Critical-thinking skills help to prepare adult education students for a successful transition to college degree programs and for job advancement. Yet fostering critical thinking poses a challenge to ESL instructors. Brookfield (2012) provides a way forward for adult educators when he explains that the crux of critical thinking is to discover one's…

As writing instructors, the authors spend hours "talking back" to their students through written comments on their drafts. But how do student writers receive their comments, and what do they "do" with this feedback? Teachers invest so much time and energy in their responses to papers. How do they know what gets through, what makes sense to their…

This paper draws on a case study undertaken by an English teacher in a rural school with a Year 12 English class, most of whom had been singularly unsuccessful in terms of NCEA achievement. The case study was undertaken as part of a two-year project, directed by the first author, entitled: "Teachers as writers: Transforming professional…

This article argues for and models an approach to writing program assessment that relies on study of the writing practices of program graduates as a way to inform revisions in curriculum and teaching practices. The article also examines how conducting such assessments can help nondisciplinary publics understand the nature of composition …

Teaching students to write persuasive messages is a critical feature of any undergraduate business communications course. For the persuasive writing module in the author's course, students write a persuasive message on the basis of the four-part indirect pattern often used for sales or fund-raising messages. The course text she uses identifies…

From the first days of medical school, students are socialized into the medical environment. They are trained to view patients as the "other." The medical humanities have been introduced into the curriculum of most medical schools as a means to counteract the possible effects of this "othering." In particular, writing exercises…

Writing, and the vocabulary building that goes with it, is a more complex process than merely putting words on a page. In the process of acquiring vocabulary, for example, students need to understand not just what individual words mean but also which combinations of these words in sentences or paragraphs convey a meaningful message to the reader…

Describes a project used in a technical writing class to teach students about questionnaires and informal reports. Tells how students work in small groups to create questionnaires, use the questionnaires on selected populations, evaluate the questionnaires, and write informal reports of the project. (TJ)

Describes an approach to teaching the student research paper that improves the quality of arguments and prose. Reviews specific steps to writing and researching the research paper, which include free writing on a topic of interest, formulating a research question, interviewing and surveying, initial drafting of an argument, and (only after these…

A five-week tutorial minicourse offered by the Douglas/Cook College Writing Center at Rutgers University helps students develop skills in research writing. The first service the Writing Center offers is a "term paper strategy session," in which students meet with a reference librarian to examine the various reference sources available.…

To assess the value of professional writing internships, a pilot study at Michigan State University will administer pre- and post-tests to students involved in internships, as well as to control groups composed of professional writing majors who do not participate in internships, and other English majors following a traditional curriculum of…

Describes a 4-year teacher action research project focused on whether student dialogue journals can provide documentation of student learning from a cultural unit taught in Spanish. Results are discussed. (Author/VWL)

Suggests the growing use of computers to process information in today's world increases the human need for an interactive competency in writing and reading. The integration of instruction in reading and writing, particularly through use of word processors, is discussed as a way to strengthen this interaction. (MBR)

Experiences at Brooklyn College with Russian students who have had some formal English study before emigrating are recounted. Steady progress through a sequence of English-as-a-Second-Language courses is attributed to a student network of jobs, apartments, and English classes. Writing instruction techniques are cited. (Contains eight references.)…

Describes the peer-editing behaviors of eight undergraduate students in a third-year Spanish composition and grammar review course. Data collected over four months through interviews, participant observation, artifact inventories, and questionnaires revealed a strong tendency among informants to define the peer-editing process in social and…