When matched for achievement level and educational objectives, computer technology can be particularly effective with at-risk students. Computer-assisted instructional software is the most widely available type of software. An exciting development pertinent to literacy education is the development of the "electronic book" (also called…

A project in a second and third grade classroom resulted in a classroom newsletter designed and written by regular and special education students to provide the school and parents with information regarding activities in their classroom and school. Students were provided with an authentic opportunity to express their ideas and feelings about…

The workplace research of Sylvia Scribner provides a model with which to study relationships between socially and institutionally organized practices and individual cognitive processes as well as to explore relationships between practices and processes in writing and the teaching of writing. Observations and conversations in one inner-city,…

When she began teaching, one instructor thought everything had to come from her. It took a couple of years before she understood that what students themselves bring to the experience is instrumental--even vital--in helping them connect with what happens in the classroom. In their freshman composition journals, students produced writing based on…

Culled from ideas contributed by people attending conferences of the National Council of Teachers of English and by readers of "NOTES Plus" and "IDEAS Plus," the activities contained in this booklet are intended to promote the effective teaching of writing and literature. Teaching strategies offered in the first section of the…

These two serial issues are devoted to the impact of computers on education, and specifically their effects on developmental education programs. First "The Effects of Computer-Based Instruction" summarizes the literature on the impact of computer-based instruction, including a study by James and Chen-Lin Kulik and Peter Cohen, which found that:…

A case study investigated the writing processes of an adult native speaker of Portuguese in a number of writing tasks in his native language (L1) and in English, his second language (L2). Writing samples over a 14-month period were examined. Most data were collected in thinking aloud protocols for 10 written tasks of varying degrees of familiarity…

This booklet (one of a series of 10 booklets in a reading project to benefit Kosair Children's Hospital in Louisville, Kentucky) contains 10 stories especially written for fourth graders by educators. The stories are about: children's feelings about disease and treatment; accidents and accident proneness; children's reactions to the death by…

This booklet (one of a series of 10 booklets in a reading project to benefit Kosair Children's Hospital in Louisville, Kentucky) contains 10 stories especially written for fifth graders by educators. The stories are about: chronic and life-threatening diseases and children's feelings about them; accidents with guns and accident prevention; a visit…

This booklet (one of a series of 10 booklets in a reading project to benefit Kosair Children's Hospital in Louisville, Kentucky) contains 10 stories especially written for sixth graders by educators. The stories are about: a student's coping with a terminal illness and its effect on his classmates; a boy's feelings about his rheumatoid arthritis;…

Offering insights into the effective use of writing to teach students to think like professionals in various fields, this book is the result of a 7-year naturalistic study. The book documents how a writing specialist paired with an experienced professor in another discipline (business, history, psychology, and biology) to study: (1) teachers'…

Highlighting similarities in the processes of reading and writing can help teachers establish a more unified program allowing students to develop skills that transfer from one process to another. One activity to help students develop reading skills focuses on the "who, what, where, when" types of patterns that recur in sentences and…

Use of metacognitive strategies, creative problem solving, and creative thinking techniques in intermediate grade writing instruction can promote students' thinking and creativity. Metacognitive strategies can help students attack the writing task in an orderly fashion. Answering specific questions for descriptive, expository, narrative, or…

This resource book contains 10 articles on specific aspects of writing assessment. Article one addresses several key issues, among them (1) whether writing should be taught from a traditional analytic approach or from the "writing-as-a-process" perspective, (2) whether writing ability can be judged indirectly or only by actual performance, and (3)…

Intended to help elementary school language arts teachers provide students with opportunities for unprescribed writing according to a natural writing process, this booklet discusses research and practice in the writing process and creating a supportive classroom environment. The first part of the booklet examines theory and research on the stages…