Writing is an important teaching and learning tool that fosters active and critical thinking. There are multiple pressures for disciplines outside the humanities and social sciences to integrate writing in their courses. The shift from teaching solely discipline-specific skills to including writing in a meaningful way can be a daunting process. An…

Retrospective reports gathered from developmental education students as part of a learning assessment revealed the use of several strategies for writing a summary based on a text. Participants were selected for the study based on the richness and variety of their verbal descriptions of task performance in structured, individualized interviews.…

While literacy autobiographies, citizenship autobiographies, and family narratives are common first writing assignments in the freshmen composition classroom, they are usually followed by some kind of research proposal, annotated bibliography, or research essay. While there is nothing wrong with literacy and citizenship autobiographies or family…

Current approaches and trends in writing pedagogy within the composition classroom focus on the development of students' identities through personal, cultural, or disciplinary processes. By employing writing assignments and activities that concentrate on developing certain traits or characteristics of students' identities has led to a "crisis"…

Teachers of a basic writing course broadened their theme approach from growth and change in adolescence to the theme of language and identity, developed sequenced writing assignments, and worked toward the culminating unit--a mini-research project through which all the language and thinking skills developed throughout the semester could be…

The results of interviews conducted with 48 freshman writing/composition teachers in 11 two-year colleges in California are summarized in this report. After brief descriptive comments introducing each interview topic, responses are summarized by college to the following questions: (1) What placement procedures are used to assign students to…

Focusing on techniques for teaching students to integrate diverse ideas at a deep level of cognitive processing, a study evaluated an idea integration package for teaching writing in the college classroom. Subjects, 29 college students from an introductory psychology class at a Utah university, were divided into two groups. The integration group…

As a follow-up to the Central Wisconsin Writing Project, a writing survey was prepared to (1) introduce the concept of writing across the curriculum to high school faculty in the district, (2) determine the district's need for inservice in writing across the curriculum, (3) establish the validity of the data, (4) collect information about writing…

This report describes a program for motivating reluctant writers. The targeted population consisted of one fourth-grade and four fifth-grade classrooms in three elementary schools. All three schools were located in the western suburbs of Chicago, Illinois. The problems of reluctant writers were documented with timed writing samples, student and…

In 1989, a project was undertaken to improve the student success rate in a writing course (Communications I) at a Florida multi-campus institution. Of the 489 students who had taken the course, 18% were unsuccessful in completing it in one semester. Three observed student behaviors which contributed to poor writing performance were an inability to…

With use of a carefully planned program of peer evaluation, the teacher can develop students' skills in analysis, evaluation, proofreading, and punctuation. Giving each student a copy of the "Indicator for Rating Performance, Grades 6-12," the teacher explains that the 11 essential parts of any written work are each described and given a specific…

One of a series in reading, writing, and mathematics intended to acquaint teachers with the skills tested in each content area on the New Jersey High School Proficiency Test, this booklet on writing presents material that can be used in lesson planning, skills review, and practice testing. Following a report of the writing committee convened to…

Lack of motivation to complete writing tasks leaves students unable to perform according to grade level expectations or to demonstrate mastery of school district objectives. To address this problem, a practicum involved 30 fifth grade students in a 36-week writing program using the process writing method. The goals of the practicum were as…

Focusing on the effects of three interventions on students' reading and writing of persuasive discourse, a study investigated (1) whether the writing of persuasive discourse can be improved by instruction, and (2) the effect of reading on writing and of writing on reading within the persuasive mode. Subjects, 100 Canadian sixth graders stratified…

Noting that teachers sometimes fail to draw on students' prior knowledge, this guide focuses on helping teachers both to think about the cognitive processes involved in learning and to design activities that provide students with a solid introduction to various learning tasks. The first section briefly discusses current theory and research in…