Assesses students' responses to and production of story conventions in detective or mystery stories and explores students' responses to literature as potential connections between comprehending and composing text. (MM)

Draws a number of conclusions from observing children involved in early literacy tasks, including the following: (1) children and teachers live together in schools, but their perceptions of shared world differ; and (2) the teacher, frequently operating from hierarchy model of curriculum, plans activities promoting and assessing literacy skills,…

Most scientists live in a "publish or perish" environment, but few would describe themselves as brilliant (or enthusiastic) writers. Coming to the aid of all those wishing to improve the quality of their scientific writing--established researchers and aspiring students alike--three experienced authors/scientists from differing backgrounds and…

Arizona's Instrument to Measure Standards Dual Purpose Assessment (AIMS DPA) is a combination of two separate tests. One test is AIMS, which measures how well the student knows the reading, writing, and mathematics content that all Arizona students in the student's grade level are expected to know and be able to do. AIMS DPA includes…

The issue of whether or not to correct errors in students' writing is controversial. Some scholars argue that error correction is helpful, while others argue that it is ineffective, perhaps even harmful. What is missing from the literature are studies about how error correction might affect the performance of specific types of students. This…

Digital media has become an increasingly powerful force in modern society. This volume brings together outstanding European, American and Australian research in "writing and digital media" and explores its cognitive, social and cultural implications. In addition to presenting programs of original research by internationally known…

A perennial difficulty for first year students--one often viewed by them as an unimportant annoyance--is the need to handle sources and cite correctly. Any serious institutional attempt to address this issue in an interesting way is an enterprise concerned with motivation, as well as curriculum innovation. This paper reports on a collaboration…

A plan for increasing effective student writing skills was developed and implemented. Subjects were students in a regular first-grade class, a fifth-sixth grade behavior disorder (BD) class, and a seventh-eighth grade self-contained educable mentally handicapped (EMH) class, all of whom exhibited inadequate writing skills. Evidence for the…

Both teachers and learners assume that to know a language, an individual need only learn its vocabulary and grammar. The correct use of common collocations, formulas, and idioms is the skill that makes language fluent, natural, and comprehensible. These formulaically constructed phrases that are not assembled by rule but recalled from memory are…

This report discusses the outcomes of a project that examined the acquisition of reading and writing skills in 135 children with deafness or who are hard of hearing. Eighty-three of the children attended a state-sponsored residential school and 52 attended a local school district program where students with deafness or who are hard of hearing are…

A study examined whether storybook exposure and the amount of teaching in reading and writing skills provided by parents would enhance the language skills and emergent literacy of 47 first-grade children. Hierarchical regression analyses that controlled for parents' print exposure, and children's age and analytical intelligence showed that at the…

This study examined the utility of electronic mail (e-mail) as an instructional tool for limited-English-proficient (LEP) adult females who have made little progress in learning writing in English as a Second Language (ESL). Six subjects, aged 30-50 years, enrolled in a university ESL program produced 25 e-mail exchanges with the research over a…

A study investigated the relationship between reading habits and writing skills in French of 223 Canadian secondary school students. Students were surveyed concerning their demographic characteristics, attitudes about learning and reading, recreational activities, and reading habits and reading materials. Writing skills were evaluated using a…

This teacher's guide is designed for use in presenting a five-unit course in effective communication that is part of a life skills series intended to help students become more self-sufficient in their personal and professional lives. The course's five instructional units cover these topics: understanding communication, improving communication,…

This volume is part of a series of 18 monographs on service learning and the academic disciplines. These essays highlight some of the benefits and problems of service-learning in the college composition curriculum and present further areas for study. Following the Introduction, "Service-Learning and Composition at the Crossroads," by…