Lecturers are challenged when creating safe, dialogic-educative spaces for first-year students (freshman), where optimal teaching-learning of academic writing can be accomplished. This paper reports on a project aimed at creating a safe, dialogic-educative space in which first-year students may attain and practice academic writing skills providing…

The "Silent Interview" provides an effective ice-breaking exercise for the first day of composition class and also triggers learning strategies toward writing effectively. At the first class meeting, students are asked to work in pairs, exchanging questions and responses in writing until six or eight questions have been asked and…

All textbooks, regardless of their orientation or vocabulary, are equally unhelpful in the processes of teaching and learning writing. For the most part the textbooks seem to blend two sets of functions within the discipline of rhetoric as it is manifested in writing pedagogy. Whether it goes by the label "current-traditional" or…

While many factors contribute to success and/or failure in ABE (Adult Basic Education) and ASE (Adult Secondary Education) activities, ABE and ASE writers will succeed or fail in direct correlation to what is happening to their self-esteem in the context of writing instruction. The first guideline for teaching writing to adults is telling the…

Poetry is a powerful avenue through which students can learn to express their voices and to "write like people." In the special needs classroom, where students traditionally have had difficulty with narrative structure, and therefore have gone unheard, developing voice through poetry becomes especially crucial. Samples of students'…

Intended to help freshman composition teachers develop productive audience strategy in their students, this paper explores useful and functional techniques elicited from expert writers to facilitate the generation of internal audiences for the typical college student in a required writing class. The paper encourages small-group peer discussion to…

Even for gifted students, the writing process resulting in an effective composition is a complex one, often overlooked in gifted education. The process begins with expressive writing, wherein the writer explores ideas and tries to find a focus. Subsets in the writing process include inventing, gathering outside materials, drafting, and revising…

To determine students' different but equally valid ways of dealing with the composing process, a college instructor developed a questionnaire assessing personality styles. The questionnaire distinguishes between (1) approaches to the writing process, (2) preferences for types of instruction, (3) preferences for types of writing and organizational…

A two-year study investigated writing in the elementary school. Data collected included field notes from observation of a second/third grade classroom, videotapes of selected classroom activities, weekly journals kept by the teacher reflecting her thoughts on teaching in general and on writing in particular, interviews with the teacher about the…

A qualitative study examined the role drawing plays in the writing processes of young children (ages five to nine), and how the role changes with the individual's growth as a writer. Sixty-seven children enrolled in a multiage classroom (K-3) were systematically observed to identify and describe various drawing functions in their writing…

Using ethnographic techniques to observe seven fifth grade and seven third grade students, a study examined the function of children's oral language during creative writing sessions in typical classroom situations. Findings indicated that oral language plays an important role in the writing process; specifically, that it (1) accompanies writing as…

A graduate course that required those enrolled to read an array of texts on composition theory yet left it up to them to stimulate classroom discussion yielded mixed results, according to student evaluations. The texts for the course, including Gary Tate and Edward P. J. Corbett's "Writing Teacher's Sourcebook," Erika Lindemann's "A…

A study investigated the writing done by third graders and the processes used when learning to use writing as a meaning-making activity. Four focal students were followed through composing episodes. The classroom was located in a suburban, upper middle class area in Ohio. Less than 3% of the school district population were members of a minority…

A study was designed to identify and codify behavioral trends in the composing process of early writers' narrative attempts in literate environment instructional settings. The study also examined regressive patterns within behavioral responses to determine how development in one area of the writing task influenced the development in other areas.…

A study examined and analyzed the functions of written language for one writer during her first-grade year. Data included 516 pieces of writing done by the subject, transcriptions of interviews with the subject, and field notes. Results indicated that: (1) sources of the subject's writing ranged from extremely structured situations to…