Preservice teacher candidates acquire and develop numerous competencies in their teaching programs, including how to teach writing. Effective writing instruction is critical across all ages and content areas, especially when working with students with and at risk of emotional and behavioral disorders, making it an important aspect of teacher…

Research suggests that when young children have many opportunities to write they start believing they are the sort of people who can write for intellectual, academic, and social purposes. They also learn foundational reading skills. Project-like compositional writing involving design, strategies, and problem solving versus functional writing or…

The majority of correctional students of English as a second language (ESL) in Maryland come to school with limited formal education in their first language. Education has not been prioritized, and formal writing ability is absent. It then becomes a challenge to motivate students to successful writing, as is required by the state. ESL students at…

Expectations for high-level academic writing, especially in the Common Core era, have never been higher. Middle school and high school students are being asked to do close readings of complex texts and then respond in writing using academic discourse. This is a challenging task for many students, but perhaps none as great as for English language…

When teaching writing, this author states that there is nothing harder than trying to get a quality product, one worth reading, from a high school student. The author, however, has high hopes for the new Common Core standards, which call for students to "write routinely over extended time frames and shorter time frames for a range of tasks,…

This article discusses three sets of challenges involved in the assessment of writing from a developmental perspective. These challenges include defining a workable theory of development, developing a suitable construct, and overcoming limitations in technocentric approaches to writing assessment. In North America in recent years, a burgeoning…

Traditionally, assessing student writing ability has often been product-focused. Advocates of child-centered process-oriented classrooms, however, suggest that teachers should also focus on understanding children's writing behaviors in the context of meaningful communicative tasks. In such an approach, writing conferences are one way in which…

While writer's workshop provides a nurturing environment for many students, others struggle with the independence it gives. This may be due to the difficulty of coordinating the cognitive and self-regulatory demands of the writing process. Self-regulation refers to thoughts, feelings, and actions that individuals use to attain personal goals.…

Discusses the techniques used by an author and illustrator of children's books in visits to elementary school classrooms. The techniques use humor in the form of words that have great sounds but do not necessarily mean anything to encourage children to write and illustrate their work. (BB)

Teachers face at least two dilemmas in our work to meet the academic needs of our students. The first dilemma is how to prepare our students to pass state-mandated tests without driving them away, given that many already see school as a place where they fail. The traditional "drill and practice" approach to remediation for low-performing…

With support and guidance, graduate students can successfully pursue academic writing for publication. In graduate circles, academic writing is presumed to be a solitary activity for which students already are prepared. Yet, the reality is that students tend to find academic writing difficult and stressful, and they often look to university…

In graduate circles, academic writing is presumed to be a solitary activity for which students already are prepared. Yet, the reality is that students tend to find academic writing difficult and stressful, and they often look to university faculty members for guidance. Faculty members, in turn, may provide hands-on practice and other classroom…

Proposes that the multigenre concept can be a major force in developing writing ability and writing enthusiasm in students. Notes that the point of a multigenre paper is to convey a unified message which is reflected not only in the content of the individual elements, but also in how they work together. Proposes that if this necessary unity is not…

In an effort to provide students with instruction in academic writing early in their college careers, a project was undertaken to link a developmental composition course to an introductory psychology course at Washington's Bellevue College. The two professors designed a sequence of four papers offering practice in two of the more common academic…

I discuss an instructional model that I have used in my number theory classes. Facets of the model include using small group work and whole class discussion, having students generate examples and counterexamples, and giving students the opportunity to write proofs and make conjectures in class. The model is designed to actively engage students in…