Teachers consistently grapple with how to make writing fun and engaging. While long-form writing has its value, research shows that balancing genre-based units with frequent, on-demand writing tasks to help children communicate effectively and reflect on their learning might be the key to success. "My Kids Can't Write" provides…

Written by teachers, the chapters in this book show how writing fosters learning in math, science, English, social studies, foreign language, philosophy, psychology, and art. Following an introduction by Anne Ruggles Gere, the first chapter, "Writing to Learn: The Nurse Log Classroom," by Steve Pearse, presents a comprehensive overview…

A response to the educator's confusion over how to teach critical thinking skills through writing, the writing process model described in this paper underlines the close ties among cognitive, language, and writing skills. Guiding writing assignments in all content areas, the model involves students in reflection and discussion as they move from…

Composing written text in an educational context engages both students and teachers in struggles between convention and choice, resulting frequently in the negotiation of compromises with which neither teachers nor students feel comfortable. The linguistic traditions of a discipline are powerful determinants of the nature of the language in which…

Describes the problems of writer-based writers, who are unable to select and relate their knowledge effectively, and proposes exercises to develop their writing skills. (MM)

Suggests using writing to enhance students' learning of content material because a positive environment that encourages writing allows students to explore, analyze, and synthesize what they are learning in a content classroom. Enumerates principles for facilitating comprehension and recommends using a guided writing procedure. (SKC)

Describes SPAWN, a technique for helping teachers make writing assignments in which students must first read, then integrate information from reading with their background experiences, to produce a piece of writing. (FL)

Although law professors often say that first year law students need training to "think like lawyers," many law students survive law school by practicing the "skill" of rote memory. It is when they take the bar examination or actually begin to work in a law office that they need the faculty of analytical thinking, for notes must…

Maintains that to teach students to write like historians, teachers must begin by asking how historians write, and then teach students to duplicate that method. (EL)

Noting that the claim that writing is a way to learn underlies most writing across the curriculum programs, this paper provides an overview of recent research results supporting the claim and emphasizes the need for more research in this area. The paper first identifies three dominant interpretations in the writing across the curriculum…

Focusing on how expert writers in various disciplines convey complex ideas, this paper shows how the techniques used by the mathematician, Clark Kimberling, in various writings can (1) be transferred to other disciplines, (2) show learning taking place, and (3) provide models for students to re-enact learning in all subject areas. The paper…

The articles in this journal issue explore current theories of the reading/writing relationship and practices in writing instruction. The titles and their authors are as follows: (1) "Cognitive Processes in Writing and Reading" (Roderic C. Botts); (2) "Brainstorming and Writing" (Brock Dethier); (3) "Group Writing:…

Literacy should be viewed as the ability to enlist a repertoire of discourse forms to explore and extend thinking and learning. In this view of literacy and literacy learning, various forms of reading and writing are seen as distinct ways of knowing and acquiring knowledge for ones' own purposes. Supporting this view of literacy are theoretical…

Critical thinking skills were taught to students in a lower-track freshman English class through the use of cross-disciplinary subject matter. Given a set of three transmission electron micrographs, or photographs of magnified tissue used in histology and pathology, students were asked to support their conclusions on which two of micrographs A, B,…

This collection of abstracts is part of a continuing series providing information on recent doctoral dissertations. The 30 titles deal with a variety of topics, including the following: (1) writing performance and its relationship to the writing attitudes, topic knowledge, and writing goals of college freshmen; (2) representational semantics; (3)…