Creole-speaking contexts are significantly underrepresented in language and literacy research yet present a unique context for understanding the nature of language and literacy development among numerous learners in the Global South. In the Caribbean in particular, the poor writing outcomes of Creole speakers across all levels of education has…

Effective feedback is an essential tool for making learning explicit and an essential feature of classroom practice that promotes learner autonomy. Yet, it remains a pressing challenge for teachers to scaffold the active involvement of students as critical, reflective and autonomous learners who use feedback constructively. This paper seeks to…

This article makes a case for the centrality of yearning in fictional representations of characters. With the help of illustrations from Adam Phillips, Olen Butler and Ted Hughes I argue that this key element may be missing from the creative work of students. This is my attempt, through exercises and other stimuli, to generate this yearning or…

During the spring semester of 2006 the Department of Physical Education (John Jay College of Criminal Justice) and a writing fellow, an English doctoral candidate (CUNY Graduate Center), began working together, with the goal of creating a new writing assignment for an integral course at the college. PED 103, Personal Physical Fitness and Dynamic…

Seniors submitted and revised essays within ePortfolios for evaluation by high school faculty and university first-year writing instructors. The project also examined differences between high school and college teachers' responses and effects on students' assumptions about the writing expected and valued in college. Results suggest techniques…

Describes a writing assignment useful for high school and college students in which students ponder, discuss, and write about collecting, collectors, and the human impulse to collect. Includes some samples of student writing. (SR)

Describes using self-reflective synesthetic writing exercises (which prompt students to think metaphorically about crossed senses--taste of clouds, smell of anger, etc.) in creative writing with high school students. Notes how such writing allows a reader/teacher insights into students' lives and personalities. Includes student sample poems. (SR)

Presents an instructional unit, "Literary Lifeboat," a purposeful writing exercise in which students write character justifications for familiar stories. Describes the unit's implementation in a Year 5 class, and discusses the advantages and disadvantages of the exercise. (MM)

To dramatize the need for logical organization and precise definition, students are asked to write essays describing specific everyday objects (e.g., screwdriver, nutpick). After the essay is read aloud the class tries to guess the item and comments on the effectiveness of the description. (DS)

Discusses how powerful the letter is as a form and vehicle for writing, particularly because the language of letters is the closest to natural speech and represents casual spontaneity associated with conversation. Suggests practical ways of including letter writing in the classroom and provides sample letters as illustration. (KEH)

Argues that listening is an integral part of composing by discussing the results of several listening/writing exercises (retellings of short stories or parts of novels). Notes that basic writers learned to hear the reader-voice in texts, thereby developing their internal writer's voice and better control of their writing. (RS)

Describes how a short exercise in designing greeting cards for a "Teacher Appreciation Day" helps student identify and analyze the four components of rhetoric--purpose, content, persona, and audience. Includes samples of students' greeting card messages. (MM)

Discusses a technique for helping students see the value of revision by using a previously written and revised composition as an illustration. (TJ)

Presents a three-part exercise that deals with poetic excess: heightened exaggeration of deliberately conflicting ideas. States that part 1 deals with hyperbole, part 2 with paradox, and part 3 with combining hyperbole and paradox in a single poem. Gives examples of students' poems using the technique. (PA)

Describes three poetry-writing exercises that encourage students to break from linear, normal thinking patterns: answering questions that have no answers; describing impossible objects; and contemplating infinity. (MM)