In an effort to identify effective instructional practices for teaching writing to elementary grade students, we conducted a meta-analysis of the writing intervention literature, focusing our efforts on true and quasi-experiments. We located 115 documents that included the statistics for computing an effect size (ES). We calculated an average…

Background: The need for improvement in writing instruction in schools is dependent on teachers being aware of evidence-based procedures in writing and implementing them on a regular basis in their classrooms. Purpose: The purpose of this study was to explore the frequency with which teachers in Western Canada employed evidence-based procedures in…

Grammar checkers do not claim to teach grammar; they are tools to bring potential problems to the writer's attention. They also offer only formal and Standard English preferences, limiting the freer expression of some literary forms. Without guidance, students may misuse the checker, become frustrated, and feel discouraged. Users must be…

There is considerable concern that the majority of adolescents do not develop the competence in writing they need to be successful in school, the workplace, or their personal lives. A common explanation for why youngsters do not write well is that schools do not do a good job of teaching this complex skill. In an effort to identify effective…

The case report describes the teaching method used over a six-month period to help a hearing-impaired young adult correct grammatical errors of additions, omissions, and substitutions in her letters using the MacWrite word processing program. (Author/DB)

Intended to help teachers, curriculum directors, school administrators, and school board members follow through on their commitment to teach students how to become better writers, the techniques and resources described in this booklet are arranged into seven chapters. The first chapter examines whether the "writing crisis" is fact or…

This collection of papers falls into three categories: stylistics, discourse analysis, and language pedagogy. The papers are: "Feedback on Writing: Attitudes and Uptake" (Kenneth Anderson, Cathy Benson, and Tony Lynch); "An Alternative View of 'Like': Its Grammaticalisation in Conversational American English and Beyond" (Isabelle Buchstaller);…

Designed primarily for English faculty at two-year colleges in California, "Inside English" includes articles on instructional innovations in teaching remedial writing, literature courses, and freshman composition, and on major curricular, administrative, and employment issues in the field. The four issues of volume 12 include the following…