The aim of this work was to gather different perspectives on the "key ingredients" involved in creative writing by children--from experts of diverse disciplines, including teachers, linguists, psychologists, writers and art educators. Ultimately, we sought in the experts' convergence or divergence insights on the relative importance of the…

Many qualitative researchers have puzzled over the question of how to write more engaging, more communicative texts. "Why" we write, however, is not often part of our scholarly conversations. In this article, I examine the writing process and position writing as a learning tool which enables what researchers know about themselves and their topics.…

On April 25, 2008, students on college and public school campuses collectively committed to a vow of silence commemorating an event known as the National Day of Silence. This student-generated, nationwide action theatrically "speaks out" in solidarity with lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) people who for one reason or another fear…

This book is a guide for parents who wish to raise children with more than one language and literacy. Drawing on interdisciplinary research, as well as the experiences of parents of multilingual children, this book walks parents through the multilingual reading and writing process from infancy to adolescence. It identifies essential literacy…

Sixteen teachers. Sixteen journeys. All on a quest to become outstanding teachers of writing. All taking different paths to acquire and hone those skills that make a teacher effective. From kindergarten to college, teachers are faced with the daunting task of instilling the art of writing in their students. From creative writing to research, the…

This study investigated the use of wikis for collaborative writing projects. Fourth- and sixth-semester German students wrote several of the regularly assigned essay topics during one semester in collaboration with another student using a wiki. Participants used a variety of strategies in the planning, writing and revision phases of their essays.…

Mary Partridge wanted her pupils not only to become more aware of competing and contrasting voices in the past, but to understand how historians orchestrate those voices. Using Edward Grim's eye-witness account of Thomas Becket's murder, her Year 7 pupils explored nuances in the word "shocking" as a way of distinguishing the responses of…

This article investigates the tendency of those who explore the topic of "electronic literacies" to downplay the fundamental nature and importance of the perceptual habits associated with print literacy, and highlights the opposite tendency of reading and writing specialists to decontextualize the acquisition of these fundamental skills…

Background: In the 1970s and 1980s, there was considerable discussion about the potential of student-designed games to help students develop a more refined and deeper understanding of games. Unfortunately, despite these sophisticated conversations, there has been limited empirical research on the effectiveness of student-designed games,…

Purpose: The purpose of this study was to assess the bilingual writing of adolescent English language learners (ELLs) using quantitative tools. Linguistic measures were applied to the participants' writing at the lexical, syntactic, and discourse levels, with the goal of comparing outcomes at each of these levels across languages (Spanish/English)…

The author integrates work from cognitive and developmental psychology with studies in writing in order to explain why the quality of student writing sometimes appears to regress to earlier or less proficient levels. Insights from this combined analysis are applied to explain how and why to use specific Writing Across the Curriculum strategies to…

Many writing teachers provide feedback to their students through writing conferences; however, the existing literature indicates teachers may unintentionally harm their weaker students by using this strategy. To better understand the effect of the writing conference on developmental writing students, the researcher created a mixed design ANCOVA to…

On their way to a state English board meeting, Susan Kelly, a curriculum director, and Louisa Kramer-Vida, a university professor, used their travel time as an opportunity to converse about pedagogy (McAdamis 2010). Specifically, they reflected about enhancing K-12 writing in a suburban, middle class school district. "We need to introduce a…

Many students with learning disabilities struggle with the writing process throughout their school years. As students approach graduation, effective communication though writing becomes more critical. Writing is a skill that can directly impact the quality of life for older students preparing to graduate and progress to college, a career, or…

This study was designed to compare the writing motivation of students with specific language impairments with their non-disabled peers. Due to the cognitive and linguistic demands of the writing process, students with language impairments face unique difficulties during the writing process. It was hypothesized that students with specific language…