Fig. 2

Essay Length Plotted by Writing Time, Shown for Four Students Individually and Combined. The graphs plot process data from a NAEP 8th-grade writing assessment pilot study. The horizontal axis in each graph shows time elapsed, while the vertical axis shows the number of characters typed by a student. The slope shows the speed at which a student composes the written response to the test prompt. The first student (shown in red) composes the response at a pretty steady rate with only one moment of deleting and rewriting. The second student (shown in green) has a slower rate and three episodes of significant deleting and rewriting. The third student (shown in yellow) spends almost half the response time without typing anything and then writes at a steady rate to the end of the time period. The total amount composed is markedly less than the first two students, indicated by the lower level reached on the vertical axis. This student has no episodes of significant deleting and rewriting. The last two show a slower rate of composition and again an overall lower level reached on the vertical axis indicating a much shorter response than the first two students. The fourth student (shown in blue) has no major episodes of deleting and rewriting but has some minor deletions and rewriting. If all student responses are combined on a single graph, we can see that they represent markedly different patterns and amounts of writing. From the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) 2016 8th-grade writing assessment pilot study