The majority of high-stakes tests from elementary school through postsecondary education include the timed impromptu essay as a measure of writing performance. For adolescents with writing disorders, this type of evaluation often presents a significant barrier. The purpose of the current study was twofold. First, we investigated the influence of…

Background: When writing a text, students are required to do several things simultaneously. They have to plan, translate and review, which involve demanding cognitive processes. In order to handle this complexity, writers need to develop a writing strategy. The two most well-defined writing strategies that have been identified, are those of a…

Many business and technical writing students find classroom discussions of professional ethics interesting and enjoyable. However, when trying to incorporate the content of discussions directly into their writing practices, they often experience difficulties linking ethical concepts to writing process. This article discusses how instructors can…

The primary purpose of this study was to investigate the efficacy of formulaic writing such as the five-paragraph theme (FPT) or essay for the purpose of earning high scores on high-stakes writing assessments. This qualitative descriptive study analyzed more than 1000 essays from Delaware Grade 8 and 10 writers, written for a statewide…

Meeting the standards. Differentiating. Intriguing, involving, and inspiring students. Teachers meet standards; differentiate instruction; and intrigue, involve, and inspire students with these innovative lessons ripped from the headlines--and from the comics, the weather map, and the classified ads. The author offers step-by-step directions for…

Seventy-one normally functioning Spanish sixth-grade students participated in classroom-based training in cognitive strategies for preplanning and substantive revision of expository text. Short essays completed by these students pre-intervention, post-intervention, and after a 12 week delay were compared with those of an ordinary-curriculum…

When they are new to the grant game, even scholars with fine publishing records can struggle with proposal writing. Many are surprised to find that the writing style that made them successful as academics is not well suited to crafting a winning proposal. To succeed at grant writing, most researchers need to learn a new set of writing skills. This…

This article presents work undertaken with a class of Scottish Primary Six children (aged 10) to investigate the use of interactive whiteboard technology and interactive talking books in whole-class writing lessons. The paper reports on a research project with three aims: to investigate how the use of an interactive whiteboard to reflect on the…

An instructor of a composition and computers writing course (designed for economically and culturally disadvantaged students) at the State University of New York at Buffalo, developed electronic conferences which combine the capabilities of the computer with the conference approach. The instructor reads students' papers while sitting at the…

This book is designed to be a how-to-write-fiction guide that is long on specifics and short on theoretical material. Each section of the book deals with a separate element of fiction--characterization, dialogue, point of view, plot, etc. Every exercise in the book is introduced in an opening paragraph, followed by instructions for completing the…

This paper uses three nuances of "informs." Firstly, it argues that writing forms (or shapes) science and science learning through the textual practices that are available to interpret and allowable to produce. These writing genres shape science discourse and must be challenged because available texts construct science as a rational…

Perhaps writing is equated with process. But, there are too many complicating factors that make it difficult to evaluate the success or failure of prewriting and drafting assignments--the process and the value of each step is different for each individual. By teaching students to recognize the cultural contingencies of textuality, the status of…

Studying the life of Langston Hughes in the context of how to teach freshman composition can shed light on two sometimes conflicting pedagogies, the expressivist and the social-constructionist. A discouraging period of fierce criticism, illness, depression, and financial woes coincided with Hughes' 39th birthday, which his biographer Arnold…

A feminist composition classroom concentrates on undermining the Platonic view of invention as the private act of an atomistic individual and replacing it with inventional strategies that heighten students' awareness of the social, political, and economic factors which make writing and reading a gendered activity. These alternate strategies allow…

A study investigated the influence of goal setting and progress feedback on self-efficacy and writing achievement among gifted children. Thirty-three fourth graders who previously had been identified as academically gifted in language arts received writing strategy instruction over 20 sessions and were given a goal of learning to use the strategy…