In this article, I argue that new media is defined and situated within two distinct scholarly conversations ("composing in contemporary society" and "composing in academia") and has varied definitions supporting arguments made within these overarching conversations. Discussions of new media contribute to rhetoric and…

Since its advent word processing has become a common writing tool, providing potential advantages over writing by hand. Word processors permit easy revision, produce legible characters quickly, and may provide additional supports (e.g., spellcheckers, speech recognition). Such advantages should remedy common difficulties among weaker…

Background: The need for improvement in writing instruction in schools is dependent on teachers being aware of evidence-based procedures in writing and implementing them on a regular basis in their classrooms. Purpose: The purpose of this study was to explore the frequency with which teachers in Western Canada employed evidence-based procedures in…

During this decade there have been numerous efforts to identify instructional practices that improve students' writing. These include "Reading Next" (Biancarosa and Snow, 2004), which provided a set of instructional recommendations for improving writing, and "Writing Next" (Graham and Perin, 2007) and "Writing to Read" (Graham and Hebert, 2010),…

This study examined the impact of a word prediction software program, Co:Writer, on the written output of 24 students with physical disabilities that affected their ability to write by hand. Surveys were completed by both students who used Co:Writer and their teachers/adult supporters in schools, and 10-minute writing samples were obtained from…

Children and young people are increasingly performing a variety of writing tasks using computers, with word processing programs thus becoming their natural writing environment. The development of keystroke logging programs enables us to track the process of writing, without changing the writing environment for the writers. In the myMoment schools…