Writing practices are seen to be essential for professional engineers, yet many engineering students and academics struggle with written communication, despite years of interventions to improve student writing. Much has been written about the importance of getting engineering students to write, but there has been a little investigation of…

Students in upper-level courses are expected to observe disciplinary conventions in writing assignments. Common recommendations for teaching conventions require substantial time for instructor feedback and in-class instruction. As an alternative, we tested the effectiveness of a checklist in improving students' performance of these conventions.…

Reflective practice is an important skill that teachers must develop to be able to assess the effectiveness of their teaching and modify their instructional behavior. In many education programs reflective narratives, which are often part of teaching portfolios, are intended to assess students' abilities in these areas. Research on reflectivity in…

The Young Writers Program (YWP) is the latest writing workshop to be developed for the classroom. It challenges students to choose a topic and write a novel-length piece based on that topic, without worrying about spelling or grammar. While the foundation of this philosophy is solid, the support and structure of the Young Writers Program website…

Many academics speak of a "literacy crisis" when referring to student writing standards, often pointing the finger of blame at an overall increase in social networking. The resulting tendency has been for language teachers in higher education to take a corrective, or even remedial, approach to writing fluency. This paper examines…

Concerns about social work students' writing are well documented, but the cost of specialized writing programs leaves budget-stressed programs confronting a problem they may feel they have few means to address. However, a valuable resource is already available: faculty expertise in social work writing. The challenge is helping faculty realize…

The purpose of this guide is to improve high school writing and writing instruction. Teachers are encouraged to make transparencies and handouts of the information in this guide in order to make the information accessible to students. Using the scoring rubrics and model papers, students can be taught to recognize both strong and weak areas in…

Designed as a practical reference book that can be useful to readers in any writing situation, this handbook offers guidance for writing assignments across the curriculum as well as help in writing resumes, letters, and scholarship, college, and job applications. The handbook describes the 10 common methods for developing any kind of writing and…

Children can create pantomimes that will motivate and enhance their story writing. The "Writing through Mime" program has been introduced to some 4500 children, grades kindergarten through 5, in 29 New York City elementary schools, under the auspices of the Learning through an Expanded Arts Program. A step-by-step blueprint was developed…

This book offers 25 mini-lessons which focus on the elements of good writing. Intended for teachers of grades 3-6, the book provides practical teaching suggestions to introduce particular elements and strategies, as well as activities that will allow students to practice new techniques. Using excerpts from favorite children's authors' works and…

A practicum developed and implemented a program to help change students' negative attitude toward writing, with the conviction that if students enjoy writing they will write more and produce writing that clearly communicates their ideas. The practicum's objectives were for 50% of the targeted students to: (1) write for at least 15-20 minutes at a…

Describes a project that used photography to inspire and structure creative writing among students who were struggling writers. Outlines the writing process and the problems struggling writers encounter. Provides information for taking good photographs, making photographs interesting, and choosing subject ideas to get students started. (SD)

Explored relationships between middle school students' writing processes and their written products. Results suggest that students need to engage in a variety of writing tasks; teachers must be aware of the complexity involved in composing to assess progress; editing must be kept in its proper perspective; and teachers should recognize that…

Reports on a study of the writing skills of 51 Italian fourth graders who used word processors for several months. Concludes that word processing can help motivate children and teachers to do more writing and that further improvement in writing skills would occur if the children received writing instruction. (CFR)

Originally developed as part of a project for the Department of Defense Schools (DoDDS) system, this learning package on expressive writing is designed for teachers who wish to upgrade or expand their teaching skills on their own. The package includes an overview of the project; a comprehensive search of the ERIC database; a lecture giving an…