This article evaluates a writing assignment in which social psychology students gathered examples from outside the classroom (e.g., cartoons, movies) and analyzed them with course material. Compared to a control group, students who completed the assignment learned that it was easier to apply social psychology to the real world. A follow-up survey…

This paper presents the results of a small scale action research project in which a group of seven Year 2 undergraduate initial teacher education (ITE) students experienced three interventions which were concerned with feedback on essay assignments--provision of traditional written tutor feedback; completion of a tutor feedback analysis worksheet;…

Students in higher education, most frequently, use the frontal approach while being asked to collaborate on a writing assignment. However, the difficulty in collaborative writing using conventional technologies such as pen and paper, board or computer is the limited ability to view the work of your peers during the process (Baeker, Glass,…

Teachers are hungry for strategies that will motivate their students to engage in reading and writing. One promising method is the Authoring With Video (AWV) approach, which encourages teachers to use captioning software and digital video in writing assignments. AWV builds on students' fascination with television and video but removes the audio…

The Poetry Generating Loop is a new kind of generative writing circle that offers concrete, creative ways to get students involved in and excited about poetry. By writing poems in groups, students are able to learn poetic terms and experiment with techniques through their writing--a process that can shed new light on the world of poetry. (Contains…

The study of emotion as discourse not only eliminates objections about the individual psychology of students, it also connects researchers to methods that go beyond reflection and self-reporting. In this article, the author pursues these ideas within the context of a college composition course where students experienced a particularly high level…

Members of a site of the California Writing Project conducted the study in this article in partnership with a large, urban, low-SES school district where 93% of the students speak English as a second language and 69% are designated Limited English Proficient. Over an eight-year period, a relatively stable group of 55 secondary teachers engaged in…

This small scale action research study investigated the experiences of learners over two iterations as they completed a patchwork text assignment within the digital medium of a personal learning system (PLS). The aim was to investigate the extent to which using a PLS can facilitate formative and collaborative feedback to assist student learning. A…

Implementation of communication-across-the-curriculum initiatives has outpaced their systematic assessment, leaving many stakeholders wondering whether faculty and students are benefiting from the emphasis on writing, speaking, and other communicative media in discipline-based courses and curricula. Increasing interest in assessment, however, has…

This article explores how a linguistically diverse, subject English class can become a multilingual contact zone in which naturalised linguistic identities are made visible and interrogated. The research is situated in a highly diverse, educational context--Wits School of Education in Johannesburg, South Africa. This is framed by a society in…

Wikis, when used as an open editing tool, can have profound and subtle effects on students' collaborative learning process. Hailed as a collaborative learning and writing tool, many questions remain regarding the pedagogical impacts of using wikis in the classroom. Do students feel comfortable editing each others' wiki articles? Do students learn…

Purpose: The purpose of the report is to provide teachers with tried and proven methodology to improve student writing. Methodology: The practices described are based on enclosed research and first-hand experience garnered while working with inner-city students in both middle and high school in San Antonio, TX. Results: Students that are given the…

In meetings between people in school our values are shown through, for example, our actions, our speech and body language. These meetings can be regarded as ethical situations, which can arouse strong emotional reactions that ordinary, everyday situations usually do not do. The aim of this paper is to illuminate, interpret and discuss students'…

Students in four biochemical and biological engineering courses for upper-­level undergraduates and graduate students were required to write a research proposal. Breaking the requirements down into segments (such as a summary with specific aims, rough draft, and final draft) due on different dates helped make the assignment more manageable for the…

This article describes how school libraries can support a rewarding collaborative effort with the school's physical education teachers by offering reading materials such as commercially available sports information packets, fiction and nonfiction books, Web sites, and magazine or newspaper articles available in hard copy or online. Such a program…