No greater challenge currently faces the schools than articulating what a literacy curriculum for sociocultural diversity might look like. And yet the literature on young school children's composing has dealt only peripherally with this issue. In this theoretical essay, it is argued that, even for young children, the composing of both oral and…

A continuing concern of theorists in composition and rhetoric has been the problem of how to design effective writing assignments. With the recent movement in writing assessment from objective tests to writing samples, this problem has become even more important for those who produce "tests" designed to elicit writing samples. A study…

John Swales, well-known proponent and definer of genre theory, sees the writing process as recursive as well as heuristic, emphasizing that the text is created by a writer, who is a member of a discourse community, influenced by that community's traditions, discourse conventions, textual and topic requirements and constraints. Debate among genre…

Students at grades four and five were administered a writing assessment that was developed to correspond to the California Learning Assessment System (CLAS) writing tasks at grade four. Teachers were trained to score the CLAS-like tasks according to the rubric developed by the State for CLAS. In addition, 164 students at three schools in the…

An informal study attempted to determine if audio-taped comments on student papers in freshman composition were as efficient and effective as those actually written on student papers. An instructor began the experiment in the third week of the semester--after he had already returned one batch of papers with written comments on them. Students…

This paper argues against teaching children to make letters using circle-stick writing. It contends that the circle-stick method requires continued pen/pencil lifts hindering rhythm or flow in the writing process and that there is little carry-over value into cursive writing as the two scripts are totally different. D'Nealian print, one type of…

Teachers' written responses to student writing cover a wide range, and through the kind and amount of response, they convey their values, beliefs, and priorities about language and learning, about the roles of teacher and student, and about the goals of writing. Researchers have found that students respond well to comments on concepts and…

Based on extensive interviews, this book investigates how women in different academic disciplines perceive and describe their experiences as writers in the university. The book focuses on: (1) the writing strategies of 35 women from 5 different disciplines (anthropology, education, history, nursing, and psychology) and 4 academic ranks (seniors,…

Despite their success at improving writing, learning, writing in the disciplines, and teaching, writing-across-the-curriculum (WAC) programs are seen by several researchers to be in difficulty. Increasingly, one of the most pressing questions for WAC advocates is how to keep such programs going in the face of numerous difficulties. Case histories…

Noting that adult literacy involves adults who are readers and who are nonreaders, and that it is necessary to deal not only with problems of adult illiteracy, but also to encourage literate adults to read for work and pleasure, this bibliography presents annotations of 32 conference papers and journal articles published between 1989 and 1992…

An informal study examined the sources of professors' authority and whether the authority dynamic between professor and student changes in an electronic setting. Five on-line writing instructors (who use Internet Email or the World Wide Web) completed a questionnaire. Results indicated that (1) professors tended, at least initially, to replicate…

A 3-year project examined the cognitive effects of word processing on writing processes and products. In particular, the project examined effects on writers' planning, reviewing, and revising in a series of six assessment studies. Among the most important results of the project were that writers using word processing alone--both student writers…

Fifteen upper-elementary teachers (regular and resource room) agreed to enact a new instructional model called Cognitive Strategy Instruction in Writing (CSIW). The model emphasized that teachers should model the cognitive processes of writers, scaffold dialogue with students about their writing, and create a social context in which writers…

A case study examined assumptions of current written language pedagogies, particularly the links between oral performance, literacy pedagogy, and the use of the explicit, analytic language valued in school. The subject, a young African-American child enrolled in an urban K/1 classroom, used school writing activities and the music of language to…

Two studies compared the impact of black and white audiences on black students' writing style. In the first study, eight students in an all-black intermediate composition class completed one argumentative draft addressed to black opponents and one addressed to white opponents on two different topics. The essays were examined for stylistic features…