How do young children learn to write? What types of instruction best facilitate the composing processes of young learners and what role could educational drama play in these processes? In this article, the author argues that the current inquiry into developmental processes of children's writing has neglected to consider both the role and the value…

Many students with learning disabilities (LD) exhibit deficiencies in the writing process. In order to achieve an adequate level of writing competence, these students must apply strategies that enable them to effectively plan, organize, write, and revise a written product. Explicit strategy instruction involving a structured style of learning has…

Learning to write well is a long process that comes through teacher modeling, instruction, practice, and feedback. Luckily, the writing process can be used to improve science learning, too. There is perhaps no better place than a science journal for students to develop informational writing skills. Daily journal prompts are one way to encourage…

Instructional rubrics can help students to improve their writing skills and become self-regulated writers. Clear, accessible instructional rubrics give students repeated practice with planning, revising, and editing. It is also noted that using rubrics for self-assessment and peer assessment will help the students navigate the writing process in…

For several years a number of instructors at the University of Cincinnati have experimented with the concept of problem-based learning (PBL) in their composition courses. The concept, rooted as it is in Socratic method and the hands-on problem-solving advocated by John Dewey, is not new, and though some of its applications may call for adjustments…

Many students find writing extremely difficult and frustrating because they are not able to learn and apply the strategies used by skilled writers. Self-Regulated Strategy Development (SRSD) is a comprehensive, flexible model that explicitly helps students learn to manage the writing process. An extensive body of research has documented that SRSD…

In 1866, Alexander Bain proposed that by evaluating unity, coherence, and emphasis (which he brought together under the acronym "CUE"), students could judge the effectiveness of their written paragraphs. One hundred twenty-five years later, the proposition is still central to composition instruction. A review of modern writing textbooks…

A written language learner must be given an environment that enables or fosters writing development. Unfortunately, the typical system of education and the learning strategies that are taught are at times the very things that deactivate, frustrate, and even pervert the writing program. In fact, some of the rules that student writers respond to are…

By engaging in philosophical discussion in their writing, freshman composition students can discover that writing is a mediating tool between the self and the objective world, a means to examine the nature of reality and their thinking processes. Introducing philosophical issues opens the door for the investigation of difficult and abstract topics…

Autobiographical writing can, by its nature as expressive discourse, connect to the residual orality and literacy that students possess before they enter college writing classes, because it crosses more easily between the spoken word and the written word than other forms of writing. Adapting the Ong-Havelock orality-literacy thesis to writing…

Integrated approaches to the teaching of reading and writing being used in classrooms in Australia and New Zealand are described in this booklet. The first part of the booklet presents theoretical background on how children learn to talk and the reading and writing processes. The second and third parts of the booklet describe ways of putting…

The writing process depends heavily on linguistic, psycho-perceptual, and psycho-motor abilities. If a student has a significant weakness in one of these major trait clusters, then thinking will suffer and he or she may experience great difficulty in writing. The process of writing can be broken down into four main phases, which can be labeled…

The processes of prewriting, writing, revising, and proofreading are outlined in this four-page guide for writing center volunteers. Each section lists "things to remember" and provides ideas on "how to help students" when teaching these four stages of the writing process. (JW)

This guide discusses how a computer can motivate students, how it can be used as a support for the writing process, and how it can help teachers reinforce good writing habits. The guide includes sections on managing the classroom computer; student scheduling; human resources; introducing the computer; learning editor commands; managing student…

Raw material for writing may be found by eavesdropping on conversations and informal speeches, and transcribing graffiti and written texts from the street. These snippets of the surrounding flow of language are recorded in notebooks and categorized, later to work their way into a variety of writings of a professional writer and teacher of writing.…