In the summer of 2002, the authors' university offered an online course, titled "Swims with Words: Reading, Writing, and Teaching Creative Nonfiction" (referred to as "CNF"). "Swims with Words" is a seven-week online writing course that immersed students in reading and writing nonfiction texts so they could explore nonfiction's value and its…

Clustering is a nonlinear brainstorming technique that can encourage children's natural writing ability by helping them draw on their need to make patterns out of their experience. Tips for introducing cluster writing into the classroom are offered. (MT)

The "International Society for the Social Studies (ISSS) Annual Conference Proceedings" is a peer-reviewed professional publication published once a year following the annual conference. The following papers are included in the 2014 proceedings: (1) Legal Profession in the Technological Era with Special Reference to Women Lawyers in…

Painters, musicians, and writers--among others--often begin as novices by modeling the practices of their best teachers or favorite masters. The purpose of this article is to suggest that the habits of working, published writers can serve students as informal models for how processes happen behind the scene of public work. Students can examine…

This article reports the results of a research project involving "unconventional" pedagogical practices and examines the impact of contemplative practice on teaching and learning in an undergraduate creative writing class and a graduate level methods of teaching writing course. Using student evaluations of the projects, the authors…

This study assessed the effects of self-monitoring on the quantity and quality of creative writing of fourth-grade students with learning disabilities. The participants, four fourth-grade students with identified learning disabilities, self-monitored both the quantity and quality of their writing. Results show a statistically significant increase…

In an era of reductionist approaches to teaching and assessment, this dissertation returns to the fundamental question: "What is the value of writing, particularly poetry writing, in our society today?" The poet's central task, to abstract reality through symbols, requires profound cognitive and emotional work (Vendler, 2004; Steele,…

Provides a series of suggestions to help students in poetry writing classes move past those periods when ideas for poems seem to have stopped flowing. (TJ)

Includes a discussion with a fifth-grade child about poetry writing and teaching. (SB)

The author argues that 20th-century children's poetry is often ignored and that the emphasis on teaching the adult poetry canon can give children mistaken ideas about what poetry is. Poetry is not a collection of "classics" whose meanings must be explained but something written to capture thoughts, feelings, and experiences. Ideas for teaching…

The stereotype of the poet or novelist working in unappreciated solitude got a workout recently at the Carbondale campus of Southern Illinois University. The 9th annual Young Writer's Workshop brought 30 high-school students onto the campus for four intense days of poetry and fiction writing, critiques, panels and readings. The workshop is one of…

Shows how dreams can be used to stimulate creative writing and includes samples of students' writing. (RB)