This study examined the teaching and learning of writing for secondary school students as it occurred in the interactive context of teacher-student writing conferences in the form of private teacher-student conversations about the students' writing or writing process. Following ethnographic procedures, the study examined naturally occurring…

This digest offers an overview of current research in the ERIC database on methods and measurements for evaluating student writing. The digest considers: (1) methods of response to students' written products; and (2) the measurement of quality as represented by effective classroom teaching methods. (SR)

The instruction of writing research papers to English-as-a-Second-Language (ESL) college students is discussed. The challenges facing all students learning to write research papers are noted, including choosing a topic, deciding on a thesis, research and documentation, and the actual writing of the paper. The challenges faced specifically by ESL…

A study investigated the composing process to examine why different types of instruction have different effects on composing products. The study contrasted three treatments: (1) presenting students with models (the traditional method); (2) the general procedures approach stressing freethinking process; and (3) a method stressing task-specific…

Bringing journals into upper-level foreign language classes painlessly involves students in the exploration of the second language and the writing process. The unstructured nature of journal writing allows for a free range of writing exercises that upgrade student language proficiency and help increase their control of grammar, structure, and…

Though popular in the late 70s and early 80s, the instructional technique of sentence combining attracts little support today, even though practice has proven that teaching the processes of combining and expanding sentences can enhance syntactic maturity. A student writer who is made aware of the expectations of form will be prompted to generate…

The acquisition of knowledge is concomitant to the writing process and, as such, is a key factor in composition pedagogy. Writing is not just a skill with which the student presents or analyzes knowledge, rather, writing is essential to the very existence of certain kinds of knowledge. Much of writing instruction, however, consists mainly of genre…

To understand how university students view writing centers, writing consultants, and themselves as writers, a study was conducted at the Syracuse University Writing Consultation Center (New York). The Center provides a free consultation service based on the peer conferencing model of collaborative learning. Sixty students who participated in the…

Basic theoretical assumptions support the contention that writing has an important role to play in the teaching of reading and learning processes. E. M. Forster focused on the product of writing as an embodiment of either finished or evolving thought, and Ann E. Berthoff emphasizes the capacity of language to generate itself and, in so doing,…

Writing teachers should employ a pragmatic-eclectic approach to help freshman students become acquainted with as many writing models as possible. To privilege one model over the many others is to ignore the student's need for self- and world-discovery. The composition classroom has become the current center of critical reading and thinking skills,…

This practicum sought to increase the opportunities for 17 first-grade students to write for real, human reasons and in natural circumstances. They were to use writing as a natural and acceptable outlet for expression, and to conceive of their writing as an extension of themselves. Each day a name was drawn to take home a stuffed bear, which…

After a brief review of the history of college writing instruction, this book examines the undergraduate creative writing workshop. The book attempts to reweave the currently separate strands of college-level creative writing instruction and composition instruction in the belief that developments in these perhaps artificially separated areas can…

Focusing on techniques for teaching students to integrate diverse ideas at a deep level of cognitive processing, a study evaluated an idea integration package for teaching writing in the college classroom. Subjects, 29 college students from an introductory psychology class at a Utah university, were divided into two groups. The integration group…

The validity of recent research concerning invented spelling, the developmental stages in children's writing, and whether children will attempt writing before reading and continue writing while learning to read were examined. Five developmental stages in spelling have been identified: (1) the precommunicative stage, involving the use of random…

A study examined the extent to which computers affect the writing process. In order to test several hypotheses about writing with a computer 15 experienced writers wrote persuasive letters under four conditions--using pen and paper once and a computer the other three times. All of the subjects were experienced with computers having worked daily or…