Improving teacher effectiveness is a key strategy to ensure student readiness for college and careers and to address achievement gaps and persistent low performance. In response to the new Common Core State Standards for English Language Arts (CCSS-ELA) the National Writing Project (NWP) created a professional development (PD) program to support…

The theme for the 60th annual conference of the Association of Literacy Educators and Researchers (ALER) was Literacy: The Critical Role of Teacher Knowledge. This Yearbook provides a snapshot of the highlights of the meeting and sampling of some of the proceedings. The focus is on three questions surrounding the conference theme: (1) What do…

Linda Worden always loved books. She liked the way they felt in her hands and the way they smelled. The only problem was she could not read them--until she took part in Channel 4's "Can't Read, Can't Write". This article tells the story of Linda Worden and how learning to read changed her life. Her attempts to learn as an adult are a shocking…

Comic strips provide the perfect vehicle for learning and practicing language. Each strip's three or four panels provide a finite, accessible world in which funny, interesting-looking characters live and go about their lives. Children with limited reading skills are not as overwhelmed when dealing with the size of a comic strip as they may be with…

Interactive writing is a powerful tool to help students of all ages master writing skills in a purposeful way. During this process, students deepen their understanding of language, conventions of print, and how words work. Interactive writing helps teachers and students collaborate in the construction of text, and meaningful writing is created in…

Unhappy with the contradiction of teaching writing skills through a process-genre approach and testing them by means of a timed essay, the authors devised the Extended Writing Project (EWP) as an alternative evaluation mechanism. This requires students to write an extended text in consecutive sections that are drafted and revised with external…

Age differences for nine age groups between 22 and 25 years and 81 and 90 years were evaluated, covarying educational attainment, on five Cattell-Horn-Carroll (CHC) abilities: fluid reasoning (Gf), crystallized ability (Gc), quantitative knowledge (Gq), reading (Grw-Reading), and writing (Grw-Writing). Data were from the adult portions of the…

"Frequently accepted as being the last language skill to be acquired for native speakers of the language as well as for foreign/second language learners" (Hamp-Lyons and Heasly, 2006: 2), English writing, for a number of EFL learners, appears to be challenging. This paper sought to investigate if learners can grow out of the writing…

This article presents a pedagogical experience that addresses the use of an instructional strategy called screenwriting aimed at improving the teaching of writing in an educational context. This pedagogical intervention took place in a private English language school, where three adult students willingly participated to create their own short…

This study documented the writing practices of students in a Mexican elementary school and identified participants' attitudes toward different forms of writing. Data included observations in two classrooms as well as interviews with six case-study children and their parents. Results revealed copious writing in the school including dictations,…

"Straight A's: Public Education Policy and Progress" is a biweekly newsletter that focuses on education news and events both in Washington, DC and around the country. The following articles are included in this issue: (1) ESEA on the Way?: Harkin Eyes Next Month for Possible Committee Action on ESEA Reauthorization; (2)…

The aim of this study is to prepare a suggested syllabus in accordance with NATO Stanag 6001 Level 3 perspective for the Advanced Level English Course at Gendarmerie Schools Command which is subordinate to Gendarmerie General Command. It is believed that this study will contribute to other studies in the context of NATO Stanag 6001 language…

Writing centers are places not only of practices and policies but also of inquiry. Increasingly, research conducted in writing centers is informing the theoretical bases as well as the day-to-day goings-on in our various local contexts. In turn, the situated daily activity of each writing center as well as the theory or principles behind it…

Much has been made by early childhood educators about the importance of activities that foster early reading--and deservedly so--but studies show that reading and writing are skills that children develop simultaneously. Early reading is supported and improved by early writing. Young children need reading to help them learn about writing, and they…

In this article, the authors share five practical teaching activities for introducing disability into the secondary English curriculum that also address NCTE/IRA objectives for the English language arts. They have used these lessons to help students better analyze the language/rhetoric of disability, understand how disability is represented in…