The What Works Clearinghouse (WWC) Practice Guide, "Teaching Elementary School Students to Be Effective Writers," offers educators four specific, evidence-based recommendations that address the challenge of teaching writing in elementary school. This summary focuses on recommendation 2b of the four recommendations: Teach students to…

There is growing interest in disciplinary literacy instruction as a primary means of improving adolescent literacy outcomes. At times, this disciplinary framework has been represented as a replacement for the more broadly known general strategy instruction. However, disciplinary literacy, a potentially powerful idea, cannot replace general…

This article considers how narrative constructs could be used to strengthen the writing process. The authors outline the narratological devices of plot, point of view, authorial distance, and character, and examine how these concepts can be used when writing with qualitative data. Narratological tools equip the researcher to selectively manage the…

Writing needs to be taught, not assigned, but teaching writing well within a 43-minute period is a daunting task. This article describes how three 8th-grade teachers implemented a unit of study approach to teaching memoir writing in their language arts classes. Teacher and student decision making are highlighted in this inquiry process. ["Teaching…

An oxymoron is a simple contradiction, a juxtaposition of two inharmonious terms, such as "fiend angelical" in Shakespeare's "Romeo and Juliet." At first glance, literature and professional writing seem to be polar opposites; however, when one views them together, one can see unique, often interesting possibilities that add…

The practical, "how-to" companion to the more theoretically-oriented webtext in the Topoi section, Podcasting in a Writing Class? similarly provides a hypertext and series of podcasts--this time focusing on the construction and implementation of podcast assignments for writing courses. (Contains 7 tables.)

There is a need to evaluate the benefits to children of integrated classroom and field-based learning. In this article, we describe a case study that involves children in the production of a field guide: an authentic task which integrates learner autonomy and open enquiry with field work, information and communication technologies (ICT) and…

As math teachers, the authors often encountered students who could ace a test but not explain their reasoning. This phenomenon was disturbing to them, and they fought for years to help students both understand mathematical concepts and develop meaning for them. Since their primary goal was to develop mathematically literate students, their…

This article briefly chronicles the development of mixed methods research and its use in social work. We then move onto a discussion of terms and designs, reasons for (and for not) using mixed methods. Drawing upon exemplars, we address how to write up a mixed methods study when (1) the sample is single; single for one part, with a subset for the…

The present study was concerned with eliciting information about the problems that bilingual or immigrant students' encounter and the strategies that they employ whilst writing in Greek as a second language (GL2) and in English as a foreign language (EFL). The sample consisted of a total of 32 bilingual students, aged between 10 and 12 from…

Using a social cognitive theory framework, this single-subject, correlational study examined to what extent writing self-regulation, writing efficacy, hope, and writing hope predicted first-year college students' writing abilities. Past research reveals that a large part of teaching students to be successful in completing writing tasks is related…

This paper focuses on a pedagogical and instructional approach to engaging students in the classroom with the specific activity of a writing prompt, which utilizes a short video about current events and trends coupled with writing and discussion. This strategy allows active student learning in which the students engage, develop critical thinking…

The current study investigated the effects of different computer-supported cooperative prewriting strategies (text-based brainstorming, drawing, and mind mapping) on the writing performance of elementary-school EFL (English as a foreign language) learners in Taiwan. Three intact classes of fifth graders (N = 81 students; 27 per prewriting strategy…

Learners occasionally complain that they lack ideas when sitting down to write a composition. Teachers complain that they do not want to spend half the class time telling students what to write. There is an answer. Teachers brainstorm words connected with the topic in class before setting the composition for homework. The question remains: how to…

Experienced grant writers know that reviewers are quick to decide whether they like or do not like the proposals they are reading. Therefore, much of the success of any given proposal rides on the strength of the first page--its capacity to "sell" the research idea to skeptical reviewers. This paper describes a writing technique designed to elicit…