Teachers who have participated in Summer Institutes of the National Writing Project (NWP) have often claimed "it changed my life." What do teachers mean when they say this? What does it mean to "transform" in a professional development setting, and what might researchers and professional development providers gain from an…

Trickster tales, with their teachings on how to behave in the world, are a powerful means for transmitting social knowledge and cultural mores to children. In this study we compared two approaches to teaching fourth-grade students to write trickster tales. Although both instructional methods incorporated aspects of the writing process approach,…

Explores children's working knowledge of narrative, scientific, and poetic genres. Finds that children had significantly more experience with narrative genres than either scientific or poetic genres; and possessed more knowledge of text structure than micro-level features such as cohesion markers. Contributes to theorizing genre learning as a…

Finds that the use of writing models influences the content and organization of students' research texts. Shows that seeing a proposition in the models increased the likelihood that students would include it in their texts. Finds no systematic benefits from labeling the models or from providing only good models. (SR)

Tests the supposition that male and female writing styles differ, using 88 college students as subjects. Finds that the writing of men and women is far more similar than different. Finds that differences resulting from mode of discourse were more widespread than differences resulting from gender. (MG)

Describes the changes basic writers made to an impromptu in-class essay when the essays were taken home and revised. Suggests that some basic writers have sophisticated revising skills, and that assessment which allows time for revision can give these students the opportunity to demonstrate their skills. (RAE)

Concludes that syntax as an isolated factor carries no special effects on the two factors comprising ethos--authoritativeness and character. (FL)

Reports the results of analysis of revisions in 100 randomly selected sets of 12th-grade students' essay drafts. Findings revealed that there are patterns of revising strategies among the students and that these differences are associated with the quality of their writing. (HOD)

Takes a systematic approach to defining and operationalizing the notion of discourse community, drawing on data from an ethnography of writing in a workplace setting. States that a single genre varied in form and function depending on the specific discourse communities in which it was used--writing events took on layered meanings in relation to…

Discusses the ongoing dialogs concerning paradigm shifts in education, especially with regard to English instruction. Describes one teacher's experiences with the issue of paradigm shift in the form of a blues song. Shows how teachers can move beyond the questions of paradigms. (HB)

Presents a poem, "Henry and Edith in Casper," and discusses the composing processes that led to its creation. (SRT)

Examines the effects on writing of involving students in using strategies of defining as inquiry, versus the effects of their analyzing and initiating model definitions. (HOD)

Examines the evidence for both the linguistic and rhetorical hypotheses about writers' planning and presents new research on episodic patterns within the writing process itself. Uses protocol analysis to look at the content and nature of writers' plans. (HOD)

A college freshman level sentence-combining treatment consisting of one paragraph rewriting exercise for 12 consecutive weeks resulted in significant gains in average words per clause and words per T-unit. (HOD)

Research in written composition must not only face up to the fact that composition tests must meet the same requirements for validity and reliability that other tests must meet, but it also faces the unique difficulty of figuring out a way to give a valid and reliable pretest. (DD)