A discussion of passive verb forms and the passive voice attempts to explain the nature of passives and to offer composition teachers some reference points for teaching them. Twelve arguments are proposed to explain resistance to the teaching of passives; each is termed a continuum in order to help assess understandings and attitudes. The 12…

This study investigated Brazilian elementary teachers' decision making processes when evaluating and grading students' written work. Teachers analyzed the written work of four students who were unknown to them, then produced reports indicating: their perception of the author's grade level and reasons for believing it was that grade level; positive…

In 1996, a California high school district and two colleges assembled intersegmental teams to establish common assessment of college-readiness in mathematics and English. Subject area teams reviewed standards, rubrics, and current tests. A Joint Assessment Team (JAT) explored the Golden State Exam (GSE) in Written Composition as a common tool. Its…

This annotated bibliography is intended to help teachers of composition improve writing quality of entering college students. The main body of the report is preceded by a brief summary of sources for faculty interested in examining the causes attributed to the decline in college students' writing skills, including: "National Assessment and the…

This book makes clear the connection between classroom writing and everyday writing by identifying common reader-centered writing features fundamental to both genres. It uses a building metaphor, a unique method that views writing as the putting together of ideas piece by piece to form a coherent structure. This process-oriented approach helps…

The National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) 1998 Writing Assessment measured student writing performance at the 4th, 8th, and 12th grades. Scoring guides for three different writing purposes for each grade allowed scorers to objectively evaluate students' work. This issue of NAEPfacts includes an 8th-grade informative writing scoring…

The corporate takeover of the Internet has moved literacy into uncharted territory. Couched in capitalist metaphors of liberation, choice, utility, and desirability, an expanded communications network that provides quick and easy access to vast amounts of information appeals to the national psyche. The commodification of literacy as a result of…

Establishing statewide standards that define what a Minnesota public high school graduate should know and be able to do to function effectively as a purposeful thinker, effective communicator, self-directed learner, productive group participant, and responsible citizen, this legislation outlines the graduation standards in Written Composition that…

This 21st Yearbook of the College Reading Association reflects the ongoing efforts of a group of scholars who have dedicated their professional lives to the advancement of literacy through inquiry that is linked with actual teaching and learning. Following the Presidential Address by Timothy V. Rasinski, "Outside of a Dog, a Book Is Man's…

This revised manual aims to assist Ohio teachers in preparing their students for success in the Ohio Grade 9 Proficiency Test in Writing. Noting that the original writing resource manual shared sample papers based on the expository practice test prompt, the revised manual states that since that manual's publication, teachers have asked for…

Providing a foundation in which researchers may build future research and theory and in which teachers may design more effective classroom practice, this book presents 12 essays that bring together the contributions of researchers and teacher-scholars to present the significant theory and research related to the writing process. The book is…

By looking at narratively-rich poems both as individual poems and as part of much broader social narratives, students become extremely excited, and their papers become far more complex in exploring gender, ethnicity, and social class. An instructor tries to help students enter into the life of the poems, to enter into a conversation the poet has…

This "how-to" booklet was compiled by Oklahoma's "Phonics Task Force" to help teachers of K-3 students further incorporate phonics into daily reading instruction using a systematic approach--one that is logical, sequential, and orderly. The booklet states that the use of phonics in Oklahoma's core curriculum has been promoted…

A writing instructor has grappled with how both to integrate and to complicate critical perspectives on technology in the writing classroom. In collaboration with another instructor, a computer classroom pedagogy was constructed emphasizing imperatives of cultural studies practice as outlined by James Berlin. The pedagogy is similar to Berlin's…

The five annotated bibliographies, developed by students as a requirement for a graduate-level course in cross-cultural communication, include: "Teaching Cross-Cultural Capability in the ESL/EFL Classroom" (Ellen Grote); "To Have and To Hold: Marriage Connections Across Cultures" (Elizabeth Graber); "Rhetoric and Ideology in Compositions: L1 and…