Educators continue to seek ways to foster writing that produces rich language usage by students. Journal writing in the classroom allows students to express ideas in written form. Two types of journal writing often used by educators include topical journal writing and free choice journal writing. The desire to excel in the area of writing prompted…

Investigates the effectiveness of an integrated communication arts approach (emphasizing writing) on sixth graders' comprehension of a world history topic. Finds that students who completed writing tasks after brainstorming generated significantly higher quality ideas and improved their writing ability more than students who completed short-answer…

Compares formal writing (analytical essays) and informal writing (short answer workbook-type exercises identifying main themes and ideas) as part of English-as-a-Second-Language reading education. Examines informal and formal writing assignments given to groups of students of comparable reading ability. Shows that formal writing did more to…

A study used comparison-group methods to examine the effectiveness of dialogic journal writing in a content area classroom. Subjects were students in a sophomore-level course in Chinese literature at the University of California, San Diego. Students were divided into three comparison groups each of which was further divided into sections. Four…