The current research paper investigates the impact of McCarthy's 4MAT model on developing writing skills among upper-grade primary pupils. Sixty-four pupils in six primary-stage grades were chosen as the study participants and were divided randomly into two matched groups (a control group and an experimental one). The researcher adopted the…

This article draws on social psychology's research into attitudes and values to explain how transfer of writing knowledge may be facilitated through attitude formation and change. The theoretical writing knowledge as stated in Threshold Concepts of Writing explains that writing is a tool that mediates human interactions, enacting and evolving…

Forced to cope with a growing population of students under-prepared for college writing, a large community college in northern Texas engaged in a transformative redesign of its developmental writing sequence, streamlining two courses, various student support services, and technology applications to boost student success, retention, and…

This paper analyzes the influence of three different learning paradigms for learning literacy--formalist, cognitive-processing, and literacy practices--on the implementation of the Common Core State Standards. It argues that the Common Core State Standards are based largely on a formalist paradigm as evident in the emphasis on teaching text…

This paper offers a model to be followed by students completing a writing assignment. The model, designed originally for writing students at two-year colleges, prescribes the number of paragraphs and the content of each paragraph. Suggested topic assignments are offered, and an example of the use of the model is provided. Four steps are proposed…

The process paradigm for teaching writing has been the dominant curricular model for the past 20 years, but by anatomizing various dimensions of this paradigm, it becomes clear why it, like any other paradigmatic model, will not last forever. To be adopted and become normative, any new paradigm has to appeal to salient features of the prevailing…

Circa 1984 early practitioners in the composition field imagined a potential blossoming of early efforts in computers and writing that subsequent developments in the field have lost sight of. The expense of developing personal programs, the emergence of word processing software that incorporated many of the mechanical aspects of spelling and style…

The effectiveness of the freshman composition "reader" as a source of prose models for student essays is questionable because their often long and complicated rhetorical strategies and ideas can intimidate the writers. The narrow expository patterns offered in the readers can also reduce essay writing to a matter of copying a prescribed…

As a response to the increasing support for linking information about the role of writing in the lives of children to writing instruction in schools, a research instrument was developed that illuminates children's concepts about writing (who writes, what is written, where people write, why they write, and how they view the writing process).…

A student was able to overcome flatness in his writing when he focused on the process of writing rather than the product. The student's draft of an essay about a symbol the student found meaningful contained spelling and grammatical errors and was also "flat." The essay had no apparent thesis, demonstrated lack of success in issues of…

An alternative to the often artificial writing workshop model focuses on learning through imitation and on the writing process rather than the product. This alternative model also involves considerably more reading than a typical workshop class, requiring students to read the way writers do, with a critical understanding and an awareness of the…

Writing instructors who teach argument are familiar with the dilemma of conflicting metaphors: those who teach writing with a process approach may structure their teaching through a growth or benevolent nature metaphor, but cannot deny the tenacity of the "argument as war" metaphor. Breaking this war metaphor requires that ethics become…

The peer-group method of composition instruction represents the quintessence of the "environmental" mode of teaching which brings teacher, student, and materials more nearly into balance. Responding to recent criticisms of peer-response groups, a model was developed to establish a middle course, balancing (1) philosophical stances; (2)…

The use of a Jonathan Schwartz essay as a prose model to teach writing lends itself appropriately to classroom discussions on various aspects of autobiography and general narrative design. Such use has proved to be particularly helpful with young writers because of its deceptively simple style and language and its use of a variety of sophisticated…

This paper poses the question of whether it is possible to teach writing (or work with teachers teaching writing) so that public perceptions of students, and of writing, change. The paper elaborates on the question--Is it possible to: (1) use writing as a way to eradicate deficit-based notions of students and their abilities; and (2) use writing…