Provides fundamental information on learning disabilities relevant to programs preparing students for print media careers. Discusses learning disabilities specific to written expression. Examines legal issues and offers an overview of the types of appropriate accommodations that may be made in the classroom, including assistive technology and…

Suggests how the teaching of "you-attitude" (or "you-perspective") in business communication classes can be enhanced by using politeness theories, case grammar, and information structure. Uses a brief written announcement to show how these linguistic theories can inform specific writing strategies. Suggests that a "you-attitude" is gradable…

Examines the situated-language practices associated with the production of negative letters in an insurance company. Combines textual analyses of a set of negative letters together with writers' accounts of producing these letters to identify effective strategies for composing this correspondence. Identifies some strategies that characterize…

Explores different ways of writing to portray the idea of the difference between Asian Americans and Asians living in Asia. Discusses some prejudices the author encountered as an Asian American, born in the United States. (SG)

Describes one student's writing project and how it develops in a writing program. Notes that his story focuses on the Holocaust and was inspired by reading over 15 books on the topic. (SG)

Middle school educators can enhance the quality of education in the classroom by obtaining grants for special projects. Grants, which can be used to improve instruction, upgrade equipment, and implement innovative programs, are available from local, state, and federal agencies, nonprofit foundations, and private corporations. Overall, millions of…

Some years ago, Gila Hanna offered the very insightful and useful distinction between mathematical proofs that prove and those that also explain. Proofs that explain not only state the deductive logic that justifies their mathematical claims, they lay bare the mechanisms and structures that underlie that logic, making content and logic more…

This study investigates the possibility that multimedia authorship may help students become more proficient writers. Four classes of 8th-grade students in an urban setting participated in the study, which took place over seven successive class periods. Students were given a 7-paragraph article on teen smoking to use in developing a nonlinear…

The academic silos that house mathematics, science, and language skills must be broken down to better replicate how those disciplines mix in the real world. This article discusses the benefits of linking writing with mathematics, the challenges of integrating mathematics and writing, and the strategies for mathematics writing. Combining…

Although interest plays a large role in motivation and confidence, we need a clearer understanding of how teachers and classroom practices can influence students' interest for the act of writing. Rebecca L. Lipstein and K. Ann Renninger studied the perceptions of 178 students in grades 7, 8, and 9 to develop this understanding. They offer…

To help writing faculty learn the language of discourse communities across campus, we conducted faculty interviews as a first attempt to describe knowledge about disciplinary cultures, specifically with regard to writing. Based on the data received from the interviews about disciplinary definitions and characteristics of good writing and how…

The author writes that his experience in teaching has taught him that the perfect text simply does not exist, however the closest approximation to perfection lies in the direction of the classical world. Hal McDonald says that he cannot see how one can teach rhetoric without passing through pedagogical territory first cleared by Aristotle,…

The writing teacher's foremost job is leading students to see the valuable ideas they have to express. Writing is a way to share those ideas with the world rather than a way to be wrong, Anderson asserts. Teachers and parents too often focus on errors in student writing. This focus gives students the impression that writing well is about avoiding…

This book directs the individual reader to self-expression and discovery through writing techniques. The book presents a series of writing exercises that helps a person explore his or her past, present, and future. The exercises in the book are grouped into three stages of the self-discovery process: (1) "Remembering," tapping memories;…

This paper addresses the difficulty involved in creating easily understood information. The act of communicating is not complete until the message has been both received and understood by the audience. Messages must always be comprehensible, otherwise they will have no effect. The readability, legibility, and reading value of a graphic message is…