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The hypothesis that task-specific criterion-referenced self-assessment can have a positive effect on students' metacognitive engagement and learning was tested. Seventh graders (n=47) were asked to invent, apply, and explain a classification system for a group of animals. Treatment subjects periodically assessed their performance in terms of a written rubric that listed the criteria for each task and gradations of quality for each criterion. Students in the control group were not asked to assess their work. Think-aloud protocols were collected and coded to provide insight into spontaneous self-assessment, the classification of self-assessment, and the influence of self-assessment on metacognitive engagement and learning. Approximately three-quarters of the students assessed themselves spontaneously. Girls in the treatment group were more metacognitive than boys, but no statistically significant differences were found for boys in treatment and control groups. Treatment students tended to outperform the control group on posttests. The rubric appeared to have a positive effect on the criteria that students used in their spontaneous self-assessments, and students who assessed their own work were remarkably willing to revise it. An appendix contains the scoring rubric given to the experimental group. (Contains 18 tables and 109 references.) (Author/SLD)

1Boy Crusoe

By Allan Eric

Also published as" A Yankee Crusoe" . A 15 year old hard working and studious farm boy finds the lure of adventure on the seas as a merchant seaman more than he can resist. This is his story. " I was born in a little town in the State of Maine, near the close of the Civil War. My boyhood life did not differ materially from that of the average farmer's son in the remote country districts of New England--except, perhaps, that I read more and thought more. Hard work on the rugged soil, two terms each year in the little yellow country schoolhouse, a day's fishing now and then filled the early years of my life full to over-flowing. " What he gets is enough excitement and adventure to overflow his wildest dreams. How he experiences disaster and uses his wits and knowledge to overcome every problem makes for a great read. - Summary by Phil Chenevert