Given the importance of early writing experiences, a key question is how educators can increase the amount and quality of writing in early childhood settings. Expert early writing teachers were observed to identify the types of activities and interactions they used to engage 4- and 5-year-olds as writers. Writing instruction occurred as part of…

This book explains seven critical steps to improve children's writing. Though seemingly 'natural', writing proves devilishly difficult for far too many school pupils and closing this gap can have a lasting impact on their academic and life success. With the goal of giving every teacher the knowledge and skill to teach writing with confidence, it…

Courses: Any communication course requiring a literature review, including, but is not limited to, Communication Research Methods and Communication Theory. Objectives: After completing this activity, students should be able to write better literature reviews by (1) locating a range of resources; (2) identifying a variety of relevant information…

In this report, we present certain teaching activities employed at the University of Calabria and at the I.T.C. C. Mortati high school. The former were conducted within the English for Basic Academic Skills courses, the latter in the Spanish as a Foreign Language classes for students in the last two years of high school. The grammar and linguistic…

Challenging students to educate the public about how rhetoric functions is a primary impetus of the argumentative dictionary eBook. In this author's classes, "rhetoric" means the communicative tactics and strategies used to motivate actions and beliefs. With its emphasis on open-access rhetorical pedagogy, this project and its impetus…

English as a second language (ESL) writing teachers face distinct challenges as they try to help students write in the language that is appropriate and natural to the native-English-speaking audience. It is disheartening when the writings of even advanced-level second language students often contain many awkward sentences and non-English-like…

The Literacy Design Collaborative (LDC) incorporates challenging literacy standards into middle grades and high school content areas within a variety of academic disciplines, not just English/language arts courses. The Mathematics Design Collaborative (MDC) provides schools with instructional tools needed to help teachers understand and implement…

In contrast to the product approach to writing, which is based on studying and replicating textual models, the process approach involves multiple and repeated steps that compel the writer to closely consider the topic, language, purpose for writing, and social reality of an audience. In addition to discussing the benefits of the process approach…

This newsletter of best practices in implementing the High Schools That Work (HSTW), Making Middle Grades Work (MMGW) and Technology Centers That Work (TCTW) school improvement models is based on presentations at the 27th Annual HSTW Staff Development Conference in Charlotte, North Carolina, in the summer of 2013. The newsletter is divided up into…

Writing as a tool for thinking, learning, and communicating is crucial to academic and career success as well as to active citizenship in a democracy. This annual report of the National Writing Project features teachers of math, chemistry, art, history, and business who develop their students as writers. These educators employ writing to engage…

Students in intermediate and middle level grades are often caught up in the exciting visual images and auditory stimuli that are a part of all their everyday communication and learning experiences. As a group of students who are growing intellectually and socially in the midst of, and through, predominantly media messages, they require reading and…

A fourth-grade teacher describes educational uses of a loft he constructed in his classroom. After drafting a constitution, the children brainstormed possible uses as reading/writing nook, small-group work area, and time-out space. The loft also serves as a minilibrary, private conference room, test makeup room, and staging area. (MLH)

Teacher educator and researcher Peterson works with eighth-grade science teacher, Rochwerger, who believes that writing is a learning tool that will enable her students to become scientifically literate. Here, we see this belief played out through an action research project that found students using a genre of their choice to write about what they…

Discusses two upper division writing-intensive courses, Sociological Theory and Sociology of Religion, offered at Millsaps College (Mississippi). Argues that greater emphasis on writing in the upper-division sociology courses allows students to become better learners and better sociologists. (DB)

This report offers a number of specific teaching techniques that research suggests will help 4th- to 12th-grade students in this nation's schools. The report focuses on all students, not just those who display writing difficulties, although this latter group is deservedly the focus of much attention. The premise of this report is that all students…