A study was conducted to determine how effectively children write when motivated by viewing a work of art and what kind of art they would choose most frequently for motivation. A group of 55 students from second, fourth, and eighth grade classrooms were selected to respond to reproductions of familiar paintings with either fictional or factual…

Everyone sees through advertisements, yet no one is immune from their appeal. In a writing class the students were able to look at ads without being injured or seduced by them, but doubted that others could do the same. It is important to encourage students to discuss what they actually think about writings rather than what they are supposed to…

By following the "steppingstone" or marker theory of dividing one's life into no more than 12 and no less than 8 significant periods, a student in a writing course can develop a brief response for each phase to articulate multiple experiences. Writing teachers can aid students in realizing that important life experiences are the stuff of…

A case study traces the evolution of "once-upon-a-time" in a child's classroom story writing, drawing upon data collected in a three-year study of writing development in an urban magnet school. The subject, Mitzi, is observed from kindergarten through second grade. The study assumes that stories are cultural discourse forms that serve…