This research focuses on the impact of language autobiographies in promoting multilingualism practices and fostering the cultivation of respect towards linguistic and cultural diversity at educational contexts. It aims at investigating how language autobiographies, as a reflective practice, promote the development of students' critical linguistic…

The purpose of this study is to investigate the relationship between prospective teachers' belief systems and writing-to-learn. The participants comprised eight freshmen from the Department of Elementary Science Education at a public university in Turkey. The data were collected using semi-structured interviews.The results indicated that…

Writing is a complex and learned activity in that it requires us to shape our thoughts into words and texts that are appropriate for the purpose, audience and medium of a variety of communicative forms. Writers must constantly make decisions about how to represent their subject matter and themselves through language. In this way, writing can be…

Over the past 30 years, writing workshops have been implemented in classrooms around the world. Students are being asked to write across multiple contexts and genres and to use digital technologies. At the same time, high-stakes writing tests are increasing even though the time teachers spend teaching writing is decreasing. This study examines…

Research suggests that experts and beginners use qualitatively different writing processes when given the same text to write. Throughout their writing, experts tend to create a network of executive, structural, and content problems that they continually refine and coordinate as they bring the text to fruition. Novices, in contrast, tend to focus…

I examine pre-service elementary school teachers' process of defining diversity as part of a state-mandated, high-stakes, teacher education portfolio benchmark; metaphors' roles in their defining process; the evaluation mechanism, and the literal and metaphorical bench-mark boundary these pre-service teachers must reach to enter the profession.…

If a picture is worth a thousand words, how many words is a whole picture book worth? This was exactly the question Pierce School teachers asked themselves when they began the project of compiling a photo library for creating realistic and relevant short texts by and for students across all grades in their K-8 elementary school. In an effort to…

In attempting to define postmodernism, many search for a "neat central core" (Beck, 1993) thus attempting to universalize all postmodern theories and operate "within the modern obsession with control and reason" (Slattery, 2000: 137). In this article, I refrain from attempting a universal definition, but instead present an exploration of the most…

This book presents a selection of the research and papers presented at the 50th Annual Meeting of the College Reading Association in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania in October, 2006. This Yearbook begins with Karen Bromley's presidential address, which explored the future of writing by discussing four predictions: the notion that pens and pencils will be…

This article presents a comprehensive model of daily, classroom informal writing assessment that is constantly linked to instruction and the characteristics of proficient writers. Methods for promoting teacher, student, and parent collaboration and their roles in dialoguing, conferencing, and reflection are discussed. Strategies for including…