Writing assignments are ubiquitous in higher education. Writing develops not only communication skills, but also higher-level cognitive processes that facilitate deep learning. Cognitive visualizations, such as concept maps, can also be used as part of learning activities including as a form of scaffolding, or to trigger reflection by making…

The author finds using software to make audio comments on students' writing improves students' understanding of her responses and increases their willingness to take her suggestions for revision more seriously. In the process of recording audio comments, she came to a new understanding of her students' writing needs and her responsibilities as…

Because communication skills, especially writing, are such an integral part of managerial work, it may be postulated that these skills are associated with managerial success. Yet evidence of writing competency is not universally considered for admission to MBA programs. The purpose of this study was to investigate the possible correlation between…

Students write papers in many of their courses to improve their writing skills and to foster an active attitude toward learning. Every year, they hand in hundreds of papers for teachers to assess. This stream may get polluted in two ways: by simple copying from Internet sources and by the exchange of text fragments between students. These…

One provocative explanation for the continued persistence of minority achievement gaps involves the performance-dampening anxiety thought to be experienced by minority students in highly evaluative settings (i.e., "stereotype threat"). Recent field-experimental studies suggest that modest, low-cost "buffering" interventions…

Literacy remains an area of concern in early secondary education in Scotland (ages 12-14), with recent research suggesting a continued decline in attainment levels. As literacy underpins learning, interdisciplinary and collaborative approaches to teaching literacy are now being emphasized through the new Curriculum for Excellence that aims to…

Authentic learning experiences are those in which students engage with texts as well as the behaviors of reading and writing within contexts of real-world use beyond traditional academic use. This study provides quantitative analysis of how students (n = 200) engaged with an adult pen pal in a shared literacy experience. Findings indicate that…

Developmental composition courses serve a sizable and growing number of Generation 1.5 students, or long-term U.S. resident language learners, and it is believed that language challenges may be part of Generation 1.5 writers' difficulty in controlling the academic register. The current study investigates possible similarities and differences…

Based on a 2-year ethnographic study in an urban secondary school in Toronto, the article presents how a teacher and a researcher teach Grade 11 students through a design-based approach to teaching and learning in English class. Built on research and pedagogy on design, the authors designed a programme of study as an alternative to more…

The purpose of this study was to examine whether or not the use of net-book technology in the classroom altered the writing process for elementary students. The impetus for this study stemmed from the fact that more research needs to be conducted utilizing observations and interviews to examine the relationship between one-to-one technology use…

This article describes a project conducted with Year 12 English students. It was based on the model of "Teaching as Inquiry" (Ministry of Education, 2007) and aimed to develop students' self-efficacy in relation to their literature-response essay writing. Self-efficacy was measured using Bandura's (2006) self-efficacy scale and an…

In this essay, I examine the problems I now see with the sample curriculum I proposed in "College Writing and Beyond: A New Framework for Writing Instruction" in 2007. There are numerous factors that must be considered in designing a writing course: choice of subject matter, choice of genres to assign, sequencing of writing assignments, number of…

During what might have in the distant past been called "quiet time" in Arlene Anderson's fourth-grade classroom, many of her students are glued to their netbooks. The intense, enthusiastic focus and the hushed chatter amongst the students are all about high scores and strategy. Students are revising and editing their writing assignments within a…

This study examined the effect of journal writing on mathematics achievement in high-ability students in Singapore. It assessed both the cognitive benefits of journal writing (as evidenced through gains in math test scores) and the socio-affective benefits of journal writing (as demonstrated in their personal reflections) as the students learned…

This study is devoted to the effect of "textual metafunction" on the levels of coherence and cohesion in the Iranian EFL learners' English writing performance. Sixty Iranian intermediate EFL learners who were adult females participated in this study were randomly divided into two groups; experimental, and control. They were given a…