The What Works Clearinghouse (WWC) Practice Guide, "Teaching Secondary Students to Write Effectively," offers educators three specific, evidence-based recommendations that address the challenges of teaching students in grades 6-12 to write effectively. This summary focuses on the third of the three recommendations: Use assessments of…

The think-aloud approach to classroom writing assessment is designed to expand teachers' perspectives on adolescent students as writers and help them integrate instruction and assessment in a timely way. Emphasizing learning over evaluation, it is especially well-suited to revealing students' strengths and helping them overcome common challenges…

A commonly held belief among educators, researchers, and students is that high-quality texts are easier to read than low-quality texts, as they contain more engaging narrative and story-like elements. Interestingly, these assumptions have typically failed to be supported by the literature on writing. Previous research suggests that higher quality…

The book introduces readers in the often-overlooked math-related fields to the ideas of writing-to-learn (WTL) and writing in the disciplines (WID). It offers a guide to the pedagogy of writing in the mathematical sciences, and gives theoretically grounded means by which writing can be used to help undergraduate students to understand mathematical…

People are writing as never before--in blogs and text messages and on MySpace and Facebook and Twitter. Teenagers do a good deal of this writing, and in some composing environments--for example, the text-messaging space of a cell phone--they are ahead of adults in their invention of new writing practices and new genres. At the same time, teenagers…

This guide for college teachers, written from a British perspective, focuses on economic and efficient practices for assessing students. The guide groups various practices under 10 major strategies: (1) decide whose interests assessment is serving; (2) avoid over-sampling the course; (3) avoid over-questioning; (4) avoid over-reading student work;…

Discusses the problems that teachers face in dealing with developmental writers, including (1) why they are academically disadvantaged, (2) where to begin instruction, (3) how to determine assignments, and (4) how to evaluate their progress. (JD)

Encouraging adolescents to envision themselves as writers, this book provides 24 step-by-step exercises to help them discover their writing style, explore new types of writing, experiment with genres, and evaluate their own work. The book also provides pragmatic information about the day-to-day realities of becoming a writer: finding the right…

Combining the journal writing process with the concepts of collaboration can produce more focused writing and learning. Through the channel of collaborative situations, such as group journal writing, teachers can capitalize on the benefits achieved from the collaborative process and cultivate thinking and writing skills. A group journal writing…

Designed for a broad audience in education, this book offers a realistic look at the wide range of teaching contexts and how writing teachers adapt their pedagogy to their particular circumstances. Specific topics highlighted by individual essays include: basic writing, service learning, online writing, revision, research writing, proofreading and…

Designed to help teachers empower students to become thinkers, writers, and especially authors, this book helps teachers develop a writer's mindset in grades 2-6 students. It supports and guides teachers from the week before school through the spring Young Author's Conference that recognizes writing achievement. Chapters in the book are: (1) Kids…

Suggests specific approaches to critiquing A student's paper motivates THE student to produce better papers and to improve writing skills. Warns against overemphasis on the mechanics of writing, and points out steps the instructor may follow to involve students in the editing process. (NL)

Described are the experiences of one teacher with the teaching of writing in college level microbiology, virology, and immunology courses. Assignments, methods, evaluation, and student responses are discussed. (CW)

Developed as a teaching aid for a General Educational Development (GED) preparation class, this essay writing guide gives students the tools they need to develop and organize ideas for writing an essay with confidence. By following a sequential procedure in this very structured approach, students learn to turn out a well-organized essay. The…

This book offers detailed and complex guidance, and the necessary techniques, for grading college students' writing. It examines why it is important to integrate grading into the writing process; the need for effective writing assignments; ensuring fair professorial judgments; promoting student learning; helping students learn how to respond…