In what ways do students understand and document literacies within out-of-school communities in their school-sponsored writings? How can community literacy sites and public perceptions of community disrepair stimulate students to create written responses on the politics of place? These questions are at the heart of this article's investigation…

When children write plays, their wishes, fears, and secrets face an audience. An audience is not a do-gooder making nice. It is not an authority figure with a grudge against one's race or class. When it laughs at the jokes or applauds, it can be trusted. It is saying this play--and by extension its author--fits into the world on its own terms. In…

This article gives a perspective on the use of memoir writing as pedagogy in three undergraduate courses at the University of Minnesota in 2002, 2005, and 2006. Each of these courses explored the significance of "place" and "time" in the lives of the students. In each, the students wrote memoirs ranging from about 1500 to 5000 words in length.…

This study investigated the effectiveness of portfolio-based writing assessment in EFL situations. Participants were 40 pre-intermediate young Iranian English learners. They were randomly divided into experimental and control groups of 20 each. The experimental group wrote on five pre-established topics from their coursebook. Their writings were…

This article argues that teacher-education programs often promote surface conceptions of inclusivity that limit preservice teachers' ability to understand and build upon the lived experiences of culturally and linguistically diverse youth. Conventional wisdom implies that teachers of color are native informants of these lived experiences; however,…

In this article I present some findings of an action research study intended to find out to what extent a teacher-student partnership in writing assessment could promote high school students' autonomy. The study was conducted in a U.S. school. Two main action strategies in the assessment process were the use of symbols as the form of feedback…

In this study, 72 secondary English teachers from the Santa Ana Unified School District were randomly assigned to participate in the Pathway Project, a cognitive strategies approach to teaching interpretive reading and analytical writing, or to a control condition involving typical district training focusing on teaching content from the textbook.…

Have you ever wondered what character traits you need in order to be an effective teacher? This article discusses the findings from a 15-year research study of what in-service and preservice teachers have determined are the 12 characteristics of an effective teacher. Over his collegiate teaching career, the researcher has engaged college students…

The bilingual poetry and stories of Salvadoran writer Jorge Argueta have been an invaluable resource in this author's classroom. She has used poems from "Talking with Mother Earth" for homework and class analysis during a study of ecosystems, the story "Xochitl and the Flowers" to lead into persuasive writing, and "Bean Soup" to teach…

Once adapted to the context of the classroom, the tenets of successful counterinsurgency offer teachers a potent intellectual framework for conceptualizing teachers' efforts to build effective active learning communities together with their students. In this article, the author describes a counterinsurgency analogy that shares essential features…

This case study aimed to determine the nature of student interactions in small groups in an elementary classroom utilizing the Science Writing Heuristic approach. Fifth grade students were audio-recorded over four units of study while working in small groups to generate knowledge claims after conducting student-directed investigations. Analysis…

In his book, "A Whole New Mind", Daniel Pink champions the benefits of right-brained thinking: creativity, flexibility, empathy, and meaning. He stresses the need to not only be logical, but also aware of emotion; to not only be sequential, but also conceptual; and to not only be calculating, but also recognize value. The project described in this…

The wiki is an excellent tool for student collaboration and teacher assessment. Students' comfort with online social networking makes the wiki a perfect forum for students to coauthor works and to respond to each other's writing. In this article, the author discusses how to use a wiki to promote discussion and aid students with writing. He tested…

This study examines whether peer feedback can be a substitute for teacher feedback and which measures can be taken to improve its effectiveness. A pre-test post-test control group design examined the long-term learning effects of individual peer feedback and of collective teacher feedback on writing assignments in secondary education. Moreover, it…

The purpose of this grounded theory study was to explore Native American students' experiences with writing in the first year of college at a public research university and two tribal colleges, exploring in particular what helped them succeed as writers. Individual interviews with students served as the main sources of data and included…