This study was situated at Mountain Middle School (Pseudonym). Students at Mountain Middle School often engage in collaborative compositions embedded within week-long multidisciplinary and multiage units of study called Odysseys. These units of study and the collaborative composition projects are classified as formal cooperative learning. Johnson…

Developing disciplinary literacy is an emerging priority for secondary teachers as they prepare students for college, career, and civic life. One way to develop and assess disciplinary literacy in history is through source-based argument writing (SBAW) with multiple sources. SBAW requires students to synthesize information across texts and use…

The local problem explored in this study was the barriers and challenges facing middle school teachers in integrating and assessing writing in a science classroom. The purpose of this basic qualitative study was to explore the perspectives of college instructors and middle school science teachers regarding how teacher education programs provide…

Teachers of young writers often feel pressure to focus on narrow, tested conventions, forms and processes of writing. These pressures can contribute to instruction that does not consider students' interests, experiences, language or cultures, but rather can further deficit views of students whose backgrounds do not closely align with those making…

The current two studies examined the effects of an instructional unit on synthesis writing for 9th grade students on holistic text quality. Because students' writing routines have been shown to affect the effectiveness of writing instruction, we designed a unit that aimed to be equally effective for all writers, regardless of their routines. On…

Writing groups have the potential to be positive academic communities, but often become problematic spaces where students go to get their writing "fixed." In this article, the authors draw on literature from peer response groups as well as social justice pedagogies to explore how teachers might develop these groups as spaces for student…

Background: Writing is integral to educational success at all levels and to success in the workplace. However, low literacy is a global challenge, and many students lack sufficient skills to be good writers. With the rapid advance of technology, computer-based tools that provide automated feedback are being increasingly developed. However, mixed…

The purpose of the study was to critically evaluate the updated Turkish writing curricula to decide whether they permit teachers to design higher intellectually demanding teaching sequences. This study was designed as a qualitative inquiry through a document analysis to estimate the pedagogically oriented intellectual demands of the curricular…

The present study aimed to determine the creative story writing skill levels of seventh grade middle school students. The research is a quantitative research and designed in survey design. The sample of the research consisted of a total of 121 seventh grade middle school students who were determined by convenience sampling technique. The research…

Purpose: This paper explores a five-year case example of two educators engaged in practice-based professional development (PBPD) for the Self-Regulated Strategy Development (SRSD) model in a middle school. It examines the transformative effects and challenges of improving writing instruction, the activities involved and alternative PBPD delivery…

This study explored disciplinary writing in grades 4-6 and the potential of writing to learn and learning to write across the curriculum to prepare the pupils for their future writing. Using Ivanic's discourses of writing as an analytical framework, observation protocols from 104 observers in 374 lessons in 76 Swedish schools were analyzed…

The purpose of this article is to explain how the authors' district implemented micro-writing in curriculum and instruction. The foundation of micro-writing comes from research and publications by Rief, specifically the "QuickWrite Handbook," and Gallagher and Kittle's "180 Days." The article begins by defining and describing…

Providing timely and helpful writing feedback for student writers, especially those at the middle and high school level, can present an unwieldy challenge for teachers. Yet, feedback is necessary for students' growth as writers. There is an increased interest and use of automatic writing programs to provide students with writing feedback. However,…

Results from national and state writing assessments suggest teachers struggle to meet the writing needs of students with disabilities as they score significantly lower than the overall population. With the implementation of Common Core State Standards in 2010, text-based writing became increasingly important for academic success both in the…

Effective written feedback is crucial to student learning and developing writing skills. Responding to student writing is a multifaceted and complex process that requires a more nuanced understanding of second language writing research. This study explored teachers' beliefs and practices about written feedback, which may be influenced by a range…