While the use of corpora and concordancing in the language-learning environment began as early as 1969 (McEnery & Wilson, 1997, p. 12), it was the work in the 1980s of Tim Johns (1986) and others which brought it to public attention. Important developments occurred in the 1990s, beginning with publications advocating the use of corpora and…

This study uses the tools of functional linguistics to illuminate the writing requirements of the history curriculum in the context of Australian secondary schools. It shows how the resulting linguistic description was integrated into a sequence of teaching and learning activities through collaboration between linguists and content/pedagogic…

A formative assessment task was developed to improve the scientific report writing skills of university students. Students undertaking this task typically possessed varying levels of scientific literacy and were drawn from a cohort of mixed abilities. The assessment task involved the construction of a scientific report that included feedback from…

In literacy and composition studies, efforts to develop data-driven theories of disciplinary writing expertise and of writers' developmental processes in joining specific discourse communities have so far been limited. This case study, of one writer's experiences as an undergraduate history major, parses the multiple knowledge domains comprising…

Reading and writing deficits in two multilingual speakers of Kannada, Hindi and English are described. Disorders of the two patients (Mr G and Ms S) had different etiologies. Mr G had severe alexia with agraphia in English as well as in Kannada and Hindi. Ms S exhibited dissociation across the languages, showing symptoms of surface dyslexia in…

This article reports on the effects of a family literacy program for first graders that had three main characteristics: (1) book reading with parents that adapts parental intervention to the child's gradually increasing skills in reading during the school year, (2) support for writing activities, and (3) enjoyable home activities complementing the…

Two years ago, Mandeville High School (http://mandevillehigh.stpsb.org/index.shtml) in Louisiana purchased a mobile wireless computer lab with grant funds from the state. This lab not only helped improve the writing and research skills of the school's ninth-grade students, but also improved its overall performance score to become one of the…

The relationship between the frequency of African-American English (AAE) features used by African-American adolescent males (n = 16) and their performance on the seven clusters comprising the "Woodcock Language Proficiency Battery-Revised" (WLPB-R) was investigated. All participants were between the ages of 15 and 19 years who had a…

This article presents the first results of the study of argumentative essays in English as a foreign language and in Spanish as a foreign language and as a native language, carried out at Radboud University Nijmegen (formerly the University of Nijmegen) between 2002 and 2008. The aim of the project is to compare teachers' holistic assessments with…

Aphasia implies the loss or impairment of language caused by brain damage. The key to understanding the nature of aphasic symptoms is the neuro-anatomical site of brain damage, and not the causative agent. However, because "Herpes simplex" virus (HSV) encephalitis infection usually affects the frontal and temporal lobes, subcortical…

The objective of this study was to identify causal relationships between the development of phonological abilities and progress in writing in preschool children. The participants were 44 children, with an average age of 5 years and 6 months, and whose writing was syllabic with phonetization. The children were divided into three groups. They were…

The purpose of Study 1a was to determine the criteria that differentiate students who perform well and those who perform poorly on a standardized test of university-level writing. Discriminant function analysis revealed that measures of structure, sentencing, paragraphing, and grammar play the most important role in separating these two groups.…

Notetaking is important for recording and remembering class content in most university courses. Despite the importance of this behavior, however, students are often poor notetakers. This study compared undergraduates' notes after traditional lecture, lecture with slides, and lecture with slides plus guided notes. Data on the percentages of…

"Wiki", the Hawaiian word for quick, can refer to either a Web site or the software that runs it. Ward Cunningham, a Portland, OR, programmer, invented and named the wiki in 1995. He wanted to help a virtual community of programmers communicate efficiently. Teachers and librarians nationwide have begun to explore the role of wikis in…

The act of reading a well-written book to students is one of the easiest writing lessons a library media specialist can give. When kids hear new or unusual words and descriptive, poignant phrases, it increases their own experimentation with writing. Using good literature to develop good writers just makes sense. There are a plethora of avenues and…