The aim of this study is to investigate issues of Indonesian EFL students' writing skills, covering ability, problem and reason why they got problems in writing comparison and contrast essay. The convergent parallel of mixed methods was used to explore these issues by involving 52 EFL students of IAIN Samarinda who enrolled the academic essay…

This essay explores what the development of writing might look like and how it might take shape in a secondary English classroom. The study problematises current definitions of progress. In direct opposition to standards-driven models, I propose an alternative way of thinking about the development of writers through a series of narrative accounts…

Many of today's adolescents are constantly engaging with information through texting, watching videos, listening to music, and even writing papers. Learning to interact properly with information through writing presents a challenge for the students because they are employing all of these applications at once and believe that they are multitasking…

In this article, I demonstrate how the use of reflective writing assignments in first-year composition facilitated students' understanding of their own writing process strategies. I first discuss the theoretical roots from which reflective practice among student writers grows. Next, I employ my students' voices to demonstrate that reflection…

A secondary English teacher in the Bronx, Marisa Harford describes several self-reflective activities she has designed to improve students' writing skills. Beginning a new school year with activities like Harford's can focus students' efforts all year. (Contains 1 figure.)

Describes a writing assignment (useful for junior high through college age students) that seeks to improve students' descriptive writing through a set of class writing assignments using visual and concrete objects. Allows students to gain awareness, gain knowledge and discuss it, and ask questions as a body of learners rather than in isolation.…

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…

Describes two assignments that help students realize the dialectic between parts (how one part affects the understanding of all other parts) by having students create their own photographs and physical structures, combine the parts in various way, and consider (in their written papers) the difference it makes. (SR)

Describes three types of reflective writing assignments the author uses in her high school writing classes to create better writers who are actively involved in their own learning. Draws distinctions among the three (a writer's log, a draft letter, and a portfolio letter) and discusses the methods she uses to promote quality written reflections.…

Describes the approach used with high school advanced placement English classes to a nature-writing project based on the work of Henry David Thoreau and Annie Dillard. (SR)

Presents two assignments that are designed to help students (at the high school and college levels) to develop a sense of place while building skills to improve their narrative writing. Includes the assignment sheet. Describes how students create a Michigan Travel Guide from their final drafts. (SR)

Describes an exploration the author and his seventh-grade students undertook as they wrote essays about objects of personal significance. Describes how they examined a piece of literature (an essay) as a model for their own writing, how they spent some time talking and listening to one another about their personal objects, and how they then wrote…

Describes a workshop used with classes doing Web research for their English papers in a computer lab. Shows how this is a good opportunity for students to learn to find, evaluate, and save Web sources, how to read critically and annotate the sources, and how to weave them into working drafts and avoid plagiarism. (SR)