Learners occasionally complain that they lack ideas when sitting down to write a composition. Teachers complain that they do not want to spend half the class time telling students what to write. There is an answer. Teachers brainstorm words connected with the topic in class before setting the composition for homework. The question remains: how to…

In this article, I describe my reflections on developing student authors through a class research project. I review the assignment origins and description and my role in the students' developmental journey from transforming a class assignment to a publishable work. (Contains 1 figure.)

This article shares strategies that educators can use to assist students in meeting the challenges of academic writing more effectively. In order to foreground an understanding of struggling writers, the text begins with a brief review of composition theory and history related to basic writers and identity. It goes on to examine classroom…

Explains how the reading of young adult fiction can help young adults to write better. Presents exercises in writing good first lines; using detail; using simile and metaphor; and sharing significant insights. Provides excerpts from young adult fiction. (TB)

When students study the discipline of statistics, a domain that can be remote and abstract for them, it is critical that they understand what the numbers mean and how those numbers help people arrive at decisions. This paper presents different approaches that help students learn how researchers actually work with statistics and shows how students…

Suggests topics and assignments to elicit real, authentic, and expressive student writing. Such "real writing" tasks ask students to look inside themselves and to write genuine responses and about actual feelings and beliefs. (TM)

This casebook is part of a set of materials written by the members of the Making Thinking Visible Project. It offers high school, college, and community college teachers' multiple perspectives on the teaching and learning of collaborative planning, and on classroom inquiry and practice. The casebook explains collaborative planning (a writing…

Students are advised to enroll in WAC 101--a writing across the curriculum "Stretch" course--based upon SAT scores. Two types of "at risk" English composition students usually comprise a WAC 101 Stretch class. The first type are the familiar students who are underprepared for college writing courses, while the second are…

Writing and discussion are excellent ways for students to master content, develop analytical abilities, and become active and collaborative learners. The Writing Across the Curriculum movement offers a theoretical framework for the use of writing in instruction, maintaining that writing skills are primarily thinking skills, that writing is a…

For several years, one educator has taught Charles Dickens's "Great Expectations" to eighth and ninth graders. She recently discovered a woman writer of the 18th century whose novel could be taught using the same format used to teach Dickens's novel. Fanny Burney's "Evelina" is an exceptional book, effective not only for teaching the epistolary…

Using reflective writing throughout the composition course yields better reflective writing for composition portfolios. As writing courses make increasing use of portfolios for individual and program assessment, reflective writing will become more and more important. Brief reflective statements of as little as one paragraph, even when done as a…

An effective language arts tool for teachers, especially those who teach at-risk, alternative, and special education students, this guidebook is designed to inspire even the most reluctant writers. The guide is organized so that journal topics are followed by non-revealing, non-threatening exercises to introduce writing as a means of expression…

Designed for use by technical and vocational education teachers, this monograph describes techniques for combining writing across the curriculum strategies with reading and study skills approaches. The teaching and classroom techniques presented were developed as part of the Writing and Reading in the Technologies (WRIT) project undertaken by a…