Describes an exploration the author and his seventh-grade students undertook as they wrote essays about objects of personal significance. Describes how they examined a piece of literature (an essay) as a model for their own writing, how they spent some time talking and listening to one another about their personal objects, and how they then wrote…

Examined perceptions of alternate-route and college-prepared teachers about adapting mathematics and writing curriculum to student diversity. Surveys and interviews indicated that while most teachers favored curriculum adaptation in general, commitment to these beliefs was inconsistent. Both groups preferred to discuss curriculum adaptation in…

Used writing samples, informal observations, and formal interviews and observations over 6 weeks to document a 4-year-old's emergent writing process. Found that the subject made the transition from the pre-phonetic to the semi-phonetic writing stages at an early age. Also found that young children's low tolerance level for frustration has…

Based on a literature review and reflective practice of a second-language teacher educator, paper discusses three categories of planning for writing instruction for middle-years students in an immersion or partial immersion context: planning for long-term balance, planning for daily implementation, and planning for task success. Highlights five…

This study was originally constructed to examine effect of content-area reading on English-as-a-Second-Language writing proficiency but was restructured and extended because composition topics proved to be confounding factors. Although results of the study raise several issues, most significant are the influence of topic on the acquisition of ESL…

Discusses exercises enabling teachers to help 6-year-olds complete the path to total reading and spontaneous writing. The foundation of the exercises is to help children analyze words into sounds; relate the symbols of the alphabet with the sounds using sandpaper letters; and acquire the physical ability to reproduce the letters in writing. (TJQ)

Describes one teacher's approach to process writing, a mainstay for Montessori adolescent classrooms. The premise of the method is that everyone has the natural potential to write and that the emergence of the inner voice must be nurtured by extended conferencing and revision combined with taking risks, experimenting, and continually revising.…

Describes the visual arts as a means of helping remedial reading and writing students to "see" the process of writing. Discusses the use of clay sculpting to demonstrate free-writing techniques, Venn-mobiles to demonstrate compare/contrast techniques, and wraps (felt "tortillas" and fillings) to demonstrate summary writing. (Contains 10…

Describes strategies one elementary school used to improve the reading and writing skills of a group of low-performing second-grade students, including scaffolding, modeling, needs-based instruction, book-rich environment, cross-age reading, books shared with family members, and student motivation. (PKP)

When the author and her teaching colleague assessed their 7th and 8th grade students' research papers, they realized that although the papers demonstrated proper structure, the students had not gained meaningful understanding of their topics. Although the teachers had carefully prepared students to write, they had not ensured that students had…

Students with specific learning disabilities (SLD) are required to pass the same competency exams as students enrolled in general education in order to graduate to new grade levels and to earn a high school diploma. In this study, the authors taught students with SLD a self-directed organizational strategy designed to assist them in passing the…

The growth of international online access has given rise to a new production method--international outsourcing--that has important implications for technical communication practices. Successful interactions within international outsourcing require individuals to understand how cultural factors could affect online interactions. Today's technical…

While research in international technical communication has flourished during the last 10 years, there has been little published on technical communication programs outside the United States. This article addresses this need by describing 12 representative academic technical communication programs in Germany, including Germany's first master's…

This paper aims to explore advanced ESL learners' ability to make improvements in grammatical accuracy by autonomously noticing and correcting their own grammatical errors. In the recent literature in SLA, it is suggested that classroom tasks can be used to foster autonomous language learning habits (cf. Dam 2001). Therefore, it is important to…

A class of reluctant readers and writers responded positively when topics were discussed orally before writing. As writing improved, the author of this article introduced "Coffee House"--themed settings for oral performance of student writing. After modeling her own writing, the author invited students to perform, gratified when even the most…