This discussion introduces a heuristic to guide writing instruction with adolescents and young adults. Our framework, called "Open World Writing," consists of six writing territories (vision, material, design, voice, flow, polish) that provide focus and clarity for writing and educators working across academic and creative writing…

The Institute for Education Sciences identifies main idea and summarization instruction as effective practices for improving adolescent students' reading comprehension. Main idea generation is a higher-level comprehension skill that requires students to read the text, connect information across the paragraph or section, determine the most…

Critical thinking is one of the most highly sought skills in education, yet questions remain about instilling students with this elusive set of skills and dispositions. Is it generalizable or discipline-specific? How should it be taught? This article describes an approach by two middle school teachers who developed and taught an in-person and…

In this article, we draw on the work of Michel Foucault to analyze one student's subject development in an expository writing classroom. James, the participant, was embarking on the project of becoming a good student, as he understood it, after struggling and leaving school previously. Drawing on interviews, classroom observations and written…

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 first of the three recommendations: Explicitly teach…

U.S. adolescents' prior technology experiences and exposure to digital genres vary, but they will often write digital texts as they enter college and adulthood. We explored middle school students' digital writing instructional experience in the context of a university-based summer digital writing camp. The sixth- through eighth-grade adolescents…

In order to understand the culture of the physical, virtual, and blended spheres that adolescents inhabit, we build on Gee's concept of affinity spaces. Drawing on our ethnographic research of adolescent literacies related to The Hunger Games novels, the Neopets online game, and The Sims videogames, this article explores the nature of…

As both a teacher and a parent, Ranck-Buhr knows a little something about working with students and keeping them engaged in the reading and writing processes... even recalling a son who was a reluctant book-report writer until he was offered some choice of reading material. She suggests practical ways to implement two vital elements in the…

Adolescents with learning disabilities need explicit supports to improve their written expression, but those structures and supports are best utilized in an environment that promotes authentic writing resembling the writing students will produce in adult life and work. Classroom blogs may offer special educators an authentic context for writing…

Students' academic achievement across content areas is often dependent on their ability to express knowledge through written expression. Many adolescent students lack the skills to write efficiently and effectively. These low-achieving writers can benefit from instruction in self-regulating the writing process. One approach, Self-Regulated…

Editing is a powerful tool for writers, but are our methods of teaching it really demonstrating that power for young adolescents? The author, frustrated with students' inability to edit, blames his own approach and, beginning with a grocery store epiphany, works to develop a more effective system. Elements of his successful approach include time…

This book captures the diversity and richness of writing as it relates to different forms of abilities, skills, competencies, and expertise. Psychologists, educators, researchers, and practitioners in neighboring areas are interested in exploring how writing develops and in what manner this development can be fostered, but they lack a handy,…

In this inquiry study, teachers will learn about the writing process and ways to improve virtually all facets of students' writing. Teachers will carefully examine their own beliefs about writing and the value of their own written literacy that can be modeled for students. Teachers will build professional communities in which they will interact…

Describes one teacher's approach to process writing, a mainstay for Montessori adolescent classrooms. The premise of the method is that everyone has the natural potential to write and that the emergence of the inner voice must be nurtured by extended conferencing and revision combined with taking risks, experimenting, and continually revising.…