day scoring session using two rating procedures--a general impression of writing characteristics,…

Intended for people of all ages and with a history of successful use in schools, workshops, and prison, this book is a guide through a two-week plan of lessons to teach poetry writing. Each lesson builds on the one that came before, and all include poems. Following a preface, the 11 chapters are: (1) Basic Tools; (2) Extending the Metaphor; (3)…

This illustrated booklet contains short statements written by students of adult basic education and other adult literacy programs offered in connection with Randolph Community College in North Carolina. The writings are in the students' words in language that is meaningful and pertinent to their levels of reading. The writings are grouped into the…

The "Write a Sentence Test" was developed for use in the evaluation of student writing abilities in association with a project in Memphis, Tennessee. This paper discusses ways of administering and scoring the test, decisions concerning modification of the test, and experiences when the test was administered to sample subjects. All forms…

The first in-class assignment for the English section of a Biology/English cluster provides students with an opportunity to observe, record, and organize data that are immediately available. The students first describe the hand with which they are not writing and then reorganize their observations into a brief paragraph. Next they read aloud and…

The functional writing model is a method by which students learn to devise and organize a written argument. Salient features of functional writing include the organizing idea (a component that logically unifies a paragraph or sequence of paragraphs), the reader's frame of reference, forecasting (prediction of the sequence by which the organizing…