Focused freewriting, broadly defined as writing without stopping and editing about a specific topic, has been viewed and used as a powerful tool for developing student writing in a wide spectrum of educational contexts. This study aimed to further explore the use of focused freewriting in the context of promoting students' academic skills…

This paper reports on the use of reflexive practice activities designed to enhance learning for first year law students at James Cook University, Australia. The paper considers various aspects of student learning and explores connections between reflexive practice and concepts such as deep learning, understanding, motivation and engagement, and…

This article describes the preliminary exploratory process used to develop the research questions that will be addressed during a project to be offered in the 2005-2006 academic year. The project will bring together Maine high school and college faculty to learn from each other about shared needs, methods and priorities, in a year long series of…

The topic of this article concerns how students make sense of categories of progressive inquiry made available to them through a discussion and inquiry type of software called Future Learning Environments 2 (FLE2). The idea behind tools of this kind is to induce approaches to school-work that build on the metaphor of learning as research. By…

This paper reports on the effectiveness of an innovative course design that bridges classes from two different disciplines. The "Bridge" design creates assignments in two classes: a summary class and a panel class. The design encourages students to engage in teaching and interacting with their peers within and across disciplines, and…

The "ISSS Annual Conference Proceedings" is a peer-reviewed professional publication published once a year following the annual conference. The following papers are included in the 2013 proceedings: (1) Teaching About Asia in a Social Science Education Program (Cyndi Mottola Poole and Joshua L. Kenna); (2) Teaching Students about…

Writing 125 is a 13-week course that all first-year students at Wellesley College (Massachusetts) are required to take. One instructor teaches a section of it called "Law in Contemporary Society" which centers writing and reading activities around legal issues, namely "Roe v. Wade" and "Webster v. Cruzan." As an…

Data on the writing achievement of 11th-grade students in 1990 on the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) may help answer the question of who is right: employers and educators who say students are poorly prepared in writing, or parents and students, who are more positive about the results of the writing preparation students receive…

Intended for fourth- to sixth-grade students and their parents, this book provides information needed to complete language arts assignments. The book was compiled with the help of a service called Dial-A-Teacher, a collaborative program of the United Federation of Teachers and the New York City Board of Education, which operates a telephone…

These 4 issues of the English Leadership Quarterly comprise volume 16, published during 1994. Articles in number 1 deal with practical advice, and include: "The Law of Privacy and the Writing Teacher" (Ben T. Allen); Beware of Teachers Who Laminate Their Lesson Plans and Other Useful Suggestions about Teaching" (Robert Perrin);…

This paper explores various pedagogical perspectives regarding the use of electronic mail in the classroom as a supplemental and alternative teaching and learning strategy. The paper suggests keeping an electronic journal as a form of writing to clarify and reinforce concepts discussed in class. A brief summary of strategies and assignments are…

Suggesting that poetry can be inserted into any classroom in any curricular area, this paper discusses reading and writing poetry in middle school classrooms. The paper begins with advice on reading poetry in content classrooms, and then presents a 31-item bibliography of poetry sources "for browsing." The paper then presents tips for writing…

Sample excerpts from e-mail discussion used in place of the traditional journal in freshman composition illustrate the fascinating issues raised in this new forum. E-mail allows confrontational statements that would not have been made face-to-face and puts in written form a dialogue for analysis by the entire class. A study concentrated on three…

A multi-year study examined whether elementary school students can engage in historical thinking in a meaningful way, and what kind of writing activities best serve this purpose. Subjects were 17 students of varying language proficiency levels selected as the focus of research from the entire class of 31 primarily Hispanic and African-American…

Noting that a small portion of older emergent readers are usually found in all primary classes, this pamphlet discusses how teachers can help students with reading difficulties see how to fit together the snippets of literacy-related information they may have already acquired. After a brief introduction, the pamphlet suggests that children learn…