Effective feedback is an essential tool for making learning explicit and an essential feature of classroom practice that promotes learner autonomy. Yet, it remains a pressing challenge for teachers to scaffold the active involvement of students as critical, reflective and autonomous learners who use feedback constructively. This paper seeks to…

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…

Although handwriting is often considered a matter of presentation, a substantial body of international research suggests that the role of handwriting in children's composing has been neglected. Automaticity in handwriting is now seen as of key importance in composing but this proposition is relatively untested in the UK and the assumption has been…

Trickster tales, with their teachings on how to behave in the world, are a powerful means for transmitting social knowledge and cultural mores to children. In this study we compared two approaches to teaching fourth-grade students to write trickster tales. Although both instructional methods incorporated aspects of the writing process approach,…

A publication of the Primary English Teaching Association of Australia, this book argues that children should be taught how to write in the various genres or kinds of writing that are needed for different purposes. The contributors draw on their own experiences to show how teachers can develop their teaching of writing to realize the full…

Discusses first grade students' writing experiences and processes. Demonstrates, using student writing samples, how simple expression can lead to greater complexity with appropriate teacher guidance. Asserts that teachers must observe and take cues from students to determine what learning context and hints to provide. (MM)

A study investigated the writing behavior of young children in a home setting by collecting and analyzing writing samples of three children--Avaleigh, Adam, and Heather (aged four, five, and six years)--and interviewing them about the features, content, reasons, form, and other details of writing done at home. Parents kept a journal detailing…

Traditional approaches to teaching writing have been challenged, and new methods have emerged that reflect the new understanding of this process. This paper compares and contrasts product-based and process-based approaches to teaching writing. Product approaches reflect traditional, teacher-centered approaches to teaching in general, emphasizing…

Specifically intended to address the teaching of spelling, this description of an elementary school program in Australia deals with many of the pedagogical problems that arise in whole language classrooms, and suggests ways for teachers to integrate a process approach to spelling with process writing to create a total language program. Following…

One of the tasks for the British National Curriculum Council has been to identify steps toward proficiency in the English language and, on that basis, issue descriptions of appropriate progress for students at each level and stage. There is a danger that teachers may view these steps as a linear sequence of accomplishments, each to be achieved in…

Directed towards elementary teachers interested in improving their writing programs, this guide focuses on motivating teachers to involve themselves and their students in the writing process. Each of the 12 chapters contains practical step-by-step procedures on implementing the writing process, and sample activities are illustrated. The first…

Exploring questions about how the classroom environment affects young learners, this book describes how young children from various cultural and linguistic backgrounds have coped with the conditions surrounding them in process oriented writing classrooms. Chapter 1 describes the kinds of activities in which children engage in seemingly chaotic…

The purpose of this book is twofold: to present important coherence models and to suggest how insights from coherence theory and research can be introduced to the classroom. The book is organized into four sections: theoretical overview, coherence models, studies of student writing, and pedagogical approaches. Articles include: "Seven Problems in…