This research introduces unique parallel corpora to uncover linguistic behaviors in L2 argumentative writing in the exact correspondence to their appropriate forms provided by English native speakers (NSs). The current paper targets at the mysterious behavior of I think in argumentative prose. I think is regarded as arguably problematic and…

This intervention study examined the impact of reading young adult novels that portray people with disabilities on the attitudes of 229 eighth grade students. Students' beliefs and intentions to interact with peers with disabilities were measured on three occasions utilizing the Shared Activities Questionnaire (Morgan, Walker, Bieberich &…

How can writing instructors prepare students for informed and engaged civic discourse when opportunities for such discourse are seemingly limited and ineffective? This essay examines this question by reporting on a case study that explored civic discourse and civic participation at the local level of government. The aims of the case study were to…

The paper provides case studies of how four faculty members who teach in undergraduate and graduate programs at the Indiana University School of Informatics promote academic literacy throughout the curriculum. The paper describes the writing assignments in several courses, the objectives of these assignments in enhancing the writing skills of…

The authors describe how to structure a memo format for homework assignments in which a manager requests analysis of a particular issue from the student. The student must respond with a memo stating a recommendation and describing the solution approach. The results from using the memo format include improved student performance and professional…

The present study investigates the role of concurrent and retrospective verbal report in exploring the cognitive processes of six pairs of advanced ESL learners engaged on a written discourse completion task eliciting status-unequal requests in English. Qualitative analysis of the concurrent data indicate that (i) social contextual aspects of the…

The author reports on and analyzes the inclusion of parody in her sequence of assignments for a graduate composition theory seminar. She contends that having students write parodies of particular theorists and theoretical camps enables them to gain critical leverage that they might not otherwise obtain on a field (in this case, composition…

This paper explores the ways one school continues to enhance both literacy and service-learning through the United Nations' Millennium Development Goals. Over the course of their middle-school years, young adolescents at Canterbury School visit a range of sites in the community. They also explore service-learning at home and around the world by…

Online translation (OT) sites such as Free Translation and Babel Fish are freely available to the general public and purport to convert inputted text, from single words to entire paragraphs, instantly from one language to another. Discussion in the literature about OT for second-language (L2) acquisition has generally focused either on the…

Effective communication skills are a vital component of student academic achievement and success, yet students often struggle with them. This study utilized an organizational writing graphic organizer based on a critical thinking model to determine the impact of its use on the persuasive writing scores of 9th-grade students. A sample of…

Being an ecologically literate citizen involves making decisions that are based on ecological knowledge and accepting responsibility for personal actions. Using writing-to-learn activities in college science courses, we asked students to consider personal dilemmas that they or others might have in response to how human choices can impact coastal…

In this essay, the author describes her own attempt at incorporating Web 2.0 technology into her teaching: a wiki project that she used in her English as a second language (ESL) composition course. The theme she traces throughout the rest of this essay is the wiki's ability (or inability) to make "connections" of various kinds. Like any text, the…

In this article, the authors focus on the decision-making process that goes into professional writing and ways to emphasize ethical decision-making in writing classrooms. Professional writing has at its core an emphasis on action and audience. Certainly teachers want their students to write effectively--to serve their clients, organizations, and…

Through a feminist content analysis of young women's writing and reflections, this study gives evidence of how a school-based new literacy project shared knowledge in a public voice about the irreducible and complex world of "becoming" a girl. This project, called "The Pink Voice," was conducted in a large urban centre on the…

This study examined technical features of slopes produced from curriculum-based measures (CBM) of beginning writing. Eighty-five first-graders completed weekly sentence copy, picture-word, and story prompts for 12 weeks. After 12 weeks, testing revealed alternate-form reliability and criterion validity of CBM scores generally similar to those…