Background: Although there is empirical evidence to support the inclusion of poetry in the EFL classroom, the medium is rarely encountered in language learning environments. Aims: This study aimed to determine the influence of haiku composition tasks on developing academic writing skills of a group of TEFL majors at an Ecuadorian university.…

Teachers of writing strive for authenticity. When they ask students to write, they want it to be for authentic purposes. When they engage students in writing processes, they want those to be authentic processes. When they ask students to compose a particular kind of text, thye want those texts to be authentic genres reflecting authentic writing…

An early foundation in writing offers students a valuable tool for learning, communication, and self-expression. Authored by a panel of experts, the "Teaching Elementary School Students to Be Effective Writers" practice guide presents four recommendations educators can use to help elementary students strengthen their writing skills. The…

Instructional tips help educators carry out recommendations contained in IES Educator's Practice Guides. The tips, based on a practice guide authored by Steve Graham, Alisha Bollinger, Carol Booth Olson, Catherine D'Aoust, Charles MacArthur, Deborah McCutchen, and Natalie Olinghouse, translate these recommendations into actionable approaches that…

Instructional tips help educators carry out recommendations contained in IES Educator's Practice Guides. This summary of evidence describes the research evidence that supports the use of the instructional tips in classrooms, and is based on a practice guide authored by Steve Graham, Alisha Bollinger, Carol Booth Olson, Catherine D'Aoust, Charles…

In this era of high-stakes testing and densely packed state standards, it is too easy for writing to become a meaningless process, useful only for school. Many strategies can help to get all students writing, but this author set out to find a strategy to help students see the power of writing and to know that their voices matter. Writing groups…

To define ethics as a mode of inquiry, it is first important to consider how ethics relates to critical thinking. Put simply, ethical inquiry is one type of inquiry required to think critically. A connection between critical thinking and ethics is only possible, however, when ethics is defined not as a static list of rules but as a "mode of…

The What Works Clearinghouse (WWC) Practice Guide, "Teaching Elementary School Students to Be Effective Writers," offers educators four specific, evidence-based recommendations that address the challenge of teaching writing in elementary school. This summary focuses on recommendation 2b of the four recommendations: Teach students to…

In order to understand the culture of the physical, virtual, and blended spheres that adolescents inhabit, we build on Gee's concept of affinity spaces. Drawing on our ethnographic research of adolescent literacies related to The Hunger Games novels, the Neopets online game, and The Sims videogames, this article explores the nature of…

The purpose of the seven rules discussed in this article is to enable the presenter to embrace his/her anxieties and put them to work: (1) Observe time limits scrupulously; (2) Write for the real audience (a paper written for the ears to hear is different from a paper written for the eyes to read); (3) Rehearse; (4) Refrain from fidgeting; (5)…

The purpose of the 2011 NAEP (National Assessment of Educational Progress) Writing Framework is to describe how the new NAEP Writing Assessment is designed to measure students' writing at grades 4, 8, and 12. As the ongoing national indicator of the academic achievement of students in the United States, NAEP regularly collects information on…

In order for students to write for a general audience, they must be able to address unknown readers. Research into how successful writers perceive their audience suggests that they write to an audience who is an idealized version of themselves. Writing for an unknown audience can be a writer's search for common ground, for a set of beliefs and…

A study explored the complexities of audience adaptation by examining the relationships between writer/audience proximity, register, and overall quality in essays written for assigned audiences. Subjects, 100 college freshmen, each wrote one essay in response to two audience-specified tasks in which subjects were to write persuasive letters to…

Although the complexities of the concept of audience in nonacademic settings are gradually being recognized, audience analysis continues to be viewed primarily as a cognitive, problem-solving activity. Grounded in decontextualizing research--such as protocol analysis--this approach to audience assumes that, to inform appropriate writing choices,…

One segment of a year-long descriptive field study of school writing is described in this paper. In particular, the paper examines some of the uses to which writing is put in the first weeks of school in one second/third grade classroom. In doing this, the paper speculates on the writing curriculum in elementary schools and on the realization of…