The main aim of this article is to explore the ways in which teacher educators can improve levels of reflection in postgraduate student teachers. The author argues that postgraduate student teachers are able to reflect on their practice in schools, and that the insights gained are useful in clarifying their own beliefs about teaching and learning.…

The nonfiction literature of the Vietnam War is accessible and engaging to students, and it deals with issues that speaks to students in powerful ways. In addition, the literature can help students better understand their parents and grandparents and the effect on them of the Vietnam War. A number of teachers who have taught the nonfiction…

This study describes the extent to which shared assumptions of literary scholars form part of an introductory literature course. Fahnestock and Secor, in The Rhetoric of Literary Criticism describe five special topoi of literary criticism (appearance/reality, paradigm, ubiquity, contemptus mundi, and paradox) that characterize the warrants of…

Although Toulmin models of argumentation are pervasive in composition textbooks, research on the model's use in writing classrooms has been scarce--typically limited to evaluating how students' essays align with the model's elements (claim, data, warrant, qualifier, rebuttal, backing) construed as objective standards. That approach discounts…

It is essential for students to think clearly about fundamental biological concepts. One of the benefits of writing is that it promotes and enhances thinking. If students can write clearly, they are thinking clearly. Writing helps to connect new knowledge with prior knowledge and promotes the construction of knowledge. Writing-to-learn activities…

In this article, the author, a third grade teacher at Hillside School in Needham, Washington, describes how, after a death in her family, she found comfort and made valuable connections with her students by completing a "When I Was" writing assignment that she had assigned them. While sharing the story of her uncle's death with her students, she…

Plagiarism is certainly not new to academics, but it may be on the rise with easy access to the vast quantities of information available on the Internet. Students researching on the Internet do not have to take handwritten or typewritten notes. They can simply print out or copy and save whatever they find. They are even spared the tedium of having…

Although drama has been used successfully in English as a second language and has been shown to have positive effects on achievement and on self-confidence and motivation in various studies, it has received little attention in French immersion context where subjects are taught in French, the second language of students. The objective of this study…

This study uses student reflections of previous success in academic writing to guide instructors as they design writing assignments. Seventy-one students in five classes responded to a questionnaire designed to help them identify particularly successful writing experiences and reflect on the circumstances, strategies, and methods they believed…

Primary sources in religion and history enable first year university students to connect "content-based" linked courses in the core curriculum. Fifty-four first year university students in three separate pairs of courses worked in teams to present oral critical reports on texts related to the Reformation, the Enlightenment, and the…

During the past year the Center for Research on Developmental Education and Urban Literacy (CRDEUL) has moved from the former General College (GC), which after 74 years of service to a diverse student body closed its doors on June 30, 2006, to the University of Minnesota's new College of Education and Human Development (CEHD). The new mission…

Increased opportunities for undergraduate students in agricultural and natural resource disciplines to write for diverse audiences besides their instructor may increase motivation to write and improve student writing skills. The objectives of this teaching research were to determine and compare the initial writing experience of students enrolled…

The letter format, whether on paper or on computers, fosters student collaboration and a virtual community. Letters have real audiences, even when those audiences are fictional, as in epistolary novels and imaginative writing assignments. Most adult, non-traditional students (such as those at Tidewater Community College in Virginia) know that…

The use of reflective SEED and I-Search papers in a higher education classroom at North Carolina's Ramseur College has allowed both undergraduate and graduate education students to reflect on their knowledge and experiences, gain meaning from these higher educational experiences, and make connections between their learning and the "real…

According to a recent article by Richard Fulkerson, there is some consensus among those who teach writing about what makes writing good. Apparently, a growing number of writing instructors' aims constitute what Fulkerson calls "rhetorical axiology." Rhetorical axiology is a belief system in which teachers value highly "overall…