Writing-to-learn techniques can enhance learning, yet a need remains for more empirical research on the quality of learning that results from engaging in particular writing tasks with description of the instructional support for writing situated in context. This report builds on past research linking inquiry, social negotiation, and writing…

Whereas there has been strong advocacy of the value of writing for learning in science, the role of student planning in this approach and the relationships between planning, writing, and learning have been underresearched. Our mixed method study aimed to address this issue by seeking to identify quantitative differences in learning outcomes…

Nothing interests middle schoolers more than themselves, so a project that has them investigating their own names proves to be motivation for research, interviews, and writing. In the process, students find a reason to care about organization, writing conventions, writing style, and personal reflection. (Contains 9 resources.)

We examined the effects of in-class writing instruction, practice, peer review, and feedback on writing skills of undergraduates enrolled in a general psychology course. We rated writing for grammar, writing style, mechanics, and American Psychological Association referencing style. Significant differences emerged on the 4 writing skill domains (p…

Argues that teachers in all disciplines can act as insiders in helping students to write more effectively within academic contexts. Teachers who write are even more effective because they bring expert knowledge of content and language from tacit to conscious awareness and engage themselves and their students in the teaching exchange. (Contains 13…

In the academic ranks of schooling, writing tasks move gradually from a focus on the transmission of knowledge to the transformation of knowledge. As a more complex writing task, knowledge-transforming requires writers to engage in the rhetorical act of persuading readers of their work's value, significance, and credibility. At the graduate level,…

"Developing and Assessing an Online Research Writing Course" discusses how the Writing Program at the University of California at Santa Barbara (UCSB) created a hybrid, online research writing course, Writing 50, and assessed that course. The assessment, which is at the center of this piece, was dovetailed with assessment literature in…

Communication Across the Curriculum (CAC) programs are growing in number and in degrees of influence across the country. An exploration of the CAC national discussion indicates that the discourse shaping campus programs and faculty/course development practices is one of basic communication skills focused on outcome. The problem with reducing…

The article is concerned with the research approaches and nature of methodologies and epistemologies used by practitioner-researchers in a range of occupational areas. The authors use the experiences of candidates on a generic Doctorate in Professional Studies who undertake a module on research and development for professional practice. They also…

Point Loma Nazarene College in San Diego, California, provides special academic support for a small group of its provisionally admitted students through its Program Quick Start, a collaborative, cross-disciplinary project involving the fields of literature and biology. Students meet for up to 5 or 6 hours daily for 5 weeks during the summer as…

The dynamics of planning together, team teaching, troubleshooting problems, reflecting on and assessing a program's impact on students, and navigating the paths of institutional proposals and approvals together has become a process of professional growth for 2 professors who developed a summer program for provisionally admitted students. Point…

A study examined the effectiveness of incorporating writing as a tool to master the concepts of physics. Subjects were students in the three traditional physics classes and one non-math or conceptual physics class at East High School in Rockford, Illinois. The instructor tried a variety of methods--students wrote criticisms of Carl Sagan videos,…

During the 1994 fall semester, an instructor taught an English 101 section at Central Arizona College-Superstition Mountain Campus that used readings from Graham Flegg's "Numbers: Their History and Meaning" as the basis for 3 of the assigned readings. Only 3 of the 5 assigned essays were based on math--as opposed to all of them--for…

Social studies teachers need to stress the concept of writing in the social studies. A quality curriculum advocates that learners write across the curriculum. Creating experience charts, developing and writing outlines, writing book reports and developing various activities around library books read, and writing diary entries are all activities…

This book is designed to provide teachers with numerous ideas about how to infuse mathematics and writing into their classroom in creative and challenging ways and to encourage students to visualize, speak, and write about math. The activities described here can help students communicate mathematically and realize that there is more to math than…