TOWARD A THEORY OF APPRAISING STUDENT WRITING BASED ON DEVELOPMENTAL ASPECTS OF COGNITIVE COMPETENCE AND LINGUISTIC PERFORMANCE: GRADES FOUR, NINE, AND THIRTEEN

Systematic appraisal of student writing has traditionally been based on surface criteria such as syntax and mechanics, yet research and theory in composition recognize the strong relationship between cognition and language. This study looks below surface expression to underlying Competence and Performance. It looks to the writers\u27 words as acts, to examine a way of evaluating writing which recognizes both thought and expression. In order to do this it presents an overview of Cognitive and Linguistic development, explores their relationships, and explains these relationships as they occur in composition. From this review of literature, an heuristic is developed from which student composition is viewed according to developmentally appropriate standards. Writings from grades four, nine, and thirteen, and transcripts of oral discussions about them, are analyzed using the heuristic. The results of the Test of Logical Thinking (Tobin and Cappie, 1980), administered to the writers, is a third measure of comparison from which to draw conclusions about sequences of Cognitive Competence and Linguistic Performance seen in student writing, and the value of the heuristic toward reading writing well. Major question: What relationships between qualities of Competence and Performance can be found in student writing? Supplementary question: Is the heuristic developed for this study a useful tool with which to describe qualities of student writing