To investigate whether a creative writing unit in upper secondary education would improve students' creative as well as argumentative text quality and to examine whether it would change students' writing behavior, we tested a creative writing unit based on encouraging writing in flow by using divergent thinking tasks. Four classes (Grade 10)…

Writing involves a number of skills and being self-directed in the process would contribute to greater effectivity. The concept of autonomography, or being self-directed in terms of writing, draws from the literature on self-directed learning and specifically self-directed writing, where concepts such as self-regulation and learner autonomy are…

This paper arose out of a shared concern about how to explore young children's ways of becoming-writers. A framework based on the nomad thought of French philosophers Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari was used to develop the analysis. A situated, relational and nomadic analysis offers insights into how processes of becoming-writers are produced,…

The usefulness of the computer for facilitating children's creative writing and for manipulating structures in writing is illustrated. (MP)

A comparison of compositions written by 19 sixth graders using pencil and paper with those written by 19 sixth graders using word processors found that though the quality of writing, accuracy of grammar, and reading ease did not differ between the two approaches, students using computers wrote more words and sentences. (PEN)

Eleven fifth- and sixth-grade learning-disabled students composed and revised stories using handwriting, dictation, and word processing. Dictated stories differed from other formats on product measures such as length, quality, and grammatical errors. Differences between handwritten and word-processed stories were found on the process measures of…

In a study to determine the effects of writing on the computer versus traditional writing by hand, 22 fourth grade students were randomly assigned to samples using either a computer or paper and pencil. The study hypothesized that (1) children are not more willing to revise and improve their writing using a word processor when compared to the…

A study investigated whether computers would enable students to develop individual working writing environments. The programs that the fourth-grade students used were Hypercard, Clip Art, and MacWrite. Students worked with each of the programs and talked about what they were thinking while using the computer. A constant flow of teachers, staff,…

A study examined the subtle impact of word processing (used alone) on the way students approach their writing tasks. Nine elementary school teachers were trained in techniques of naturalistic observation and received a kit containing important guidelines for their observational task, daily log sheets, and journal forms. The teachers then observed…

Synthesized speech was added to a word processor used by children in grades two and five. Each student wrote four stories on a microcomputer and received spoken feedback on two of them. It was found that students wrote longer stories, edited more, and enjoyed writing more with the spoken feedback. (24 references) (LAE)

This paper explores the issue of how, when, and where to teach keyboarding at the elementary school level through a review of the keyboarding literature and descriptions of three studies conducted with fifth grade students in the laboratory school at the University of Wyoming. The literature review briefly summarizes findings on the following…

Finds that, among 36 Ontario students in grades 5-8, use of word processing in a language arts program increased writing productivity for all students and number of revisions for certain grades. However, fifth graders were significantly less able than others to use word processing technology. Contains 23 references. (SV)

A study investigating collaborative computer use for writing at the primary level was conducted at a Catholic school in Toronto through videotaping and observation in a first grade classroom over a period of 3 weeks. It was found that the differentiation of tasks by the computer into two types of acts--inputting signs and arranging text--was…

A study of the effects of a typing tutor plus a computer-based word processor versus paper and pencil on the writing of six elementary students with behavioral disorders found small improvements in capitalization, spelling, punctuation, and complete sentences attributable to either method, though story length increased for three of six students…

This study investigated the collaborative interactions of junior high school boys (N=36) with learning disabilities while engaged in writing stories using a word processor. Half the subjects were of Anglo-American background and half of Mexican-American background. Each subject worked in two dyads, ethnically homogeneous and ethnically…