Writing can be challenging to implement in upper elementary classrooms because teachers report needing additional support and students may struggle to meet the academic and developmental demands of emerging adolescence. This was true of one diverse, high-need, under-resourced school that had ambitious writing instruction goals. To meet these…

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…

Presents a writing project in which children illustrate a story within a drawn circle, ending up where the story started, as a model for story writing. (HTH)

Argues that authorship, in the sense of creation and re-creation of meaning, should be a central focus in any model of literacy instruction. Examines the elements of the "traditional" model of literacy development. Discusses the place of text within that model. Discusses implications for classroom literacy instruction. (SR)

Students with learning disabilities (LD) often experience difficulties in writing fluently and using a diversity of words. To help these students, specific and effective writing strategies must be incorporated into instruction and demonstrated to them through modeling. This study examined the effectiveness of using a story map and story map…

As a response to the increasing support for linking information about the role of writing in the lives of children to writing instruction in schools, a research instrument was developed that illuminates children's concepts about writing (who writes, what is written, where people write, why they write, and how they view the writing process).…

Argues that teachers of young children need to recognize and take advantage of suitable opportunities to model their writing skills. Offers examples of possible activities. (FL)

This 1994 technical report looks at California Early Literacy Learning (CELL), a staff development program designed to help elementary teachers strengthen their teaching of reading and writing. Reading Recovery and other research-based teaching methodologies have been organized into a framework for classroom instruction, and training in the…

Uses Theodore Roethke's poem "The Old Florist" to illustrate the model, or structural, approach to teaching poetry writing (where students discover the operating structure of a poem in order to write their own). Discusses the student poems it inspired to show the potential of this approach. (SR)

Explicates two opposing conceptions of knowledge. Explores the views of knowledge embedded in three major models of writing and their associated implications for classroom instruction in relation to the two major epistemological positions. Discusses the significance of knowing about knowledge and knowing, particularly with regard to the teaching…

Discusses theoretical models of the composing process and summarizes major related research. Indicates ways to help students with the planning and revising components of the process and suggests writing experiences that do not increase the number of compositions teachers must read and evaluate. (RH)

Outlines a model of classroom discourse analysis that provides evidence with which to establish the operation of two discourses. A secondary purpose is to demonstrate how the method of analysis can expose some significant limitations in much educational practice and to point to ways of addressing those limitations. (32 references) (VWL)

A developmental writing program created for grades three through six is described in this paper. The first half of the paper describes the four-phase instructional model, which includes teacher-directed prewriting activities; successive drafts; editing by the writer, by peer editors, and by the instructor; and a publishing stage. The second half…

Discusses the use of models for teaching children to write, suggesting that successive drafts rather than a finished poem used as models of the revision process might be more effective. Includes three drafts of a poem by the author, discussing observations for teaching illustrated by the poem's revision process. (HTH)

The writing process depends heavily on linguistic, psycho-perceptual, and psycho-motor abilities. If a student has a significant weakness in one of these major trait clusters, then thinking will suffer and he or she may experience great difficulty in writing. The process of writing can be broken down into four main phases, which can be labeled…