This digest focuses on the use of dialogue journals for developing the language and literacy skills of students of all ages learning English a Second Language. Dialogue journals are written conversations in which students and teachers communicate on a regular basis. Students write as much as they choose, and the teacher writes back, responding to…

This paper starts with assumptions about the contested nature of teacher training and supports the view that learning about teaching is a dialogical process facilitated by social interaction. The development of "reflective intervention" gives prominence to narrative modes of cognition as tutors and students identify private…

While many factors contribute to success and/or failure in ABE (Adult Basic Education) and ASE (Adult Secondary Education) activities, ABE and ASE writers will succeed or fail in direct correlation to what is happening to their self-esteem in the context of writing instruction. The first guideline for teaching writing to adults is telling the…

In recent years, distinctions between expository and narrative modes of thought, as between personal and academic motives for writing, have become less clear cut. Looking for ways to tap the potential of journal entries in which students tell stories about their own experience in response to literature yields useful connections between narrative…

Journal writing on literary topics is an ideal activity in a classroom that emphasizes the transformational role of education, bringing together the creation of meaning between the reader and the text on the one hand, and on the other hand, the creation of expressive or reflexive writing. An activity, in a freshman literature and writing class for…

Critical consciousness is essential to the praxis of a democratic culture. Both composition and literature instructors on the college level may be using the reflective or dialogue journal under the false assumption that recursive writing leads naturally to critical thinking. Experience with college sophomores indicates that the narrative pressures…

Arguing that parents can make a big difference, this six-panel leaflet presents simple and fun strategies parents can use to help their children learn to write well. The leaflet points out that children should have a good place to write, the proper materials, sufficient time, and response and praise from their parents. Strategies discussed in the…

Self-assessment occurred daily in the act of learning in a professional writing class, which met in a computer-networked writing classroom. Strategies for self-assessment were based on James Britton's "expressive writing" and Peter Elbow's believing game. Students recorded and assessed this active learning in a Writer's Notebook (a…

Investigating the relationship between learning and academic journal writing, a study examined features of journal entries and students' characteristics. Subjects, students enrolled in an introductory linguistics course for English, English education, and elementary education, were asked to keep a journal during the course. To determine students'…

In outdoor education, reflection transforms experience into knowledge. Writing activities facilitate reflection. In designing writing activities, instructors should ask themselves why they are asking their students to write, what type of writing is appropriate for their purpose, when and in what context the activity should take place, how they…

When given the chance to select their own research topics, decide which genres to write in, and determine how to present their findings, students assume ownership and take pride in their work. This book leads teachers through the multigenre research papers with upper elementary students. The book explains how teachers can organize their…

After reading self-selected books, students respond to reading in a journal and talk about their books daily in small, heterogeneous groups. The teacher guides and assesses students work by rotating among the groups, offering suggested response prompts and writing with them in their dialogue journals. During five 30-40 minute sessions, students…

Based on Herman Melville's novel "Moby-Dick," this lesson plan presents activities designed to help students understand that the novel is grounded in facts that Melville acquired in his own experiences at sea; New England was the center of a prospering whaling industry in the 19th century; and journal keeping was not uncommon among 19th-century…

This study assessed the impact that reflective journals used in an introductory college science course had on preservice teachers' science literacy. Fourteen preservice teachers enrolled in an introductory physical science course taught using a variety of constructivist instructional methods (hands-on activities, cooperative group work,…

Presents a case study of a first-grader who began to articulate a literary voice through her appropriation of narrative form. Focuses on her active response as she made narrative discourses her own. Draws on the work of L. Vygotsky and M. Bakhtin to suggest a way of talking about how young writers construct themselves. (SR)