A video-assisted strategic intervention for developing written expression skills was field tested during a summer school session for 71 at-risk middle school students. Results indicated significantly greater gains in written expression skills than produced by the traditional, grammar-based language arts instruction delivered to a comparison group.…

By incorporating writing into everyday math activities, elementary students become better communicators and learn to express themselves, mathematically and otherwise, with more confidence and clarity. An elementary teacher presents several successful writing activities from her math classroom, including a math word web, a guided-response sheet,…

The article builds on a number of recent critical reviews to argue that claims that we are experiencing an obesity crisis are almost entirely without foundation. The possibility is explored that this crisis is manufactured through a complex process of the social production of knowledge. The article marshals evidence to challenge the basis upon…

The brain gets fed first! That is an important idea that directly relates to the nutrition/cognition connection in schools. As the education community faces the challenges of childhood obesity, malnutrition of the brain, food allergies, disorders of metal metabolism and biochemical imbalances, educators are eager to learn about how to guide…

Using a writing journal with adult literacy students is an effective way to introduce them to writing while working with their reading, self-esteem, and confidence levels. One type of journal that combines the skills of reading and writing is the reader response journal. In these journal exercises, the students read a story or section of a story…

One of a series of workplace education modules, this module includes activities and exercises for improving writing skills in the workplace. First, discussions of writing in the workplace are presented, highlighting tips for effective instruction, and of issues related to grading papers, including a sample evaluation form. Next, the assessment…

Three installments of "Ideas from the Classroom," a regular feature of the National Council of Teachers of English publication, "Notes Plus," are presented in this compilation. "Ideas from the Classroom" offers a variety of teacher-submitted activities for English and language arts instruction. The three articles in…

A study investigated the effects of preteaching vocabulary on students' performance of a writing task targeted to the use of those words. Subjects were 50 fourth grade and 55 sixth grade students. Materials included a pretest narrative writing assignment, a 10-word vocabulary pretest and posttest, a vocabulary instructional booklet with teacher's…

An approach to writing for high school and college students is presented in this brief article. AUTHOR'S COMMENT (excerpt): The science fiction course I teach is an elective that enrolls about fifty students per class. Ninety percent or more of the students are not English majors and have done little writing in the recent past. Assigning frequent…

Attempting to place in an American context many of the ideas about the teaching of writing that were first developed in England, this book contains contributions from internationally prominent teachers/scholars who attended the New York University-CBS Sunrise Semester course on learning to write and writing to learn. The text also reflects the…

Intended to help secondary school composition instructors develop a useful, pragmatic unit on technical writing, this monograph explores the theory, research, and pedagogy of technical writing. The first section discusses the purpose and forms of technical writing, as well as elements of technical style including diction, paragraphing, and…

Based on the idea that children can learn to write letters to friends and relatives as soon as they learn to write words, this visually oriented pamphlet presents practical classroom activities that primary grade teachers can use to encourage their young students to practice letter writing skills. The pamphlet contains instructions for making a…

Intended to help teachers avoid the problems of privacy posed by asking students to keep journals or personal notebooks, this starter sheet outlines some of the assumptions behind journal assignments and suggests guidelines for assigning journals. The first section presents a list of assumptions about the connections between thought and language…

Graduate students at Montclair State College (New Jersey) were given the option of writing a journal article for publication in lieu of composing a standard term paper. The students were instructed to write essays, not research-focused papers, since the requirements for the latter were too time-consuming and perhaps beyond students' level of…

Using music and the visual arts as stimuli in the teaching of short story writing, the six-week course described in this guide is designed to improve students' appreciation of elements common to these art forms and to increase their use of these elements in their creative writing. The guide points out that attitude surveys have shown that these…