In the pursuit of fostering vibrant and inclusive learning environments, this article explores how the practice of community-building can be a contemplative practice. Drawing upon personal experiences and pedagogical insights, Muir navigates the rewards of cultivating authentic connections among students while dismantling hierarchies within the…

This essay explores the creativity and learning that can take place when students are given the opportunity to go beyond the GCSE set poems and create their own poetry anthologies. I argue that in the process of creating a poetry anthology, students are encouraged to engage on a deeper and more personal level with poetry. I suggest that when…

This curriculum-based collection of lesson plans is designed to build student confidence for articulating their unique ideas and sensibilities about the world through literary expression. For this book, Jimmy Santiago Baca, one of the foremost poets in America today, collaborates with two National Writing Project Fellows and literacy…

This research sets out to unveil the potential enrichment of initial narrative writing processes in a group of EFL 5th graders through the implementation of picture books as useful tools which can be used to shape the natural ability of telling an event or a sequence of events systematically of EFL students at this level. In this qualitative…

One of the primary objectives for many instructors of first-year composition (FYC) is to encourage students to use their own voice/persona, or express themselves with authority in their writing. While there are many pedagogical methods to address this in a face to face environment, there is now need to understand how the course tools and…

It is important to find the means by which struggling writers can find success in the English Language Arts. For students struggling with reading and writing, the visual arts may be a way of accessing and expressing their ideas and ultimately opening up a world of creative possibilities. This article explores drawing and painting as a pre-writing…

In an attempt to understand what expressive writing means to themselves and to their students, teachers should explore and reflect on various questions regarding expressive writing theories and practices. For many, self-expression is the basis of all serious writing and an important stage in any act of learning, so it is essential to uncover the…

Discusses issues related to the writing of novels, the construction of meaning by readers, and generally about the act of writing from the first person point of view. Outlines the elements of strong fiction. (HB)

The most powerful and profound thoughts known to humankind are the result of freedom to write whatever it is that the soul must purge; whatever a person is thinking that troubles him or her; anything that hinders his or her ability to be in that particular moment of living. On the first day of class, one writing instructor tells her students that…

Suggests that if students are to become comfortable enough with poetry to freely write about it, they must first discover the poetry in themselves. Offers a composition-poetry method that allows students to experience poetry, analyze their writing processes, and synthesize all the information gained from doing and analyzing. (MS)

Describes a program of creative writing and describes student objectives and teacher objectives that allow the experience to aid students in producing critical essays. (CRH)

Insofar as students gain clarity by writing statements of belief and meaning, the expressive mode is a vehicle for learning. By expressing in writing their reaction to a bewildering experience, a current dilemma, or a troublesome conflict, for example, they are better able to broaden their views on this personal predicament. The expressive mode…

Three types of journal writing used by a teacher in her community college English classrooms are (1) the reading journal, in which students respond to course materials that they have been assigned; (2) the "sensorium," a writing unit devoted to detailed, specific descriptions of what the student sees, hears, touches, tastes, and smells;…

Suggests that learning to write should be mastered before a research paper is ever assigned. Presents exercises developing student skill in using source materials to express their own ideas. (MM)

Suggests that perception is most vigorous and thus most amenable to organization when guided by teaching that places creativity before communication. (MM)