The 2018 Central States Conference on the Teaching of Foreign Languages (CSCTFL), meeting with the Wisconsin Association for Language Teachers, was held in downtown Milwaukee at the Hilton City Center, March 8-10, 2018. Fifty years of annual conferences were celebrated, each one designed "to support language teachers and to advance the study…

Today, nearly forty years after writing centers first began to proliferate, it is worthwhile to reflect on the themes that emerge from empirical material surrounding writing center assessments, for reflecting on these themes may help administrators to refine current assessment practices and scholars to redirect their research. The goal of this…

The purpose of this case study is to document the ways in which fifth-grade students in a historically, low-performing school learned to write from a teacher who did not emphasize test-taking processes. The study demonstrates how these instructional practices in a writing workshop context positively affected the student performance on a statewide…

The problem is that 5th-grade students are not achieving sufficient writing scores on Georgia state-mandated writing assessments, which the researcher hypothesized was due to the teacher-directed instructional approach utilized at the school. The purpose of this mixed-methods study was to determine whether discovery learning, a method based on the…

Noting that when students are immersed in reading and writing poetry they benefit from revisions in writing and learn to critically analyze text, this book outlines the ways that poetry workshops can excite students' interest. Chapter 1, "Laying a Foundation for Poetry Workshop" defines poetry workshop and explains its value in the reading and…

An initiative of the Open Society Institute (OSI) and the International Reading Association (IRA), Reading and Writing for Critical Thinking (RWCT) promotes classroom teaching practices that help students learn actively, think critically, and work cooperatively. It offers an integrated program of staff development, activities for teachers of the…

This report summarizes the findings of a 2-year research project on creative writing and adult education in Cleveland, England, that focused on the ideas and feelings of tutors, students, and writers involved in creative writing workshops in the city. The report begins with overviews of creative writing activities in Cleveland (including mention…

The first edition of this book in 1987 examined how teachers teach and how learners learn in the context of reading and writing workshops for middle school students. This revised edition still stresses the workshop approach to writing and English instruction, but it calls for a more activist approach by the teacher, encouraging more direction and…

This book provides a guide for English language arts teachers in grades 6-12, demonstrating how students learn and how beliefs inform behavior. It promotes a student-centered and inquiry-based teaching philosophy. Seven chapters focus on: (1) "Education Begins with Philosophy" (e.g., belief shapes perception, curriculum in traditional and…