Creative writing: appropriate evaluation criteria and their application in an analysis of developmental trends in children's writing

Evaluation is an essential part of language arts instruction, yet teachers in the primary and elementary schools generally have no formal criteria which they can use to assess pupils' written expression. -- The two-fold purpose of this study was to establish criteria for evaluating children's creative writing, and to apply these criteria as a means of analysing developmental trends in children's writing, at the Grade II, IV and VI levels. -- Creativity and creative writing were defined, and the various criteria previously established for assessing creative writing were reviewed and analysed as a preliminary to formulating evaluative criteria. The researcher developed her Creative Writing Criteria under seven main headings, namely, Detail, Story Structure, Characterization, Writer Reaction, Sentence Structure, Vocabulary, Literary Conventions. Other relevant items were included under these main headings. -- Classes of Grades II, IV and VI students attending Mary Queen of Peace School were subjects for the second part of the study. It was essential that the motivational stimulus chosen would be of sufficient appeal and interest to all students in the study, regardless of differences in sex or grade level. A large black-light poster of a castle was found to be appropriate for this purpose after it was used successfully in a pilot study. Pupils' responses to this motivational stimulus at each grade level were described and analysed by the researcher. Ten writing samples produced by girls and ten writing samples produced by boys were randomly selected from each grade level involved in the study as a basis for assessing developmental trends evident in the writing. The researcher found that it was possible to delineate the characteristics of pupils' writing at the Grade II, IV and VI levels, based on the adopted criteria