Argues that the labels "basic" or "developmental" as applied to students often obscure the complexities of knowing who is underprepared for what, kinds of barriers that countermand mastery, and instructors' roles in helping construct these barriers. Views closely the behaviors by which four students in a developmental writing class presented…

Finds that the writing of the typical student enrolled in the community college composition class is qualitatively different from the writing of their four-year counterparts but that two-year college transfer students achieve the same level of writing competence as their nontransfer peers. Presents reactions of a two-year college instructor…

Describes how English faculty at a community college surveyed the needs of faculty in other disciplines regarding their writing requirements. Relates patterns that emerged and describes changes made in the English 101 course, including a summary/reaction assignment based on a bibliographic resource. Notes positive comments from students and…

Examines two studies: one that shows that competent to highly competent writers find writing centers beneficial, and the other that shows that faculty continue to think of writing centers as suited to remedial students and surface level corrections. Attempts to glean from these studies important information that could act as a corrective to all…

Shows teachers who self-reported they were developing constructivist approaches to classroom instruction had contradictory beliefs about dealing with reading and writing errors, and about addressing errors with more- and less-able readers and writers. Shows the teachers were convinced that students' inaccurate constructions of knowledge should be…

Suggests that the direct teaching of written language features is no substitute for extensive experience of written language. Gives a brief preliminary account of a recent Centre for Language in Primary Education (CLPE) research project on the influence of children's reading of literature on their writing at Key Stage 2. Highlights the value of…

Writing--and lots of it in all genres--is at the heart of the language arts curriculum and the skills of critical thinking that students need to develop to become prepared consumers and citizens. In this article, the author reflects on her growth as a writer and teacher, and offers an overview of what people know about writing, what they need to…

This paper outlines research which examined the relationship between drama and writing, detailing the method of enquiry, theoretical foundations and emergent findings. The study sought to understand the nature of the support that drama offers children as writers and to identify features of writing which regularly surfaced in drama-related writing.…

This paper reports on a cross-disciplinary study by an L1 compositionist and an applied linguist investigating interrelationships among university basic writing students' responses to linguistic identity labels, their residency statuses, and their preferences for mainstream or multilingual composition. Previous L2 writing research has suggested…

Path analysis was used to test the influence of writing self-efficacy, self-concept, apprehension, and aptitude on the essay-writing performance of 181 ninth-grade students in a public high school in the southwestern United States. A model that also included gender accounted for 53% of the variance in performance. As hypothesized, both aptitude…

This booklet is designed to help primary school teachers encourage and support children in learning to write during the first years of school. It discusses learning to write in the years before formal schooling, focusing on mediated contact with print, involvement in the everyday functions of print, experimentation with print, and support and…

Noting that within the area of literacy, writing is a young area of study, this research report looks at the impact of the national Center for the Study of Writing and Literacy's 10 years of sustained research. The paper first considers how Center research projects and activities have been tied together to address three interlocking sets of…

A study examined the effectiveness of a program for improving student writing skills by using whole language. Targeted population was a fifth grade class of 30 students in a stable middle class, suburban community, located in Rockford, Illinois. Writing deficiencies were documented through data gathered from norm referenced tests, quality and…

Martin Seligman's psychology research on depression, published in 7 books and hundreds of articles, shows a correlation between attributional style and depression. "Explanatory style" is another term nearly synonymous with attributional style, a habitual way to explain, positively or negatively, external events. A "learned"…

English or rhetoric and composition faculty must work to collapse disciplinary boundaries in their institutions. The challenge facing English departments is to collapse the "we-they" mentality, to develop productive partnerships with other departments, and to develop a healthy respect for other disciplines. At Yavapai College in Arizona,…