National Writing Project

Research and Assessment Tools

The National Writing Project creates and assembles research and assessment resources for those conducting research in a variety of education settings. The resources are gathered, reviewed, and classified by teams of teacher-consultants.

These tools may be useful to site leaders interested in researching the effects of their programs, to teachers investigating their classroom practice and its effects, to facilitators of inquiry groups, and to independent researchers studying teacher professional development.

Each collection, or archive, is maintained as a searchable database. To access any of the resources in the archives described below, please email NWP at the indicated address with descriptive criteria that can be used to find all available materials that meet your interests and needs.

Researchers are encouraged to provide evaluative feedback on any tools they use so that subsequent users can be better informed as they use the resources.

Assessment Prompt Archive

The Prompt Archive contains over 1,400 tasks for prompting student writing in on-demand, extended, and classroom-embedded assessment contexts. Searchable descriptive elements include characteristics such as genre of writing elicited, grade levels addressed, and purpose of writing sought, and validated timing limits (if any).

Assessment Rubric Archive

The Rubric Archive makes available more than 300 assessment frameworks or rubrics for evaluating student writing. Searchable descriptive elements include characteristics such as grade levels assessed, genres examined, traits scored, and number of score points.

Classroom Practice Measures Archive

The Classroom Practice Measures Archive includes more than 350 instruments employing a wide variety of measurement methods (including, for example, surveys, interview protocols, and observation systems) for examining classroom practices and processes. Searchable descriptive elements include characteristics such as type and purpose of measure, substantive focus, and subject area(s) and role group(s) examined.

 

© 2012 National Writing Project