Focuses on performance, processes, and attitudes of 19 kindergarten students who participated in a semester of process writing and instructional activities, asking whether kindergartners can effectively engage in a writing workshop on a sustained basis. Indicates process writing instruction allowed students to show appreciable, measurable gains in…

Describes several strategies, all based on letters written between teacher and students, that build a sense of community and collaboration in college developmental reading and writing classes, helping students to see themselves as active learners and thinkers. (SR)

Examines the acquisition of academic writing skills by adult students studying by distance learning in the United Kingdom. Results indicate that the text-based nature of distance leaning affects both the way in which students acquire writing skills and the development of their identity as academic writers. Differences in the learning process were…

Discusses building fluency in reading and writing and teaching students to read and write for pleasure. Highlights include multimedia storyboards; bilingual instruction; writing programs for building fluency; CD-ROM storyboards; student-created storyboards; and an annotated bibliography of CD-ROM storyboards, poetry collections, and composing…

Discusses how pretending to be a character or to help a character with a problem made reading and writing meaningful for middle school students. Describes activities that promoted writing about thinking, thinking as a character would, character integration, creating character journals, and relating to characters. (SR)

Details evaluation of effectiveness of the Montessori Movable Alphabet in successive exercises to build preschoolers' knowledge about written English. Describes preliminary activities, movable alphabet introduction, dictation, expanded usage, object/picture use, vowel addition, vowel combination, blends, phonetic phrases, H-digraphs, long vowels,…

Traces the revision of narrative and expository text made by sixth grade students during a school year in which the focus was on improving reading comprehension and writing through instruction in text structure. Finds that only expository texts were judged to improve in writing quality by year end. (MG)

Describes the Electronic Networks for Interaction (ENFI) Project undertaken at Gallaudet University, a university for the deaf. Explains that the project sought to give students an opportunity to use written English in ways that hearing people routinely used spoken English. Identifies both writing successes and instructor objections to the…

Analyzes a collaborative activity, both as a traditional classroom event and as a collaborative event. Finds that, even when the activity is explicitly collaborative and students are experienced collaborators, patterns of traditional classroom discourse dominate their communicative choices. (MG)

Focuses on the oral language that accompanies the writing process of Native American students. Finds that of all the oral language observed during composing, 90 percent of that language was related to the fact that writing was taking place. (MG)

Describes the successful use of computer conferencing in a journalism feature writing class. Discusses how conferencing works, conferencing and pedagogy, stumbling blocks, benefits, and further applications. (SR)

Reports on the satisfaction of college news writing students with a computer program which combines reporting simulation with a writing analysis of the students' news stories. Finds that students rated the computer program significantly ahead of the paper version of the exercise. Suggests providing more detailed feedback in the computer program.…

This article describes "Hands On," a research project employing interactive computer/videodisc technology to teach English to deaf children with American Sign Language (ASL) skills. Elementary school students can read a story in printed English text, watch an ASL-signed version of the story, access a list of vocabulary words, or caption a story…

This study evaluates a self-management procedure for teaching adolescents with learning and behavior problems (BP) to improve completeness, accuracy, and neatness of creative writing homework assignments. Students were taught behavior change fundamentals, self-instruction, and how to set and work toward goals. Results from two BP high school…

Presents suggestions for composition teachers who have ESL students and no formal training in teaching English as a second language. Provides 25-item bibliography on curriculum design, current papers, cultural aspects of writing, and reading. (RAE)