This article offers ways to understand how a fifth-grade resistant writer positioned himself socially and academically within classroom writing practices and how these positions influenced literacy learning. Classroom writing practices enabled the student to explore the possibilities of who he was as he determined what types of learning were…

There is no single program for improving student writing, but there are common elements of programs that help kids learn to write well. Likewise, there is no professional development program that provides all the skills and knowledge a teacher will need to improve student writing--and, ultimately, student learning--but there are common elements…

Remediation programs have helped some struggling children learn to read and write. However, they have not been helpful to all students. Educators need to search for more effective ways of reaching even more learners. Recently there has been more focus on preventing early school failure. Researchers agree that if instruction for struggling students…

Writing and discussion are excellent ways for students to master content, develop analytical abilities, and become active and collaborative learners. The Writing Across the Curriculum movement offers a theoretical framework for the use of writing in instruction, maintaining that writing skills are primarily thinking skills, that writing is a…

The approach of parody writing dates back to ancient Greece. Unlike traditional parody that usually develops satire of an author's work, a form of primary parody writing can be used in the classroom to help children develop connections with text as they express their own ideas. Parody writing is useful with children in grade 3 and has potential…

This book focuses on how to teach, analyze, and assess arguments. The book merges current thinking on argumentation from the fields of composition, rhetoric, speech, logic, and critical thinking. Noting that teaching students how to argue is largely the responsibility of writing and speech teachers, this book builds the case for teachers' learning…

A practicum was designed to increase second-grade teachers' expertise and knowledge in integration of literature themes with writing and oral presentations. The problem addressed was that many students did not receive adequate support and opportunities to interconnect reading and original writing. There was nothing in the language arts series, nor…

This edition of "NAEPfacts" discusses the frequency with which process-oriented activities are taught in United States schools, and the writing performance of students whose teachers emphasize these activities. Data were drawn from the 1992 National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) in Writing, which was administered to a…

A study examined the influence of coauthoring on the writing process in the classroom. Subjects were 24 students in a ninth-grade English class at a racially and socioeconomically diverse high school located in a medium-sized Midwestern city. Data was collected over the first 9-week quarter of the year. Eight collaborative writing triads,…

This guide to writing research proposals for theses, dissertations, and grants contains practical suggestions for the would-be writer and several exemplars that show how effective proposal writing can be done. The guide is divided into two parts: Part 1, "Writing the Proposal" and Part 2, "Specimen Proposals." Part 1, the core of the guide,…

An instructional study examined whether teaching strategies related to planning and reviewing behaviors would affect planning, reviewing, revising, and producing texts. Training texts were examined using a multiple baseline across participants design with multiple probes in baseline. During baseline and in intervention phases, two highly capable…

Developed for a workplace literacy program by educators from the Emily Griffith Opportunity School, this teacher's guide presents a 4-hour memo-writing workshop to introduce participants to the writing process. The guide is organized in two sections. The first section covers prewriting, freewriting, brainstorming, and clustering; the second…

This study adapted the Cognitive Strategy in Writing (CSIW) program, which had been effectively used with elementary students with learning disabilities (LD), to an older population of students. CSIW embodies three guiding principles: (1) effective writing is seen as a holistic enterprise involving the processes of planning, organizing, writing,…

The development of effective skills and basic competencies in written English for Ute students in a reservation public school system and adult Ute learners seeking high school equivalency certificates is discussed. The focus of analysis is on assessing the Ute students' assumptions about written language and their use of those assumptions when…

Contemporary findings of brain research and language function can be analyzed and related to the teaching of creative and critical thinking and active learning through writing. A great deal of work has been carried out concerning the integration of the cerebral hemispheres for heuristic procedures in writing invention. In the integrated brain, the…