This book provides information culled from classroom research, including some from teacher researchers, for those engaged in creating educational settings that support children's development of language and literacy. The book contains the following chapters: (1) "Observing Carlos: One Day of Language Use in School" (Mary M. Kitagawa); (2) "What…

A study was conducted to investigate oral language used in fourth- and fifth-grade student dyads in a collaborative writing setting in order to understand better how children learn to write. The study was based on a theoretical framework that emphasized the interrelatedness of thought, language, and learning. Following a pilot study, students in…

Two studies evaluated a comprehensive cooperative learning approach to elementary reading and writing instruction, called Cooperative Integrated Reading and Composition (CIRC). The subjects in the first study, 461 third- and fourth-grade students in a suburban Maryland school district, were divided into experimental and control groups, with the…

Writing and reading can be viewed as processes in which meaning is gradually constructed, and this description extends to the visual arts as well. Certain process-oriented thinking skills are inherent in both, including comprehending and composing, regenerating ideas, the application of language learning and processing. Five characteristics of…

A selection of the papers from a symposium on the application of linguistic concepts to teaching composition are contained in this document. The papers and authors are as follows: "Introduction: Coherence, Composition, and Text Linguistics" (Nils Erik Enkvist); "TUAP and the Teaching of Writing in Sweden" (Lennart Bjork): "Discourse-Level…

Noting the close relationship among reading, writing, and oral language documented by research, this paper considers studies of early writing development in the context of emergent literacy rather than in the context of work on writing processes and their development. Following a brief review of early studies of emergent literacy that includes…

To determine whether a teacher's guidance of the writing process in the classroom can produce measurable improvement in students' writing and learning over the course of a semester, an instructor of a college business management course taught three sections of the same course, using the same texts and making the same assignments (six written case…

A study was conducted to compare the writing performance of tenth grade students across three modes of discourse. Subjects were 80 students who had been classified as "masters" or "nonmasters" of writing based on their scores on the writing section of the Texas Assessment of Basic Skills. The students were assigned three…

A study was conducted to determine the effectiveness of a 5-hour- on-the-job writing course compared to a 30-hour college business communication course. The short business English refresher course focused on grammar, punctuation, and spelling; audience analysis; and direct, negative, and persuasive letters and memos. The college course focused on…

Intended for use by college and university educators, this book contains theoretical ideas and practical activities designed to enhance and promote writing across the curriculum programs. Topics discussed in the 12 major chapters are (1) conceptual frameworks of the cross writing program; (2) journal writing across the curriculum; (3) writing and…

Prepared as part of a project designed to provide an objectively measured indication of the quality of student writing in one school district, this paper examines argumentative and narrative essays written by students at the fifth, eighth, and twelfth grade levels. The first section of the paper discusses the primary analysis of student writing…

The 12 articles in this journal issue focus on writing as an expression of language. Specific topics discussed in the articles are: (1) What can be learned from writing research, (2) young children and writing (3) translating meaning from spoken to written language, (4) assumptions about writing instruction, (5) first grade writers, (6) learning…

This volume focuses on papers presented by grantees supported by the National Institute of Education and the Fund for the Improvement of Postsecondary Education at a meeting held in September, 1980. Papers are grouped into the following sections: composing processes and development, writing assessment, writing instruction in context, the writing…

Research on the relationship between syntactic complexity and quality of written composition was reviewed to test the assumption that these two concepts are positively related. The studies reviewed, which have appeared during the past 15 years, fall into two broad categories: (1) intervention studies designed to increase syntactic complexity and…

This collection of abstracts is part of a continuing series providing information on recent doctoral dissertations. The 21 titles deal with the following topics: (1) the adolescent writer's developing sense of audience; (2) the entry skills, methods, and attitudes of intermediate composition students in postsecondary composition programs; (3)…