Windows Into the Classroom: NAEP's 1992 Writing Portfolio Study.

As part of an intensive study of American students' academic progress, the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) studied the types of writing performed in school, the quality of student writing and the relationship between instruction and performance on the NAEP writing assessment. To conduct this study, 3,000 4th- and 8th-grade students submitted three samples of their best writing representing narrative, informative and persuasive writing.

Despite considerable time and emphasis on writing instruction in recent years, certain findings of this report are discouraging. First, the types of writing being performed by students is limited in scope. For both 4th- and 8th-graders, the majority of their writing assignments are informative and narrative; less than 10 percent of their writing involves persuasion. This indicates that students receive a limited range of writing opportunities. Students are apparently rarely asked to reflect on issues and form supportable positions. Second, even though students are most often asked to employ informative writing, their ability with this form of writing is limited. At the 4th-grade level, 73 percent of the informative papers were rated at the basic level. At the 8th-grade level, 43 percent of the students scored low and 53 percent scored at the average level of being able to write a paper that was effectively developed and addressed a specific audience. In terms of narrative writing, the second largest sample submitted, only one percent of the 4th-graders and 12 percent of the 8th-graders could write developed papers.

The study reveals some items that could be improved in other areas related to instructional techniques: for instance, few students use a computer when writing. Perhaps more disheartening, few of the 4th- and 8th-grade teachers indicated that students chose their own topics for their portfolio samples. Choosing a topic is a basic tenet of process writing; unfortunately, while almost every teacher indicated that they used this approach, there seems to be broad interpretations for what this means.

Educators will be cheered by other news. The study supports the efforts of teachers to use a process approach, if conducted properly. At both grade levels, if students spent more time on their writing, received encouragement to write longer pieces, maintained writing portfolios and understood revision and editing strategies, then they were more likely to write pieces that scored high on the rating scale. Apparently, the writing process, if implemented appropriately, is an effective way to help students develop as proficient writers.

The major portions of this manual are devoted to explaining the study's findings and presenting samples of student writing. A section of the book also lists a state-by-state summary of writing assessment programs. The samples and state directory may be of interest to teachers and administrators concerned with developing assessment programs to gauge the quality of student writing.