Purpose: The primary goal of this study was to document the progression of the microstructural elements of written language in children at 4 grade levels. The secondary purpose was to ascertain whether the variables selected for examination could be classified into valid categories that reflect the multidimensional nature of writing. Method:…

In recent years effective instruction in reading for learners with physical and educational disabilities has received great attention in the schools. However, instruction in the corollary skill of writing has received considerably less emphasis. This review paper notes that through the use of assistive technology, students with a variety of…

Time and opportunity to discover truths are essential in education. Discovery takes repetition and trial and error. Discovery crosses intellectual and disciplinary boundaries as well. What is learned through the diverse experiences of one's academic and individual lives will pollinate each other if there is room left for discovery. The tyranny of…

In this study we examine how university plagiarism policies interact with international graduate students' academic writing in English as they develop identities as authors and students. The study is informed by the sociocultural theoretical perspective [Vygotsky, L. (1978). "Mind in society: The development of higher mental processes." Cambridge,…

This paper reports on a year-long project in which students participated as both readers and writers of blogs. Specifically, this study examines the steps students progress through while reading and writing blogs, students' reactions to blogging, and how self-expression is characterised in the blogosphere. Data from student blogs, reports, and…

Writing and reading in hypertext environments have more similarities with incompetent student research writing than the model of research writing that dominates the freshman composition enterprise. The research paper becomes a rite of passage and capstone writing experience, taxing the student writer's skills of organization and deft manipulation…

Based on the idea that poetry, like any art, is best mastered through practice, this handbook for poets combines poetry-writing exercises with personal essays by each contributing poet. Some of the poets represented in the handbook are: Maxine Kumin, Rita Dove, Roger Mitchell, Carol Muske, Sydney Lea, and J. D. McClatchy. The exercises in the…

For those in Composition Studies, Kenneth Brufee's social constructionist notion of collaboration has been touted as a panacea for all educational ills. Andrea Lunsford and Art Young have recently endorsed a social constructionist philosophy for writing centers. Lunsford asserts that the best collaborative model is socially constructed and aims…

An autobiography class at Elizabethtown College (Pennsylvania) used one of its four technique paper assignments to focus on the exploratory essay, since the concept of exploration, simply for the sake of questioning, probing, and testing, has both validity and purpose in a class or assignment focusing on autobiography. First the class brainstormed…

Students do not need to be told that they are socially constituted so much as they need to experience, in concrete terms, what that means. In an era of identity politics, they need to experience the labels they choose (or the labels chosen for them) as no less problematic than they are inevitable. A means to this end is a classroom heuristic tried…

The personal essay does not rely on the straight, even rows of a carefully laid out vegetable garden, on strings pulled tight to connect beginnings to ends. Instead it meanders, pulls from here and there, thinks out loud, asks questions, and proceeds leisurely through disconnections to make connections, as an ever-changing flower garden in which…

John Keats provides a convincing and helpful model of James Britton's philosophy and research on composition. While, contrary to Britton's paradigm, much of Keats's work is simultaneously in the expressive, transactional and poetic modes, early poems are primarily expressive: they record his perception of reality as filtered through his senses and…

The author's voice is implicit in all writing, even technical writing. It is the expression of the writer's attitude toward audience, subject matter, and self. Effective use of voice is made possible by recognizing the three roles of the technical writer: transmitter, translator, and author. As a transmitter, the writer must consciously apply an…

To investigate the composing processes of professional expository writers, interviews were conducted of six subjects who regularly produced expository prose under the pressure of a weekly or monthly deadline. Subjects included Noel Perrin, essayist, book critic, and Dartmouth College professor; Tom Wicker, political columnist for "The New York…

Significant findings in recent research concentrate on how writing is taught in school and how it might best be taught. Research on writing over the past fifteen years has shifted emphasis from product to process. The writing process can be divided into three stages: prewriting, writing, and rewriting. Prewriting (everything that takes place…