Examines interactive writing, an innovative approach to early writing instruction. Documents the concepts about print and writing strategies that a Title I reading teacher taught her first grade students across the school year. Indicates that interactive writing provides many opportunities to teach critical and fundamental literacy concepts.…

As scholars increasingly view the World Wide Web (the Web) as a legitimate research resource in academic writing, questions remain regarding how Web sources, as new media, influence the writing of second and foreign language (L2) learners. Via a 17-item questionnaire and an analysis of the references to 243 Web sources in the essays of 43 Japanese…

Written language requires prior knowledge of many foundation language skills. Students with language learning disabilities find it difficult to integrate language skills into academic writing assignments. Exceptional educators can teach foundation writing skills through certain underlying components of language, that is, phonology, morphology,…

Describes an instructor's analysis of students' responses to an assignment to describe the events of September 11, 2001 for a visual and media literacy course. Discusses the impact of media reports on students' perceptions of those events, and the inability of most students to critically analyze the situation because of the absence of personal…

Since the early 1970s, many educators have touted writing as a means of enhancing learning. Several reasons have been suggested for this purported enhancement: that writing is a form of learning, that writing approximates human speech, that writing supports learning strategies. Alternatively, some researchers have cautioned that the educative…

This essay describes a special topics creative writing course designed for nursing students, and argues that creative writing strategies work to improve nurses' compositional skills. Also discussed are other potential benefits from creatively writing patients' lives, notably, the blending of arts and sciences, and the ways in which medical schools…

Sooner or later, every educator hears the following plea from a current or former student: "Will you write a letter of recommendation for me?" Usually, the student is seeking employment or applying to a college or university for additional education. Many times instructors--taken off guard and unprepared for these requests--find themselves staring…

It has long been established that self-assessment and goal-setting are regular features of the writing process of experienced writers. It has also been demonstrated that students develop more power and control over their writing when they are encouraged to become their own evaluators. Therefore, to help beginning writers think and act more like…

As a symptom of globalization and the marketization of the universities, more and more scholars, many or most, of whom use English as an additional language (EAL), are being required to published in English. This article presents some qualitative data which highlights some of the difficulties encountered by such writers. It first discusses a…

For teacher educators, genre-based pedagogies offer a valuable resource for assisting both pre- and in-service writing instructors to assist their students to produce effective and relevant texts. Instead of focusing on the process of composition, the content of texts, or the abstract prescriptions of disembodied grammars, genre pedagogies enable…

Honoring students' home dialect is a complex task when preparing them to take state writing tests that require the use of Standard English. Working with students who had failed the test and were in danger of not receiving a diploma, Michelle Crotteau created a supportive learning environment in which students could develop linguistic and…

Writing samples were examined from 42 post-secondary students with or without writing difficulties. Guided by the Simple View of Writing (Berninger et al., 2002), the samples were examined for evidence of difficulties with lower-order transcription processes and higher-order composition skills. Retrospective reports on writing strategies were also…

Incorporating creative play in the writing lab or classroom is a unique way to pique students' interest and boost their imagination. Exercises varying from describing Hershey's Kisses®, to using tape recorders for discussing voice, to using magnetic poetry to practice grammar are all ways that stimulate learning through the lens of play. Play…

Research suggests that basic writers are willing to edit but reluctant to revise their writing. In other words, they make surface-level changes to grammar, spelling, and punctuation but tend not to re-conceive content, structure, style, and cohesion. This paper argues that we need more instructional strategies that will help students understand…

We examined the differential effects of the social cognitive model of sequential skill acquisition (SCM intervention) and the self-regulated strategy development model (SRSD intervention) for writing. One hundred and twenty-one 5th- and 6th-grade Spanish students with learning disabilities (LD) and/or low achievement (LA) were randomly assigned…