This one-year study explores the possibility of integrating critical pedagogy into undergraduate English writing classes in Taiwan. The participants were the students in 2 first-year writing classes taught by the researcher. For these classes, I reinvented Freire's (2000) pedagogy of the oppressed, which emphasizes problem-posing, dialogue, and…

Award-winning author Carolyn Coman has made a career out of writing stories for children and young adults as well as teaching writing to people of all ages. She believes that the essence of good writing, no matter the genre, is the ability to craft a solid story. In this innovative book, Carolyn provides advice, strategies, and inspiration…

The author reviews research on working memory and short-term memory abilities of deaf individuals, delineating strengths and weaknesses. Among the areas of weakness that are reviewed are sequential recall, processing speed, attention, and memory load. Areas of strengths include free recall, visuospatial recall, imagery, and dual encoding.…

Acquiring argumentative reading and writing practices reflects a key component of recent curricular reforms in schools and universities throughout the United States and the world as well as a major challenge to teachers of reading and writing in K-12 and college writing classrooms. In this review, we consider the contributions of two research…

Effective written expression is a necessary form of communication and one of the most difficult tasks for students with disabilities to master. Few instructional strategies for writing have been validated specifically for students with emotional and behavior disorders. This single-subject study evaluated the effect of a Direct Instruction program…

Writing is an important foundational skill, critical for success in school. Unfortunately, many students, including students with disabilities, have difficulties with written language production. These students lack knowledge of writing processes and employ deficient strategies for organization, planning, goal implementation, and self-regulation.…

Children in grades one to four completed two sentence construction tasks: (a) Write one complete sentence about a topic prompt (sentence integrity, Study 1); and (b) Integrate two sentences into one complete sentence without changing meaning (sentence combining, Study 2). Most, but not all, children in first through fourth grade could write just…

Learning communities are common on two- and four-year college campuses. Estimates suggest that they exist on four to five hundred campuses and can be found in most states. Such numbers signal that interest in learning communities is going strong, and there are indications that on two-year college campuses, interest continues to grow. As…

The forum contributors draw on their personal experiences and insights to put forth ideas about contingent faculty's relations with the profession of English studies in general. (Contains 3 notes.)

The aim of this study was to improve students' English as Foreign Language (EFL) writing and speaking performance with appropriate learning activity design supported by Virtual Pen ("VPen"), a multimedia web annotation system. Students' perceptions toward using "VPen" and learning activities, attitude toward using "VPen," actual "VPen" usage and…

The development of information and communication technologies has resulted in the emergence of new kinds of academic genres and literacies. The more recent social web applications empower learners to create online content in a collaborative way. This paper focuses on the use of wikis in the course of Effective Communication in English. It aims to…

"Teacher to Teacher" provides a forum for teachers to share ideas, materials, and activities. In this article, the authors offer some innovative assignment ideas for a good start to a new school year. These are: (1) writing mentors to improve students' nonfiction writing skills; (2) writing book reviews for real audiences and real purposes; and…

"Debates in English Teaching" explores the major issues all English teachers encounter in their daily professional lives. It engages with established and contemporary debates, promotes and supports critical reflection and aims to stimulate both novice and experienced teachers to reach informed judgements and argue their point of view with deeper…

This resource is a compilation of three documents that support the teaching of spelling in today's schools: a discussion of "Why Spelling Instruction Matters", a checklist for evaluating a spelling program, and tables of Common Core State Standards that are linked to spelling instruction. "Why Spelling Instruction Matters"…

One of the primary objectives for many instructors of first-year composition (FYC) is to encourage students to use their own voice/persona, or express themselves with authority in their writing. While there are many pedagogical methods to address this in a face to face environment, there is now need to understand how the course tools and…