Edward M. White is the author of Assigning , Responding, Evaluating: A Writing Teacher's Guide, 4th ed.
I consider this to be one of the best resources on teaching writing to underprepared students.
This book can be purchased on Amazon for less than $5.
The following is a brief synopsis of White's views:
All first-year students need to learn how to incorporate source materials into their own writing, and that task cannot wait for advanced courses in their major (21).
Essay tests are much preferable to multiple-choice tests because writing requires students to generate ideas, sentences, and cocnlusions rather than merely react passively to given choices (26). A multiple-choice test contradicts the very notion of writing performance(104).
Portfolios...by their very nature demonstrate writing and thinking in a school and course context, rather than in isolation as a test does.
Many students who cannot pass a timed writing test can still turn in written work that, after due revision, will meet reasonable standards(161).
If the course has focused on development of argument and evidence, use of the library, and discovery of individual voice, we need to find ways of measuring those matters (101).
White insists that the "usual multiple-choice format" of most commerical tests will not fit the needs of a particular assessment. He goes on to write, "The temptation to accept a commerical test that claims to measure what the campus is looking for is hard to resist, as it is both convenient and cheap to adopt an existing measure. But no matter how economical such a choice may appear to be, it can become extremely costly when the information it produces is not the information needed."
The dictionary may help with spelling problems, but the time lost is usually not worth the improvement. The dictionary should be used as a cleanup operation afterward, so that students avoid the constant interruptions of looking up words while composing the essay. (43)
I consider this to be one of the best resources on teaching writing to underprepared students.
This book can be purchased on Amazon for less than $5.
The following is a brief synopsis of White's views:
The dictionary may help with spelling problems, but the time lost is usually not worth the improvement. The dictionary should be used as a cleanup operation afterward, so that students avoid the constant interruptions of looking up words while composing the essay. (43)