A case study examined assumptions of current written language pedagogies, particularly the links between oral performance, literacy pedagogy, and the use of the explicit, analytic language valued in school. The subject, a young African-American child enrolled in an urban K/1 classroom, used school writing activities and the music of language to…

A study examined the role of talk in the writing act. The study utilized participant observational techniques in an attempt to discover how talk was implicated in all stages of writing. Subjects were three fourth, fifth, and/or sixth grade informants, with one student emerging as the key informant in the study. Results indicated that talk appeared…

Shows how one first-grade teacher explicitly modeled her own authorship processes and how students took up those processes in their own writing. Analyzes classroom discourse to illustrate how the teacher and students shifted roles in the participation framework of writing activity among teacher, author, co-author, and overhearer to facilitate the…

A study was conducted to document the written language of kindergarten children as a transaction among writers, teachers, and the writing process. Six children's writing processes and two teachers' instructional behaviors were examined using videotaped observations during an eight month period in two kindergarten classrooms. Writing products of…

Recognizing that oral language plays a critical role in facilitating a child's written language learning, a study examined the nature and function of oral language between child and teacher and child and peer as it accompanied the writing processes and written production of young children. Participants in the study were 36 prekindergarten children…

As part of a larger study of teacher-student conferences, a study examined naturally occurring one-to-one writing conference conversations between a ninth-grade English teacher (recommended as an excellent writing teacher) and three markedly different students. The study examined students' grapplings with the structure as well as the content of…

A case study examined the brief conversations about writing that took place between a high school English teacher and two of his students. One illustrative writing conference conversation lasting 1 minute and 19 seconds shows how, through the push and pull of their short exchange, student and teacher simultaneously read the book, read the writing…

Contains annotations describing research conducted in the following areas: writing (contexts, status surveys, instruction, processes, text analysis, assessment, rhetoric, writing and learning), language (processing, development, interrelationships, language and schooling), literature, and teacher education. (HOD)

Focuses on the oral language that accompanies the writing process of Native American students. Finds that of all the oral language observed during composing, 90 percent of that language was related to the fact that writing was taking place. (MG)

Ten six- and seven-year-old British children were chosen for case study investigation of the importance of children's interactions with each other and with their teacher in launching writing through sustained speech. The school was identified by educational experts as one of the "progressive" or "informal" variety, where…

There are compelling reasons to use talk in the writing classroom to improve both expressive and expository writing. First, speaking is natural, and students come to the writing classroom linguistically well-developed and confident. Second, talking encourages exploration of words by slowing down the thought process without completely stopping it.…

A study analyzed some of the characteristics of junior high students' oral communication behavior that accompanied the assignment, production, and evaluation of a writing task. It involved fieldwork in three junior high school English classes--first in a six-month pilot study and then in a year-long period of observation. Through direct…

Current literature on writing instruction focuses on the writing conference, which accompanies a shift in emphasis from product to process and potentially transforms the teacher's role from task master and evaluator to respondent, opening the door to greater peer interaction in literacy learning. However desirable this ideal may be, extant…

The product of a study documenting the classroom writing behavior of three kindergarten and three second grade students, this research report focuses on the kindergarten data. Following an introductory chapter describing the theoretical assumptions underlying the project, the research questions posed, and the provisions made to insure reliable and…

A high school English teacher assigned to a class of underachieving eleventh grade students encountered numerous difficulties with the students' behavior and their resistance to writing. Most were disruptive in class, hostile to reading and writing assignments, and had troubled home lives. To combat the problem, the teacher developed a…