Gary Troia

The purpose of this project is to develop a tool, the Writing Architect, that will assist teachers in connecting evidence-based writing instruction with students' needs as identified in a digital classroom written composition assessment. The goal is to improve late elementary students' written composition in response to text (informational writing) and to use assessment results more effectively for instructional purposes.

Little is known about what occurs during classroom writing instruction and its relation to student writing outcomes. The proposed study examines the relation between 4th- and 5th-grade student growth in writing (i.e., knowledge, motivation, and performance) and teacher classroom writing instruction and assessment practices. The study will examine student-level and classroom-level covariates and potential teacher-related moderators. The study will also examine how much the content of the CCSS...

This study will analyze all 50 states' writing content standards and large-scale assessments to identify relationships between them. The project will further examine the relationships between these state policy instruments and (1) student writing achievement on the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) for fourth grade; (2) research-based writing assessment and instructional practices; and (3) postsecondary expectations in the domain of writing.