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…

Six ideas for writing autobiographies with elementary school students include: model the writing process to get students started; read examples of autobiographies; brainstorm writing ideas; free-write the first draft; edit and revise; and publish the stories. Suggestions for mini-lessons are included. A student reproducible offers an editing…

In this paper I attempt to do three things. Firstly, I explore the concept of resistance in the sociology of youth and education. I raise questions about the power of this concept to provide a descriptive language for understanding the way young people generally, and in this paper, young African-Caribbean men in London schools, deal with the…

Background: It is well established that handwriting fluency constrains writing quality by limiting resources for higher order processes such as planning and reviewing. According to the "simple view of writing" then slow keyboarding speed should hinder the quality of keyboarded essay compositions in the same way that slow handwriting…

This article describes a take-home literacy project in which kindergartners took home books, a stuffed animal, a camera, and a shared writing activity to complete with their families. The children later shared their writing and experiences in school. The resulting written responses and photographs depicted a level of involvement with the families…

Metaphor-making is a universal human endeavor that manifests across cultures in various ways. Analyzing metaphors enables educators to gain a greater understanding of many social and cultural issues. Teaching children to write through metaphor based upon their emotional landscapes can reveal much of their inner worlds. Such texts can have a…

Presents an 11-item annotated bibliography of child-oriented magazines which will publish children's work. Includes some general suggestions on preparing work for submission. (RS)

This paper describes the work done by a third-grade class to write and present adaptations of Dickens'"A Christmas Carol" and Shakespeare's "The Tempest." Students explored the authors' lives and collectively wrote their own renditions of the stories; the entire short text of their version of "The Tempest" is included. (PB)

Notes that "Reading Rainbow"'s third annual contest for young writers and illustrators will be held from January-April 1997; it is administered primarily through local PBS stations which hold their own contests and submit winners to "Reading Rainbow." States that children in grades K-3 should submit a story and at least five…

Describes a writing project in which elementary students write Choose-Your-Own adventure stories. (SR)

Examines young children's ability to vary the forms of emergent writing as they wrote a story, a shopping list, and a letter to a friend at three different times during the school year. Finds that children apply their emergent knowledge about written language differently. Indicates a considerable mismatch between written products and knowledge of…

Examines the work of four writers who have influenced the teaching of poetry writing to primary school children. Considers the merits of each, particularly in the context of arguments about "voice" and "form," and links their explicit and implicit philosophies and approaches. Supports "grace,""voice" and "form," and argues that one need not…

Mothers' and teachers' academic attributions of second graders (20 girls; 20 boys) were investigated. Children were recruited equally from high versus low SES schools. Mothers evaluated their own children and teachers evaluated 10 children in each of four classrooms -- compared to classmates -- in six domains: reading, writing, arithmetic, fine…

This article explores the idea that in order to improve the way we teach children to write, we need to improve our understanding of children as writers. Although developing their metacognitive skills can give us a clearer window into children's understanding, we must be wary of assuming that they ascribe the same meaning to their metacognitive…

This paper describes how one group of Euro-American, middle-class two-year-olds living in the southern US learned to form and enact locally appropriate textual intentions and literate identities as they participated in writing events. Data were collected during a nine-month ethnographic study of two-year-olds' and adults' interactions at a…