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Thursday, September 2, 2010

Oregon students will be able to use spell check to pass state writing test | OregonLive.com

Oregon students will be able to use spell check to pass state writing test | OregonLive.com

Oregon students will be able to use spell check to pass state writing test

Published: Thursday, September 02, 2010, 12:17 PM Updated: Thursday, September 02, 2010, 12:28 PM
Oregon seventh-graders and high school students will now be able to use their computer's automated spelling checker when taking the state writing test, the Oregon Department of Education announced today.

The test asks students to write an essay in response to a prompt. Their writing is judged on six traits, including organization and sentence fluency. Conventions -- which includes spelling, capitalization and similar features which spell check can detect and fix -- is the single most important element in a student's score, with conventions score counted for twice as much as any other trait.

State officials announced today that