College Composition and Communication Dec 1982

Essay Examination Topics and Students' Writing

James Hoetker

Abstract

In 1979 Gordon Brossell and I developed the manuals and materials for the Writing Subtest of the Florida Teacher Certification Examination.' With our final report we included a dozen recommended essay topics for early administrations of the test. A Department of Education official asked us whether the topics were legally defensible. We admitted we had no idea. Further questions about the effects of essay topics on student writing performance (none of which we could answer) led to my being given a contract to review the literature on essay examination topics. This article is an abbreviated and updated version of my report.2

Journal
College Composition and Communication
Published
1982-12-01
DOI
10.2307/357950
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Open Access
Closed
Topics
teacher development
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Citation Context

Cited by in this index (6)

  1. Weigle (1999)
    Investigating rater/prompt interactions in writing assessment: Quantitative and…
    Assessing Writing
  2. Haswell (1998)
    Rubrics, prototypes, and exemplars: Categorization theory and systems of writin…
    Assessing Writing
  3. Sullivan (1997)
    Calling writers' bluffs: The social production of writing ability in university…
    Assessing Writing
  4. ROGERS (1994)
    Analytic Measures for Evaluating Managerial Writing
    Journal of Business and Technical Communication
  5. PIAZZA (1987)
    Identifying Context Variables in Research on Writing: A Review and Suggested Di…
    Written Communication
Show all 6 →
  1. RAFOTH et al. (1984)
    The Impact of Content and Mechanics on Judgments of Writing Quality
    Written Communication

References (0)

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