A study examined the responses of 10 students taking Miami University's 1990 College Composition Proficiency Exam which asked students to evaluate their own learning experiences with teaching, learning, and knowledge in and out of school. Scores ranged from 2 to 12; all 10 of the examined essays received a score of 11. Five students were male, and…

A study examined the concurrent development of reading and writing behaviors in a cross section of preschool and kindergarten children across diverse language and literacy tasks. Subjects, 16 preschool children attending a university laboratory school and 12 kindergarten children from two classrooms in a large suburban school district, were…

Supporting the constructivist view of language learning, a study by a teacher-researcher analyzed the thematic patterns in the writing of her 31 first-grade students for a period of 3 months. In the natural setting of the classroom the children were studied in the context of their own learning. Writing was collected daily, and stories were sorted…

A case study narrates the development of one preservice teacher enrolled in a composition methods course that was based on inquiry, reflection, collaboration, and theory-building. Much of the course content centered on exploring, extending, and even transforming future secondary English teachers' beliefs about writing instruction and assessment.…

A study determined whether former participants in the Winthrop Writing Institutes (annual summer institutes based on the National Writing Project model) had improved classroom instruction in writing by using strategies taught in the institutes and whether they had continued to grow professionally. Surveys were returned by 49 of the 89 (1981 to…

A study compared the writing development and ideas about writing of students in a whole language program with students in a skills-oriented program from the time they entered kindergarten to the end of the second grade. Subjects were 22 inner city students who completed second grade out of an original kindergarten cohort of 50 minority students…

Reporting on small-scale classroom research projects dealing with diverse aspects of literacy, this collection of 13 research reports from Canada emphasizes common themes. These themes are: the need for parental participation in literacy and numeracy development, the beneficial effects of tutoring, the need for a wide and varied classroom…

As part of a larger study of teacher-student conferences, a study examined naturally occurring one-to-one writing conference conversations between a ninth-grade English teacher (recommended as an excellent writing teacher) and three markedly different students. The study examined students' grapplings with the structure as well as the content of…

This report is the final report of a comparative study of the teaching and learning of writing in the United Kingdom and the United States, consisting of observational studies of 4 pairs of classrooms which exchanged writing between the 2 countries over a 2-year period. Following an overview in chapter 1, chapter 2 describes the study's methods.…

To learn more about the relationship between personality type and the writing skills of college freshmen composition students, a study was conducted to explore the hypothesis that essays written by students who were N (intuitive) preference types would be judged better in overall quality than those written by S (sensing) preference types.…

The first task of the International Association for the Evaluation of Educational Achievement's International Study of Written Composition was to conceptualize the writing domain by determining the most significant parameters that have to be taken into account in all writing situations. A model was developed that used the level of cognitive…

Once its source has been identified using the multidimensional model developed by D. W. Stacks, R. W. Boozer, and T. D. P. Lally, writing apprehension, especially among business writing students, can be treated in the classroom with specific pedagogical techniques. Emphasizing the writing process rather than the product--stressing peer and teacher…

A study investigated whether direct instruction in story constituents and their interrelationships could enhance children's organization in story writing. It was hypothesized that the special instruction could provide children with an internalized prototype story structure that could serve as a heuristic or planning device for organizing…

Many writing process researchers have shown that students make only minor mechanical changes instead of revising their documents significantly. Effective revision pedagogy must address this problem by encouraging revision of content, arrangement, and style, and by directing student attention to all levels of the document, from the overall essay…

These four issues of The Quarterly of the National Writing Project cover the calendar year 1989. The January 1989 issue contains the following articles: (1) "The Unteachables" (J. Juska); (2) "Changing the Model" (M. Griffith and others); (3) "Literate Cultures: Multi-Voiced Classrooms" (M. Roemer); (4) "Despite…