Every teacher knows the challenge of trying to engage reluctant readers and struggling writers--students whose typical response to a writing prompt is a few sentence fragments scribbled on a sheet of paper followed by an elaborate shrug of the shoulders. The best way to engage less confident readers and writers is to give them something powerful…

This document presents writing samples that have been annotated to illustrate the criteria required to meet the Common Core State Standards for particular types of writing--argument, informative/explanatory text, and narrative--in a given grade. Each of the samples exhibits at least the level of quality required to meet the Writing standards for…

This document presents the proceedings of the 20th Annual Research Forum held June 25, 2015, at Wake Forest University in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. Included are the following 21 action research papers: (1) History Lives! The Use of Simulations in a High School Social Studies Classroom (Lydia Adkins); (2) Using Francophone Music in the High…

Students are entering a workforce that demands competency in writing both for explicit communication through e-mail as well as in products in the company's day-to-day dealings. Strategies for teaching students to communicate in writing have been evaluated extensively in a face-to-face environment. Many of those successful strategies have been…