Writing practitioners, researchers, and scholars are at a juncture where foundational assumptions about the teaching of writing, its place in higher education, and its ability to help foster a truly inclusive democratic society are increasingly contested. Trust in literacy has been eroded over the past decades, coming to an acute crisis in the…

The qualitative study shows how 20 teachers from 4 districts in the same state enacted mandated school-wide writing curricula. Analyses of the observations and interviews revealed that 4 teachers were faithfully following the district-adopted curriculum, 4 rejected it, and 12 teachers adapted the curriculum to meet their students' needs. The…

This article describes one MSW program's innovative and informed response to the pervasive problem of inadequate professional writing skills. We articulate the rationale, implementation, and assessment of our systemic response, which includes (a) requiring a professional writing course, (b) implementing curricular infusion of a standard writing…

As the new English Language Arts Common Core State Standards take hold across the United States, the need grows for pre-service and in-service teachers to be ready to develop curriculum and instruction that addresses their requirements. This timely, thoughtful, and comprehensive text directly meets this need. It delineates a literacy practices and…

This article argues for and models an approach to writing program assessment that relies on study of the writing practices of program graduates as a way to inform revisions in curriculum and teaching practices. The article also examines how conducting such assessments can help nondisciplinary publics understand the nature of composition …

The book is linked to the annual theme of the 2008 CAERDA International Conference with contributing authors serving as keynote speakers, invited panelists, paper presenters, as well as specialists and educators in the field. The book provides a most comprehensive description of and a theoretically well informed and a scholarly cogent account of…

Improvement of students' writing requires consistency of expectation among faculty in all departments and throughout the curriculum. This includes helping students see the purpose and benefits of clear writing, and establishing standards for evaluating written work. (MSE)

Teachers' responsibility to improve students' writing entails changes in the teacher, the students, and the school. First, commitment to improvement requires the attainment of new knowledge on the teachers' part. They must be familiar with current research on the writing process and with how to translate that research into classroom practice.…

The United States has been engaged in school reform for three decades. The federal government as well as all fifty states have passed numerous versions of reform legislation to mandate and regulate the process. Educators have adjusted their practices to the policy created by this legislation. They have also allocated hundreds of billions of…

Intended to assist educational leaders by identifying recommendations from the report, "A Nation at Risk," that are relevant to reading and literacy and by suggesting instructional guidelines consistent with both the report and current reading research, this booklet presents policy guidelines in the following areas: (1) literacy…

A selection of 29 papers presented at the 1978 TESOL convention is presented. Part one consists of the plenary addresses which concern the following: a survey of the profession, the notional-functional syllabus, the humanization of English as a Second Language, and a review of inconsistencies of national policies and priorities regarding the…