Can Quality Survive the Standardized Test?

In Seeking Diversity, a book on teaching middle school language arts, author and teacher Linda Rief says, "I expect good reading and writing, in which process and product are woven tightly into literate tapestries of wonder and awe"(10). Rief thus describes the HOly Grail of writing instruction: a classroom in which students learn to write because they care about the fina l product and want to do excellent work. Such an environment would teach students the ability to write by tur...