In September, 2016, the National Center for Special Education Research (NCSER) and the National Center for Education Research (NCER) of the Institute of Education Sciences (IES) convened a group of experts to discuss and provide input on research needs in the area of middle and high school writing for students, including English learners (ELs) and…

The goal of writing assessment in the Department of Mathematics at Rochester Institute of Technology (RIT) is to assure that students can communicate about mathematics or statistics in a manner appropriate to their future careers. A five-member writing committee, composed of mathematics faculty, assess students at three different times during…

In 1984 the Human Biology program at Stanford University launched a writing across-the-curriculum project with a year-long writing-intensive introductory class. The immediate objectives were to (1) develop students' writing fluency by demanding more writing, (2) improve the quality of all student writing by increasing attention to the writing…

Concerned with improving text readability in the content areas, this report first draws upon Linda Flower's writing steps and strategies in its description of writing as moving from planning to generating ideas in words, designing for a reader, and editing for effectiveness. It also presents nine more precise steps in the writing process along…

In an attempt to contribute to the development of students' writing skills while helping them master basic psychology, a writing component was designed for a medium sized introductory psychology course. Its purpose was to aid in the mastery of course material and to contribute to the development of students' skill in written expression. In the…

Fifty-five colleges that require graduating students to pass a writing proficiency examination were surveyed as to the form and nature of their examinations and the formal preparation and follow-up procedures offered to students taking the examinations. The examination formats fall into three broad categories: 62% are essay only, 31% are essay…

The School for New Learning (SNL) was established in 1972 at DePaul University especially for adult students. SNL students are adults, age 24 or older, who want to accelerate their progress to a degree by using experience as well as classwork for academic credit, and who want to design their own programs with help from an advisory committee of…

A study investigated the effectiveness of peer critiquing and the use of writing models in the preparation of scientific reports. Primary trait scoring was used to evaluate laboratory reports on exercise physiology written by four different groups of sophomore biology majors: (1) a reference (control) group that prepared for writing reports with…

The writing across the curriculum program at Michigan Technological University was designed to change teacher and student attitudes about course-assigned writing as well as to change writing practices by means of a series of faculty workshops. After four years, a team of seven faculty members from rhetoric and composition, literature, psychology,…

In spite of the widespread implementation of Writing Across the Curriculum (WAC), there remains little concrete evidence of the writing-thinking connection. This paper proposes a new research method that tracks students' performance and production at a deeper level of specificity than that in previous investigations of this relationship, e.g., in…

A case study examined the implementation of a schoolwide writing program established in a California middle school through a district sponsored school improvement program (SIP). Conducted at an urban sprawl southern California school of approximately 900 students in grades seven and eight, the program was directed and implemented by the English…

Reporting on the work of a task force formed for the purpose of improving writing skills in the Memphis (Tennessee) City Schools, grades K-12, this paper identifies the efforts of the task force and its recommendations and traces the development and implementation of the Writing Across the Curriculum Project. An introduction notes the importance…

In 1989, a study was conducted within the Minnesota Community College System to determine the effects of a 3-year Writing Across the Curriculum (WAC) staff development program on the quality of student writing and on student mastery of course objectives. The study methods included faculty interviews, student and faculty surveys, holistic ratings…

A pilot program at the University of Michigan integrated the teaching of developmental writing and the teaching of introductory psychology based upon the two-fold principles of writing-across-the-curriculum: learning to write and writing to learn. The program consisted of four components: (1) a series of brief autonomous composition assignments…

Cultural diversity in the classroom is often seen as a block to learning and teaching, and the Urban Humanities Writing Project (UHWP--Greater Boston Area), a program which combines the teaching of writing with the principles and practices of multicultural education, was developed specifically to combat this negative view. The first component of…