Through an original analysis of letters written by 8 students at 4 grade levels (grades 7 through 13), this paper shows the relationship between individual affective and cognitive development and social awareness. Specifically, their relationships are shown by analyzing the writer, the text, and the instructor. Results indicate that seventh grade…

Because of their egocentricity, many students have a limited sense of other cultures and are caught up in a web of ethnocentric biases without quite knowing how and why these biases exist. A framework, encompassing the theories of J. Moffett and J. Piaget, may be designed to move students through a series of hierarchical writing exercises that…

Writing readiness is defined in this paper as the skills and understandings necessary for minimum success in completing a writing task. The skills discussed are divided into three areas of need: to give students a clear, operational concept of the function and structure of composition that includes the concepts of paragraphs, sentences,…

Results of a study on 10th-grade students to assess the effect of cognitive development stages upon writing showed that cognitive level is related to syntactic maturity across modes of composition. Research data and methodology are presented. (DF)

To clarify how writing across the curriculum improves learning across the curriculum, this book provides an overview of the current state of writing instruction at the secondary and college levels as it applies to teaching in the content areas. Each chapter contains practical ideas for using writing in the classroom, along with a discussion of the…

A study explored contextual influences upon the writing of students in their final year of secondary schooling. Six teachers in 6 subject areas and 12 students enrolled in 2 or more of these 6 classes were selected as case studies. The researcher spent an academic year observing the contexts in which writing occurred, recording class sessions,…

Subjective engagement and cognitive skills are important for various aspects of writing skills. For the work of writing to be efficient, the student must be able to function in both a rhetorical and productive situation, defined in terms of subject, function, and audience. The processes of writing--defined as planning, translating, and reviewing…

Presents study results on text revision strategies using a simplified word processor that records movements of linguistic units. Reports that adult subjects used the simultaneous strategy for correcting narrative and local-then-global strategy for correcting description whereas children used the local-then-global strategy for the narrative, but no…

Intended to help educators, especially content area faculty, understand the factors influencing writing and to give specific teaching ideas across the secondary school spectrum, this paper reports a study of current research on writing methods and instructional models to develop a rationale for cross-curricular writing. Following brief discussions…