Portfolios have been utilized in the teaching and learning of English of speakers of other languages as a tool for process-based writing and as an alternative form of summative assessment. While extensive research has been focused on the implementation of portfolios in English as a foreign language (EFL) writing, there has been limited attention…

In this article, we describe the peer-response workshop we conducted in an ethnically and linguistically diverse secondary school classroom in an urban center in the southwest. We show how the three main parts of the workshop combine to help students cultivate writing relationships in which they see writing as social and co-constructed, rather…

How does one create a class where the theoretical concepts emerge through classroom practice and engagement? This is the question that Mariaelena posed to herself when taking over the position of Director of the Interpersonal Communication course at the University of South Florida. In this essay we describe how we worked through a new way of…

While comics have received widespread acceptance as a literary genre, instructors and scholars in Rhetoric and Composition have been slower to adopt comics, largely because of a lingering difficulty understanding how the characteristics of the form relate to our work in the classroom. Using as guides the "WPA Outcomes Statement for First-Year…

Learners occasionally complain that they lack ideas when sitting down to write a composition. Teachers complain that they do not want to spend half the class time telling students what to write. There is an answer. Teachers brainstorm words connected with the topic in class before setting the composition for homework. The question remains: how to…

This paper reports a school-based investigation into revision as a means of improving writing in the English classroom. It suggests that although pupils tend to perceive revision as a teacher-directed, discrete stage in the writing process, during revision they engage in independent questioning, evaluation and employ a working model of audience as…

While interactive writing has typically been utilized and researched in the primary grades, little has been written about its use with older students. The author briefly describes the historic use of interactive writing, along with appropriate research, then goes on to describe its use in her third-grade classroom as a tool to teach writer's craft…

Looks at how writing instruction has progressed 25 years after Janet Emig and other scholars investigated the composing process of writing students and put forth the notion of process writing. Presents three teacher profiles that demonstrate the wide variety of classroom practice in writing instruction now in use. (TB)

Process approaches are defined and their roles in English-as-a-Second-Language (ESL) and English-as-a-Foreign-Language (EFL) writing instruction are discussed. Three different meanings of process are reviewed, the ESL/EFL writing literature is analyzed, and some problems in implementing process writing pedagogy are identified. (Contains 135…

A difficult task facing college English departments is the creation of a freshman English program that is coherent and theoretically sound and which allows instructors a certain flexibility. Recently, the English department at Francis Marion College undertook a major revision of its freshman program with these goals in mind. The result was a…

This manual, intended for use by tutors working with adults learning to read, offers a consolidated resource of specific instructional techniques and provides additional suggestions not covered in basic tutoring workshops. The manual summarizes a variety of approaches commonly used to instruct adults and provides background for three modes of…

Discusses the Language Experience Approach and process writing, two methods which approach reading and writing as active processes, stressing communication and meaning. Asserts that these methods are compatible and shows how they can be combined and incorporated into kindergarten and primary level classes. (MM)

The challenge of effective writing instruction was investigated by means of a literature review. Writing, as a part of the field of Language Arts, comprising reading, writing, listening and speaking, takes more than teaching spelling, grammar, and other writing conventions for students to develop as writers. The writing process--prewriting,…

Discusses the benefits of using a "process" approach to writing instruction. Claims that beginning a writing course by reading about and discussing the approach makes students excited to use the same technique as professional writers and aware of the skills writing requires. (JD)

Writing teachers are currently faced with another paradigm shift. Some 25 years ago, a fledgling field of composition studies advocated the switch from a traditional product view to a process view of teaching writing. Recently, new studies and books are emerging which critique this view as insufficient. The pragmatic view of writing instruction…