In many cases, teachers shy away from including much writing because of the many hours it requires to read and provide substantial feedback on such papers. Yet writing is widely understood as critically important to learning (Applebee & Langer, 2013; Mayher, 1983; Zinsser, 1989). This article describes a program from the Northwest Arkansas…

As writing instructors, the authors spend hours "talking back" to their students through written comments on their drafts. But how do student writers receive their comments, and what do they "do" with this feedback? Teachers invest so much time and energy in their responses to papers. How do they know what gets through, what makes sense to their…

Identifying English Education courses focused on young adult literature as apposite sites for exploring teacher conceptions of youth and the texts aimed for youths' consumptions, this article addresses the multiple sources of tension--and pedagogical potential--of teaching a young adult literature course centrally framed around controversial…

This paper investigated a number of common ungrammatical patterns that were found in Chinese EFL leaners' free writings, in order to find useful pedagogical implications for English grammar teaching in EFL setting, especially in China. The corpus of writing data is examined by the author together with a native English teacher. Our findings suggest…

Writing, as an advanced model of output, not only conveys the subject but also realizes the communication between readers and writers. Metadiscourse can help writers arrange and organize the discourse to influence readers' understanding of the text and their attitude towards its content. Taking writing samples of College English Test Band 4…

While "transfer" has become, in recent years, a subject of great research interest to our field, we still have much to learn about how we can best use this research knowledge to inform local efforts in program development. In this profile, we describe the foundations of the Dartmouth Institute for Writing and Rhetoric and explain how…

In this article, the author focuses on her experiences with genre analysis. This is not a new idea or assignment. But gearing the analysis specifically toward thinking about purpose significantly narrows the focus of a typical "here's what this genre is and who uses it" essay. Genre analysis asks students to think in-depth about one particular…

Teacher candidates have few opportunities during their teacher preparation coursework to investigate practices associated with eliciting and responding to student writing. This article describes an attempt to address this problem with a searchable online digital archive of student writing, with and without teachers' written feedback, as well…

Presents five excerpts from student essays (resulting from extensive in-class coaching and computer lab time) that were based on an article from the December, 1991, issue of "English Journal." (HB)

Argues that through poetry students can give voices to people whose voices usually do not find their ways into their classrooms or textbooks. Discusses poetry and literature, poetry in history, and personalizing poetry. (RS)

Considers risk taking as an important skill of accomplished writers. Argues that teachers often fail to notice when their students take risks in their writing. Encourages writing teachers to take such student risks into account to foster risk taking in their students' writing. (HB)

Describes a poetry teaching method in which prereading strategies are used to spark interest and focus on those devices students are expected to learn. Presents samples of poems students wrote imitating devices in the model. Notes that, although not all students became fans of poetry, they developed an appreciation for the poet's task. (RS)

Describes a very successful writing assignment the author uses with his high school English students, in which students write about a letter of the alphabet. Notes that this assignment grants freedom for exploration and voice, the raw material for shaping and can be used to teach everything from the writing of poetry to essays for college…

Presents a high school student's story about fishing, analyzes the story, and provides study guide questions for students intended to amplify the reading. Invites "English Journal" readers to use this story and study guide in their own classrooms. (JG)

Describes how a teacher uses Stanley Kunitz's poem "The Portrait" to help students write poems full of concrete, sensory images about deeply private experiences. Presents examples of student poems. (RS)