Argues that when a classroom provides an environment that promotes writing, students have the resources, time, and opportunity to create collaborative stories. Describes how, in a third-grade classroom, three girls unite to write a series of humorous stories through group negotiation and class prompting. (CR)

Students at Hume-Fogg Academic High School in Nashville, Tennessee do every kind of writing, have won numerous writing awards, and have published everything from chapbooks to articles in national literary magazines. According to the creative writing teacher, students are first taught to write about things they know--to go back to their own…

Examines how different types of prewriting activities, teacher motivations, and classroom environments influence the student writing process. (MM)

Poetry is a powerful avenue through which students can learn to express their voices and to "write like people." In the special needs classroom, where students traditionally have had difficulty with narrative structure, and therefore have gone unheard, developing voice through poetry becomes especially crucial. Samples of students'…

Using ethnographic techniques to observe seven fifth grade and seven third grade students, a study examined the function of children's oral language during creative writing sessions in typical classroom situations. Findings indicated that oral language plays an important role in the writing process; specifically, that it (1) accompanies writing as…

This book is designed for teachers who are looking for approaches to make the teaching of writing fresh. The book offers suggestions for writing that are appropriate across the curriculum and for students in Grades K-12. It contains ideas for enlivening students' writing experiences, including an innovative use of the "helping circle." It advises…

A study investigated whether computers would enable students to develop individual working writing environments. The programs that the fourth-grade students used were Hypercard, Clip Art, and MacWrite. Students worked with each of the programs and talked about what they were thinking while using the computer. A constant flow of teachers, staff,…

An adjunct faculty member who teaches in three very different colleges and universities sees the similarity of course objectives for freshman writing, in which each program emphasizes rhetorical mode requirements to the exclusion of writing as discovery. Student writing is product-centered, and the writing act is linear in that it adheres to a…

Writing is one of the most complex activities children engage in during their school careers. This book provides teachers with the knowledge and ideas they need to increase their effectiveness when instructing students in writing. The book blends together practical, easy-to-implement, classroom-tested lessons and activities based on research. It…

In an effort to understand the effect of a nurturing, supportive environment on children's understanding of poetry, a study was conducted involving the observation of 42 rural fifth and sixth grade students and their two teachers over a school year. During the course of the year the children were invited to respond to published, professional…

Designed to assist primary teachers in creating a classroom environment that stimulates students' growth in writing, this guide offers suggestions, lists, charts, and activities for classroom use in the primary grades. Following a preface and philosophy, the first section discusses young writers and the writing process, with subsections on stages…

Based on knowledge gleaned from eight years of research on children's writing development, this book focuses on the teaching of writing to children in the elementary school. The first section of the book deals with the essentials in teaching writing, and the establishment of a classroom that nurtures and supports growth in writing. The second…

This book offers guidance on how teachers can help their students write about sensitive topics or provide pragmatic suggestions for developing the skill and sensitivity necessary to venture into such difficult terrain. The book addresses students' need to articulate their thoughts and feelings about violence, anger, drug use, peer pressure, and…

Draws on classroom observations, interviews, and writing portfolios to contend that competing demands in modern classrooms can lead to environments that sabotage the teaching of argumentative and persuasive writing. Concludes that the epistemology fostered by classroom talk and other activities was inimical to the complex rhetoric the teacher was…

The Flind Middle Schools Writing Inservice Project grew out of the conviction that improving students' writing was a matter not of increased emphasis on sentence structure, grammar, or form, but rather of a change in the thinking about how writing should be taught. The project grew from a brief conference to a two-year commitment on the part of…