Though discipline-specific approaches to literacy instruction can support adolescents' academic literacy and identity development, scant attention has been paid to ways of targeting such instruction to address individual student needs. Dialogic writing assessment is an approach to conducting writing conferences that foregrounds students' composing…

This study examines the relationship between students' demographic background and their experiences with writing at school, the alignment between state and National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) direct writing assessments, and students' NAEP writing performance. The study utilizes primary data collection via content analysis of writing…

Disappointed that the use of the "PEEL" writing scaffold had led her Year 11 students to write some rather dreary essays, Claire Simmonds reflected that a lack of specific training on historical writing might be to blame. Drawing on genre theory and the work of the history teaching community, Simmonds attempted to theorise the…

The book introduces readers in the often-overlooked math-related fields to the ideas of writing-to-learn (WTL) and writing in the disciplines (WID). It offers a guide to the pedagogy of writing in the mathematical sciences, and gives theoretically grounded means by which writing can be used to help undergraduate students to understand mathematical…

The focus of the conference proceedings in this booklet was evaluation of student writing at various levels and in various fields. The booklet contains a schedule of activities; a description of the morning session, which included a panel discussion on evaluating writing in college freshman composition courses; examples of students' papers, with…

At the intersection of teaching and learning, this guide is intended to introduce and update disciplinary faculty on contemporary writing principles and pedagogy. In addition, it is designed to: alert faculty to the ways in which effective writing helps students not only show what they have learned but also to learn, generate, and communicate…

Developed to provide teachers with a framework for writing instruction, this handbook presents the objectives for writing in the elementary schools from kindergarten through grade 8. After a brief overview of the handbook, information covered includes: (1) a description of writing types (creative expression, narration, exposition, persuasion, and…

Concerned with improving text readability in the content areas, this report first draws upon Linda Flower's writing steps and strategies in its description of writing as moving from planning to generating ideas in words, designing for a reader, and editing for effectiveness. It also presents nine more precise steps in the writing process along…

Describes the implementation of a content area writing program in a middle school. Observes that many teachers were resistant to the task and passed their frustration on to the English teachers. However, most were pleased with the improvement in students' writing due to the increase in the amount of required writing. (SRT)

Discusses the use of holistic evaluation, the use of rubrics and checklists, peer evaluation, and small group peer evaluation as means of making writing evaluation effective while keeping the paper load manageable. (FL)

A study examined how college students wrote a critique of a sociology article; which features of written critiques were valued most by professors in the discipline; and whether students' educational level and status predicted the quality of their critiques. Subjects, 32 students enrolled in an upper-level sociology course, read and responded by…

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…

In spite of the widespread implementation of Writing Across the Curriculum (WAC), there remains little concrete evidence of the writing-thinking connection. This paper proposes a new research method that tracks students' performance and production at a deeper level of specificity than that in previous investigations of this relationship, e.g., in…

Designed for the classroom teacher, this composition handbook suggests ways in which the teacher can integrate composition activities with the Macmillan language program. The first part of the handbook examines the following research findings: (1) students learn to write by writing, (2) a variety of writing experiences is necessary, (3) the…

The result of the Writing across the Curriculum Project at Minneapolis Community College, this handbook provides teachers with effective, efficient, and practical suggestions for crafting good writing assignments in content area classrooms. In general, the book encourages teachers to ask good questions and to experiment with writing. Respectively,…