In this study, the researchers explore how teacher candidates (TCs) across one content area literacies course and one bilingual education course engaged with their past linguistic experiences through two literacy autobiography assignments across the two separate classes. Borrowing from culturally sustaining, multiliteracies, and translanguaging…

Literacy is the foundation for success in school and society. An essential goal of every school is to help every student read, write and think critically. Dedicated teachers are the catalyst for reaching this goal. The Southern Regional Education Board (SREB) developed a literacy professional learning model to better support these dedicated…

Education policy in Australia and comparable countries requires that all secondary content teachers actively teach the literacy of their learning area and support the literacy development of students in their classes. In this paper we present evidence on the capacity of graduating teachers to meet that obligation. We review assessment data from…

This case study conducted by a writing specialist and a theatre specialist examines the ways in which writing to learn and learning to write took form in a course in which the ultimate goal was a staged production for a live audience. Using naturalistic methodology that deployed both ethnographic and autoethnographic approaches to analyze the…

The "Teaching Academic Content and Literacy to English Learners in Elementary and Middle School" practice guide was developed by the What Works Clearinghouse™ (WWC) in conjunction with an expert panel to support teachers in providing language instruction. The practice guide provides teachers with guidelines and examples of ways to…

One of the best ways to enrich students' social studies experience is to include assignments in which students interact with social studies content and skills. In this article, the author explains how teachers can use writing exercises to encourage such interaction. She describes the following writing activities: (1) acrostics; (2) haiku; (3)…

Describes a method of writing across the curriculum that works and identifies two Spanish-language young adult novels written by Hispanic authors. (HOD)

Effective informational writing assignments show students that creativity and imagination are essential to the generation of new ideas in all content areas. A collection of these assignments has been arranged into five categories of increasing complexity based on the following criteria: whether the point of view is assigned as self-selected;…

Discusses style-developing assignments in which students simulate the characteristic features of a distinctive manner of speaking. Suggests using impersonation as an invention strategy (e.g., by adopting a controversial persona position), and to encourage stylistic fluency through parodies, dialogues, or polyphonic essays. Also suggests using…

Discusses ways to teach faculty in other disciplines about writing. Offers several writing assignments for interdisciplinary faculty workshops, provides guidelines for conducting such workshops, and outlines desiderata of the content area writing assignment. Appendixes include student writing assignments from courses in various disciplines. (JG)

Presents findings of a survey of participants in writing across the curriculum workshops at the University of Vermont. Notes that although nearly every class requires student writing, the kind of assignment is generally informational, does not engage discovery and direct involvement with material, and requires writing in the particular…

Teachers share learning activities and experiences that involve the writing of letters of famous people, the value of American literature in Nigeria, and the manipulation of expository prose through writing exercises. (HOD)

Maintains that in order to get quality engaging essays, students must be fully cognizant of what is expected of them. Discusses areas that need to be defined for students. Proposes four C's for designing assignments: clearness, completeness, conciseness, and candidness. (RW)

Designed for Pima Community College (Arizona) instructors, this booklet presents 50 sample writing assignments developed for 38 non-writing courses. Three types of assignments are represented: (1) short papers, which are usually one to five pages long, require few research skills, and allow students to use the instructor's feedback to produce…

Stressing that learning to write is learning to think, a series of workshops showed teachers in the content area how to use writing in their classrooms. Following a brief introduction to the program, workshop participants developed eight guidelines for creating effective writing assignments: (1) make all assignments worthwhile, (2) make them…