This paper examines how writing samples produced by middle school students reveal their emerging academic identities through their rhetorical choices in writing. Analyses of two texts produced by each student revealed students' implicit understandings of the requirements of academic voice. Through comparisons of each student's texts, strategies…

Despite the general trend to embrace interdisciplinarity in post-secondary education, we remain remarkably unclear concerning what we mean by interdisciplinarity and how it is achieved. Reporting on research conducted in a team-taught interdisciplinary course, I propose a new way of conceptualizing interdisciplinary connections, grounded in…

Research on persuasive writing by elementary children posits primarily a developmental perspective, claiming that elementary-age children can effectively argue through talk but not through writing. While this view is commonly held, this article presents counterevidence. Drawing on two cases of third and fourth grade children writing persuasive…

Concluded that compulsory writing generally increased the writing apprehension of college freshmen enrolled in the basic composition course. (DD)

Examines the differences in quality ratings that 20 teachers in each of three high school curricular areas gave samples of written argument by college freshmen and investigates the relationship between the three groups of quality ratings and eight syntactic and mechanics-of-writing variables. (FL)

Reports a study of teachers' and writers' interpretations of scenario assignments. Finds that, among the three groups tested (graduate students trained to teach rhetoric, academically successful undergraduate students trained as tutors, and entering freshmen) experienced writers' interpretations adhered most closely to the interpretive community's…

Focuses on the writing instruction which the 1977 NCTE Achievement Award- winning students had received, concluding that writing frequency, type of assigned writing topics, and class size affect writing instruction and that successful writers are dedicated readers. (DD)

Explores academic writing from the students' side of the desk, examining how different tasks and writing situations influence students' approaches. Finds that responses to assignments depend upon what the students were actually rewarded for producing. (MG)

One under-researched writing practice of today's millennial youth is online journaling. Despite the plethora of online journals on the Internet and their ubiquitous use by adolescents, little research has been conducted on online journaling as a literacy practice. The purpose of this study was, therefore, to explore how and why adolescents choose…

Describes the development of a domain-referenced system intended to both describe and classify current writing assignments and to create composition assignments. (HOD)

Compares the written production of 12 sixth grade English-as-a-second-language (ESL) students on 3 teacher-assigned tasks with their writing to the teacher in dialogue journals. Finds that the quantity and maturity of the dialogue journal writing was at least equivalent to the assigned writing on all measures. (RS)

Reviews a study examining the influence of rhetorical specification in writing prompts on the writing quality of 7th-, 9th-, and 11th-grade students, and college freshmen. Analyzes the main and interactive effects of topic, purpose, and audience on writing quality. Indicates that students use different kinds of rhetorical information at different…

Investigates how classroom communities were created to support students' writing in two contrasting grade-10 English classrooms: one in a low-income urban school with a diverse population, one in a middle-class suburban school. Analyzes class discussions to see how they functioned in creating community. Portrays writing in both classrooms as…

This article explores the writing opportunities provided to Spanish-speaking and mandarin speaking English Language Learners at the fourth and fifth-grade level across the various classroom settings in which they participated daily: an all-English speaking classroom, an English-as-a-second language (ESL) classroom, and a native-language classroom.…