Most students come to their graduate programs with academic writing skills insufficient to excel in their studies. A lack of academic writing skills among graduate students has been a problem in a college of education at a large southeastern public research university where the project described in this article was implemented. To address this…

As my colleagues have indicated, the thrill and value of qualitative assessment is that it let us loose to speak and dig into the questions that we had to keep silenced during rubric-based assessment. It allowed us to value our many questions about student writing and pedagogy. As we voiced our questions and discussed them vigorously we began to…

In this article, the author provides an intimate glimpse into the writing work that Joe Cytrynbaum did with students from Manley Career Academy High School in Chicago. The author's discussion of Joe's "tactics of hope" is layered and brought to life by Joe's poetry and the poetry of his students. The author presents Joe's poems and the…

This paper presents a set of activities, which scaffolds students to succeed in the standard Physics gateway course. The set of instructional activities that were designed included four distinct components: reflective writing, collaborative groups, critiques, and an essay question on the examination. Each activity was designed to lead into and…

Studies of university writing assignments demonstrate inconsistencies in the elements examined, making it difficult to achieve a clear understanding of the range, frequency, and characteristics of assignments that students might encounter. In this research study, syllabi from one university college were analyzed to determine the types and…

Students in a general education science course made significant gains in scientific reasoning skills when they were taught using carefully designed hands-on activities and writing assignments. The activities required students to make use of scientific skills such as graphing, predicting outcomes under changing conditions, or designing experiments,…

The representation of a variety of stakeholders' voices during the deliberation of public issues is vital for the proper functioning of a liberal democracy. This qualitative study examined an activity involving deliberation among children and preservice teachers in the United States. In the activity that we call partner journals, children were…

This article provides details about a comprehensive assignment for teaching sales letters in a business communication course. During the past 5 years, this assignment has evolved, moving beyond one that focused almost exclusively on strategies for making the letter persuasive, and therefore effective, to an expanded form that devotes time and…

From the perspective of doctoral students and instructors, we explain a developmental, interactive process based upon the Checklist for Qualitative Data Collection, Data Analysis, and Data Interpretation (Onwuegbuzie, 2010) for students' writing assignments regarding: (a) the application of conceptual knowledge for collecting, analyzing, and…

Writing plays an integral role in any disciplinary course setting. In the sciences, WAC and WID initiatives primarily focus on using writing to deepen student understanding of scientific concepts. Scholars, however, have paid less attention to how writing may facilitate an understanding of the link between concepts and their quantitative…

Scholarship in applied linguistics has not sufficiently addressed learner motivation in mandatory writing classes in postsecondary settings. The data collected through short interviews from 20 students enrolled in a mandatory academic writing program at the junior/senior level in a California State University indicated that learner motivation in…

Get an in-depth understanding of how to create fun, engaging, and challenging performance assessments that require students to elaborate on content and demonstrate mastery of skills. This update of an ASCD (Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development) classic includes new scoring methods, reading assessments, and insights on navigating…

Like teachers in many countries with a national curriculum and standardized testing, South Korean teachers find it challenging to include in their curriculums knowledge students will need in the future that doesn't fall within the purview of tested areas. The arts education, character education, environmental education, geography, and education…

Since the learner is actively engaged when composing writing assignments, integrating math through various writing modes can enhance and strengthen students' understanding of math concepts. Two expository writing assignments, an acrostic poem and a vocabulary activity, are demonstrated. Writing can have a positive effect on learning as students…

A typical writing assignment in upper level required courses is a term paper. However many economics majors, particularly those in business schools, need to develop skill at writing shorter pieces. In this paper I describe numerous examples of shorter writing assignments that I have incorporated into an Intermediate Microeconomic Theory course.…