"This Is Hard, Isn't It?": Children Evaluating Writing

This paper describes the evaluation criteria that nonnative-English-speaking children (Grades 2–6) employed when evaluating writing. Specifically, the paper discusses: (a) the range of evaluation criteria that children used, (b) whether authorship influenced evaluation criteria (not all the stories were written by the children), and (c) whether the evaluation criteria used by the children varied according to age. The study is grounded in 14 in-depth interviews of 9 students, in which they rated pieces of writing and explained why they had given each story its particular rating. An analysis of the data reveals that the students (a) were critical evaluators, (b) tended to focus on meaning regardless of their age and whether the piece of writing had been written by themselves or an anonymous peer, (c) were highly idiosyncratic in the range of evaluation criteria that they employed, and (d) were influenced by the pedagogical focus in their ESOL classes.