Page 26 - Composition in Convergence The Impact of New Media On

INTRODUCTION XXV

1948—Educational Testing Service (ETS) emerges,
1957—Federal funds first invested in the teaching of composi-
tion and literature in American colleges and universities
(Berlin, 1987).
1958—American College Testing (ACT) begins (Berlin, 1987;
Lemann, 1995).
1960s—Large amount of rhetoric instruction begins at the un-
dergraduate level (Berlin, 1987).
1961—Paul Diederich develops the analytical scale for evaluat-
ing student writing (Berlin, 1987).
1966—Ellis Page and Dieter Paulus, among others, study intrin-
sic elements of writing, such as punctuation and parts of
speech, to analyze and approximately measure student
writing with computer technology. A shorthand form
for the algorithm becomes trins (intrinsic attributes) and
proxes (approximate measures; Lemann, 1995).

1966—Project Essay Grade (PEG) created to become a cost-ef-
fective alternative to human essay graders. PEG is based
on an algorithm that reads trins and proxes (Lemann,
1995).
1972—Harold Slotnick develops a computer essay grading sys-
tem derived from the factor analysis of six different trins
correlated with specific proxes. These statistical findings
were to provide a better understanding of what charac-
teristics student writing maintained to elicit certain
judgments made by either a human or a computerized
reader (Huot, 1996).
1977—Frequency word count system (the Standard Frequency
Index) is constructed to analyze the words used by two
different student writers when composing on the same
theme (Huot, 1996).
1977—The Primary-Trait Scoring Model emerges (Faigley,
Cherry, Jolliffe, & Skinner, 1985). A shift occurs from
norm-referenced assessment to criterion-referenced as-
sessment in writing instruction.