A college composition instructor who approached her course from a feminist perspective found it difficult to overcome students' arguments and frustration until she obtained the help of an ethnographer. The ethnographer got involved with the instructor's evening classes on a regional campus for an entire semester. It was discovered that male and…

Established in 1984, the twofold purpose of the national award-winning Keystone Writing Project of the Fort Worth Independent School District is to (1) create a staff development program to assist teachers in designing strategies for teaching writing; and (2) to set up a district writing program that meets the needs of all students. During the…

Ideological tensions at the heart of conflicting philosophies concerning the role of English department studies in higher education generate such questions as: "Should courses in literature be required?" and "Is the ultimate goal of the English major a good job or a good karma?" The answers to these questions are important, as…

A practicum was developed to empower pre-service teachers to become more confident in their attempts to motivate and encourage young children to write. Emphasis was placed on the use of holistic philosophies relating to writing, in contrast to more conventional methodologies. Student participants included junior teacher candidates enrolled in…

The examination of the journal (written in 1875) of a student of the Patterson Institute, a "female college" in Kentucky, reveals a young woman with a divided self--one part accepting her teacher's demands, the other undermining the daily writing assignment and the school's rules through acknowledged deception, sly subversion, mockery,…

The portfolio approach to teaching writing brings the writing process into the classroom and enables the new teacher--and all teachers--to see writing from a new perspective, to truly be collaborators and coaches with their students. A college writing teacher uses portfolios and plays the role of evaluator as well as the responder in three courses…

A study examined use of prewriting techniques among 11 students of English as a Second Language (ESL), of varying language backgrounds, enrolled in a pre-freshman composition class. It investigated use of both prewriting strategies and invention techniques taught in class, looking at: (1) whether they would be used when not specifically required;…

As part of the basic special education curriculum of the Department of Public Instruction of Puerto Rico, this teacher's guide, presents, in Spanish, a basic curriculum for writing skills for students with disabilities. Skills for handwriting (the production of writing) and composition are included. Although the student with disabilities needs…

Presenting descriptions of seven successful emergent literacy programs, this book demonstrates that early literacy intervention programs with a focus on accelerated learning and on authentic reading and writing tasks can prevent many first-grade children from failing to learn to read. Programs described in the book focus on story book reading and…

A study investigated whether 10-grade English students would write more descriptively when their thinking was stimulated through viewing images, or hearing music, or both. Subjects, 49 students in 2 intact classrooms in a middle-class, suburban high school in the Jurupa School District, were randomly assigned to 1 of 4 groups that administered…

This collection offers insights into what a democratic vision of literacy looks like in practice. Building on the work of teacher and literacy scholar Jay Robinson, the 10 essays in the collection explore the relationships between literacy and society. The essays pay tribute to Professor Robinson, who retired in 1966 from the University of…

The fact that a writer's culture influences the composing style is undeniable. Spanish speakers writing in English often allow their points to "leap around," perhaps constituting a pattern the instructor does not see. In "Beyond Culture," Edward Hall explains that cultures operate under either "monochronic" or…

The more children read, the more they write and the better they spell. As the quality of a child's reading content rises, so does his or her writing. Emergent literacy research suggests that reading and writing occur simultaneously and encourage the growth of one another. Research has also concluded that writing frequently for authentic purposes…

Extending the editors' system for word study, this book presents essays by scholars and practitioners who explore letter and word learning in a variety of reading, writing, and language contexts in the primary classroom, with articles that range from detailed observations of individual readers and writers to full-scale analyses of classroom…

Noting that statewide writing assessment shows the achievements of Oregon students over the last decade, this booklet explains the results for the 1993-1997 assessments and provides papers illustrating the work that Oregon students in grades 3 and 5 produce on the state test. The booklet's chapters are: (1) The History of Writing Assessment in…