Biographies can inspire students to reach their goals and explore various literary elements (turning points, cause and effect, and figurative language). This reading and writing workshop presents resources and strategies for introducing students to biography. A student reproducible has students examine why people are their role models or mentors.…

Describes how to inspire elementary students to write stories by first creating a picture, then developing a story from the picture. Using the "scribbles-to-stories" approach, the teacher models the process for the students with a think-aloud about story elements, then has students create quick sketches and generate stories out of those…

Daily journal writing can help students become strong, confident writers. Students can use journals to reflect on what they are studying, brainstorm on a topic before writing an essay, track and react to current events, and explore ideas in their imaginations. Tips for journal writing include: keep it stress free, reassure students they are…

Discusses the challenges of finding "voice" as a writer. Considers how a writer's voice is more than character and style. Notes that a writer's voice is the thumbprint of his or her whole person--his or her idea, wit, humor, passions and rhythms. Concludes that the discovery of voice is the real beginning of a writer's life as a writer.…

Writing and analytical skills of students can vastly improve when picture books are used and library media specialists and teachers are advised to make use of this effective tool. A variety of books are recommended for teaching students how to analyze character, dialogue, setting, plot, conflicts between characters and in the process hone their…

Formatting magazines help students to learn new computer skills and promote creativity when they write about the topics they choose and also sharpen their skills in writing mechanisms as they edit their work and pieces written by others. The benefits of publication process, printing, and assembling magazines are discussed.

The critical role played by the teacher feedback on the students' drafts is discussed. The standards-based scales measuring content, organization, and mechanics was used to determine the quality of students' writing and the teachers' feedback commentaries were considered either content level or surface level.

This article marks the 11th entry in a continuing series of biennial articles that have reported on surveys of the editors of more than 50 prominent education journals. The current survey differs from the previous 10 in that it had a 68% rate of return, compared to an average of over 90% for the others. With the previous surveys, the author…

Students use analyzing themes in song lyrics, rhetorical devices in essays and advertisements, and psychology in contemporary film, to improve their skills in critical thinking and writing. Popular culture is deduced to have an important place in English curricula.

The strategies employed by a high school teacher to grade a student's paper quickly and the consequences of returning the graded paper to the student within a short time are discussed. Returning the papers quickly have its own benefits such as the students will be getting their feedbacks regularly and they can succeed in the art of writing quickly.

The present paper underscores the importance of the cognitive orientation of EFL students in their success in writing courses. A few suggestions are made as to how EFL teachers can put their students on the right cognitive path in their writings.

Creating well constructed sentences is challenging for most writers. For less skilled writers, including writers with learning disabilities (LD), it can be even more difficult. These writers generally produce less syntactically complex sentences that contain more grammatical errors. They may also produce sentences that are shorter; have higher…

Congenitally, profoundly deaf children whose first language is British Sign Language (BSL) and whose speech is largely unintelligible need to be literate to communicate effectively in a hearing society. Both spelling and writing skills of such children can be limited, to the extent that no currently available assessment method offers an adequate…

Most college professors are looking for ways to make writing a positive experience for students. This is increasingly a challenge in our contemporary world, which tends to be very image-oriented. This short paper outlines ways in which student writing-projects can be designed encourage critical and innovative thinking in students. Inclusive…

The paper evaluates and synthesizes research on the question of how error correction affects learners' ability to write accurately, combining qualitative analysis of the relevant studies with quantitative meta-analysis of their findings. The conclusions are that, based on existing research: (a) the best estimate is that correction has a small…