Designed to include a broad base of information about how children acquire and develop literacy, this book discusses the knowledge that is necessary to be an influential teacher of reading and writing. Each chapter in the book begins and ends with a "Double Entry Journal" (DEJ)--an interactive strategy designed to stimulate thinking and…

A year-long departmental evaluation at one college English department revealed that most sections of both pre-college English and regular English 101 emphasized form over content, structure over ideas, surface features over global, and this, at the expense of meaningful intellectual growth. When freshmen are plied with basic grammar books and with…

Learning disabled writers are unable to incorporate text structures to plan their writing; they stop writing before their point is stated; their writing includes redundancies, irrelevancies, and many mechanical and spelling problems. Studies indicate that learning disabled writers use simplistic and/or ineffective planning strategies while…

The "Writing Buddies" program is designed to allow students from one grade level to write, edit, publish, share, and celebrate their success with peers from another grade level. Students also benefit from the strengths of two teachers and parent volunteers. The role of the teacher is to provide the atmosphere conducive to writing, and to…

Insofar as students gain clarity by writing statements of belief and meaning, the expressive mode is a vehicle for learning. By expressing in writing their reaction to a bewildering experience, a current dilemma, or a troublesome conflict, for example, they are better able to broaden their views on this personal predicament. The expressive mode…

The questions of if and how writing in a second language is the same as writing in the first were investigated in a review of the literature. After a review of research in first language (L1) composing since Emig's 1971 "composing aloud" study, research in second language (L2) composing is also examined. Studies on the relationship between L1 and…

A 6-month case study of one adult composing in both his native and second language was undertaken to examine the complexity of second-language composing and the relationship between processes in the two languages. Two thinking-aloud protocols were collected from the subject, who was composing in response to a writing task. The first data were…

While many factors contribute to success and/or failure in ABE (Adult Basic Education) and ASE (Adult Secondary Education) activities, ABE and ASE writers will succeed or fail in direct correlation to what is happening to their self-esteem in the context of writing instruction. The first guideline for teaching writing to adults is telling the…

A composition instructor offered as extra credit an electronic bulletin board (part of a campus-wide electronic network) to a composition class at Northwest Missouri State University. The teacher limited his own participation as much as possible. The electronic bulletin board (bbs) was used by about half the class, with much of the other half…

For many teachers and theorists of composition, the ingrained reluctance to use "I" came to stand as a powerful symbol of all that was alienating and disenfranchising about an institutionalized educational system that seemed more concerned with student discipline than empowerment. Consequently, the cultivation of the use of "I"…

Poetry is a powerful avenue through which students can learn to express their voices and to "write like people." In the special needs classroom, where students traditionally have had difficulty with narrative structure, and therefore have gone unheard, developing voice through poetry becomes especially crucial. Samples of students'…

This book is intended to provide scholars with practical advice on writing for publication. Each chapter includes suggested practical exercises as well as explanatory material. Part 1 includes two chapters outlining the philosophy behind the approach, which emphasizes scholarly writing as conversation and the value of writing as a form of…

The first phase of a study into language learning examined six undergraduate students' building of disciplinary discourse knowledge as they became immersed in the disciplinary community of psychology. Students were followed over the entire 4-year course of their undergraduate careers. Data included interviews, questionnaires, papers the students…

If properly administered, peer-group critiques in college writing classes can be an effective means of sharpening students' skills of critical reading while increasing their awareness of audience. If not properly administered, however, they can be unpleasant and nerve-racking for all involved. Finding that both she and her students dreaded peer…

In a feminist classroom an instructor who acts as an "interested party" rather than an authority, fosters an environment of care and connection which can result in life-changing discoveries for the participants. Drawing on David Bleich's conception of a "socially generous research" that removes hierarchical barriers between…