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This article describes a part of an interdisciplinary research project that examines subcomponents of writing competence and their teachability in an intervention study. The study was conducted in 5th and 9th grades of different school types in Cologne and Hanover, Germany. To find out whether the training of specific subcomponents had an effect on text quality and writing competence in general, the students produced reports and argumentative texts at three different times of measurement. Text quality was then determined by combining two different approaches to text ratings: All texts were rated following a holistic approach and, independently, using an analytical grid. We reflect on the potentials and limitations of our approach to measure text quality and indicate writing competence. The preliminary results emphasize the need for extensive rater trainings and trial runs to ensure the validity and generalizability of the rating grid and thus the conclusions about text quality and writing competence.

This article describes a part of an interdisciplinary research project that examines subcomponents of writing competence and their teachability in an intervention study. The study was conducted in 5th and 9th grades of different school types in Cologne and Hanover, Germany. To find out whether the training of specific subcomponents had an effect on text quality and writing competence in general, the students produced reports and argumentative texts at three different times of measurement. Text quality was then determined by combining two different approaches to text ratings: All texts were rated following a holistic approach and, independently, using an analytical grid. We reflect on the potentials and limitations of our approach to measure text quality and indicate writing competence. The preliminary results emphasize the need for extensive rater trainings and trial runs to ensure the validity and generalizability of the rating grid and thus the conclusions about text quality and writing competence.