: Introduction
The focus of this chapter is on expressive writing, in which students were given freedom to write inventively, within task guidelines. Characteristics sought included ability to write coherently, to communicate personal feeling, to communicate stories or ideas clearly or even vividly, and to follow conventions associated with particular forms of writing (such as poetry or speech bubbles on pictures). Eleven tasks were identical for year 4 and year 8 students and one was administered only to year 8 students. Three are trend tasks (fully described with data for both 1998 and 2002), four are released tasks (fully described with data for 2002 only), and five are link tasks (to be used again in 2006, so only partially described here). Spots The tasks are presented in the three sections: trend tasks, then released tasks and finally link tasks. Within each section, tasks administered to both year 4 and year 8 students are presented first, followed by tasks administered only to year 8 students. Averaged across 50 task components administered to both year 4 and year 8 students, 21 percent more year 8 than year 4 students succeeded with these components. Year 8 students performed better on all except two of the components (which showed no difference). Medium proportions of year 4 students and higher proportions of year 8 students followed the task guidelines quite well, but most students were not able to achieve the clarity, vividness, personal feeling or humour that distinguished top quality writing. Trend analyses showed no meaningful change since 1998 for year 4 students but a small reduction in performance for year 8 students. Averaged across 22 task components attempted by year 4 students in both years, 1 percent more students succeeded in 2002 than in 1998. Gains occurred on 12 components and losses on 8 components. At year 8 level, again with 22 task components included in the analysis, 5 percent fewer students on average succeeded with the task components in 2002 than in 1998. Gains occurred on 5 components, with losses on 16 components.
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