A teacher of students with learning disabilities used journals to encourage students to write. She allowed them to choose their topics, and she created ongoing conversations with them through the journals. As students' interest in writing increased, their journals helped them resolve conflicts, express frustrations, and hone language arts skills.…

Research into the behaviours manifested by the dyslexic condition has often focused upon younger dyslexic pupils and the lower-order skill difficulty in decoding and encoding. A surge in interest in the writing process has shifted the focus to higher-order skills, and a growing body of research is emerging within the higher education context…

This article presents a case study of a fourth grade boy's experiences in writing, preceding and following a story he wrote about a boy whose struggles in writing led directly to his death. We explore how Max's writing experiences related to his identity, specifically his sense of himself as a writer, his struggle to communicate his ideas, and his…

A study at Hong Kong University explored the use of the word processor as a writing tool in enhancing a process approach to writing instruction and the effect it has on writing performance, student attitudes to writing and revising, and the process by which students revise their scripts. A comparative analysis was done on a control group of 13…

To evaluate composition programs based on peer feedback, a study compared the improvement in written composition skills of two sets of eighth grade students in 11 classes at eight Dutch schools. The control group was enrolled in teacher feedback programs, the experimental group was enrolled in peer feedback programs. Students wrote a discursive…

The writing apprehension experienced by Puerto Rican university students is examined. Levels of apprehension when writing in English versus native Spanish, for males versus females, and for students enrolled or not enrolled in writing classes are compared. The results indicate that the students, particularly the women, are more apprehensive when…

Acknowledging that the process approach to writing instruction is particularly valuable for lower ability students (because carrying a project through from prewriting to publication enhances their self-esteem), this book presents procedures for teaching writing to build student confidence and subsequently to improve student writing. Following an…

The essays in this book address various cognitive and emotional dimensions of disrupted composing and describe some of the situational variables that can contribute to it. The titles and authors are as follows: "Blocking and the Young Writer" (Donald H. Graves); "Emotional Scenarios in the Writing Process: An Examination of Young…

This 1994 yearbook presents 24 papers and a summary of the dissertation award winner "Overcoming Misconceptions about Science Beliefs" (G. Qian). Papers are: "The Roots of Reading: Preserving the Heritage of a Profession" (N. A. Stahl and others; "CRA Professional Programs and Progress: A Personal Twenty-Five Year Perspective" (James E. Walker);…

A study investigated the effect of two staff development models--role playing and open instruction--upon teachers' self-awareness and attitudes toward inservice education. In a 2x2x2 design for analysis of variance, 27 composition teachers were randomly assigned, stratified by years of experience, to two parallel but contrasting summer workshops.…

Examines the early literacy experiences of a bilingual Chicano student, focusing on how these experiences affected the students' reading and writing skill development. For a period of 6 months, research elicited information about the student's relationships with teachers, memories of school experiences, and resulting self concept and behavior in…

According to self-efficacy theorists, people's judgments of what they can accomplish are influential arbiters in human agency and, as such, powerful determinants of their behavior. In large part, this is because these self-efficacy beliefs are said to act as mediators between other acknowledged influences on behavior, such as skill, ability,…

Based on the premise that composition skills and their evaluation are crucial to the educational process, this paper presents a tentative research program for conducting future English as a second language (ESL) composition evaluation studies. The program developed in the paper covers the following topics as areas which merit further rigorous…

In many cases, in higher education today, teachers usually deal with two types of students. These are the pre-adults or those people call traditional students, and the adults, or those they call non-traditional students. For adult learners, making writing mistakes of any kind is a source of anxiety and confusion, and often contributes to their…

While research on the composing process has revealed great variation among writers and among types of writers, research has largely ignored fluctuation in the writing behaviors of a single writer. A study contrasted both texts and behaviors of six graduate and undergraduate students of English as a Second Language (ESL) as they wrote a practice…