The awakening of public interest in curriculum has come at a time when, within the education profession, the conventional wisdom about teaching and learning has itself undergone a major transformation. New Constructivist theories of knowing have emphasized the social nature of the construction of knowledge: students learn by "putting it into…

Kenneth Burke has continued to exert a profound influence on recent theories of composition and rhetoric, specifically on how writing might be taught in the classroom. Two recent composition textbooks, "Process, Form, and Substance: A Rhetoric for Advanced Writers" by Richard Coe and "Writing Is Critical Action" by Tilly…

Aiming to make the literacy tutoring task as easy and effective as possible, this guidebook presents a set of strategies that tutors can implement immediately as they begin to work with students and provides enough information about the elements of literacy learning and effective instruction so tutors can make sensible decisions about the best…

Fifteen upper-elementary teachers (regular and resource room) agreed to enact a new instructional model called Cognitive Strategy Instruction in Writing (CSIW). The model emphasized that teachers should model the cognitive processes of writers, scaffold dialogue with students about their writing, and create a social context in which writers…

Class collaboration and small group composition illustrate the embedding of cooperative learning theory in whole language classroom events. Through this experience all students participate in active learning. The teacher has a weighty role in decision making, setting of the lesson, assigning roles, and monitoring segments of cooperative learning…

This conference proceedings reflects the substance of the 3-day Conference on Written Communication, sponsored by the Ohio Department of Education and designed to provide professional growth opportunities for more than 350 school administrators, teachers, and university and state department personnel. The papers in the proceedings present a review…

Linguistically inclined scholars such as Ragnar Rommetveit and Michael Halliday offer a sociocognitive understanding of writing that challenges current writing theories, which focus attention on processes to the virtual exclusion of the writing product. These linguistic scholars provide ways of understanding context, not as fixed or concrete, but…

A writing portfolio provides material to use in evaluating not only students' finished products but also their persistence in developing and revising to a finished draft. Typically, portfolios contain the assignment sheet, brainstorming exercises, essay plan/outline, and first through final drafts of all writing. A table of contents sheet, listing…

A survey assessed teachers' understandings and beliefs about process writing, their instructional decisions for teaching writing, and the training and support for teaching process writing in their classrooms. A 19-item interview schedule was administered to 66 teachers from urban, suburban, and rural schools in upstate New York. Results indicated…

Describing a computer network communication tool which allows users to communicate concurrently across networked, advanced-function workstations, this guide presents information on how to use the Center for Educational Computing in English (CECE) Talk in the writing classroom. The guide focuses on three topics: (1) introducing CECE Talk to…

Writers of all ages and abilities come to the act of writing with three critical needs: (1) they need a commitment of time; (2) they need ownership over their topics; and, most important, (3) they need a response to their personal revelations. Sharing and responding to student writing can take place in writers' circles and writers' conferences. In…

Describes a model inservice program developed and implemented in the Bangor Township (Michigan) elementary schools, which was structured on the process approach to writing instruction. (FL)

Describes a workshop approach to writing instruction that creates an environment appropriate for the writing process approach to writing. (HOD)

Noting that the emphasis in writing instruction over the past 40 years has shifted from product to process, this digest reviews the course and the primary features of this evolution from 1960-1999. The digest's first section discusses the move from writing product to writing process in the 1970s and 1980s, noting the groundswell of support for…

Noting that the emphasis in writing instruction over the past 40 years has shifted from product to process, this digest focuses on the experience of individual teachers as they searched for ways to put the principles of process writing into practice in the classroom. The first section discusses writer's workshops, noting that teachers have found…