Where did the Features originate?

The North Carolina Writing Assessment began in the 1990s by scoring student writing on four criteria: main idea, support and elaboration, organization, and coherence. With the 1999 revision to the English Language Arts Standard Course of Study, the State Board of Education and the Department of Public Instruction reevaluated this assessment. With input from educators, DPI adopted a new rubric that matches the new curriculum, meets concerns of community and business leaders, and incorporates contemporary approaches to teaching and evaluating writing. Several other states use similar models in teaching and assessing student writing.

How do the Features help teachers?

Integrating the Features of Effective Writing into the planning, drafting and revising, editing, and publishing phases of the writing process helps teachers to improve their writing instruction by:

Providing objective criteria for assessing student writing. When faced with a stack of papers to grade, teachers often slip into focusing on surface details or aspects of writing that are easiest to grade. The Features help teachers to focus their comments, conferences, and direct instruction on the most critical features of effective writing.

• Focusing direct writing instruction and conferences on the right feature at the right time.
Rather than teaching a strict sequence of composition and grammar lessons throughout the year, teachers can provide students with flexible instruction in the appropriate feature when they need it most during the writing process. Teachers can teach lessons on focus and organization when students are planning their writing. During revision, teachers can provide lessons on support and elaboration or style, or, if necessary, review focus or organization. Lessons on conventions can be reserved for the editing phase of the writing process, as students prepare their work for sharing or publication.

• Giving equal weight (and equal instructional priority) to each feature. Focus and style
are often neglected in writing lessons, while conventions and organizations are widely taught —- sometimes to excess. By giving equal weight to the five Features, teachers can ensure that students receive the instruction they need to improve all aspects of their writing.

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