Research suggests that student development as writers requires a supportive environment in which they receive sustained opportunities to write. However, writing researchers in general know relatively little about the actual writing opportunities embedded in students' language arts lessons and how students' production of texts in class is framed.…

This study investigated the relationship between elementary classroom (N = 50) reading activities in Year 1 and reading performance (i.e., passage comprehension, letter-word identification, and word attack) 1 year later for English language learners (ELLs; N = 270). A cross-classification hierarchical model indicated that compared to other reading…

Using artifacts of teachers' practices, classroom observations, and interviews, we explore how 2 novice history teachers use writing in their middle school classrooms. Both teachers focused on evidence-based, interpretive writing in their preservice work, an approach promoted by their methods courses. After graduation, one teacher continued this…

The merits and shortcomings of formalized assessments of student writing have been debated by critics who maintain they are not valid measures of writing proficiency, often result in a narrowing effect on the local school curriculum and elicit predictable or formulaic writing by students and by proponents who argue they help to inform teacher…

Recognizing that no single evaluation instrument or procedure could provide a genuine measure of teaching effectiveness, the University of Southern Mississippi devised an evaluation system specifically designed for composition that consists of four components: student evaluation, observation of classroom activity, evaluation of a set of marked…

Based on research using participant and nonparticipant observation in a natural setting, a study examined how teaching practices, classroom conditions, and student differences influenced the design of writing lessons in 14 English classes in five inner city schools. Data were collected from five sources--interviews, writing samples,…

This casebook is part of a set of materials written by the members of the Making Thinking Visible Project. It offers high school, college, and community college teachers' multiple perspectives on the teaching and learning of collaborative planning, and on classroom inquiry and practice. The casebook explains collaborative planning (a writing…

During 1983, an observational study was carried out in four classrooms in two schools in Wellington, New Zealand, with the following objectives in mind: (1) to describe the different writing tasks, assigned to the students, (2) to outline the guidance students were given in order to help them complete their writing tasks, (3) to establish which…