Discusses how watching and discussing feature films and writing reviews of these films in the English-as-a-Second/Foreign-Language classroom can be instrumental in teaching the principles of good argumentative writing within the confines of the simple movie review. Six steps for teaching a film review unit are provided. (Author/VWL)

Describes a modified method of reader-response used as a core activity in a literature classroom in which students write a short written response at the beginning of every class to the reading due that day. Describes the procedure, its relationship to effective writing, and its benefits, including reading more critically, writing more effectively,…

Long-term, successful marriages, like that between dependent schools and the National Writing Project, do not always go smoothly. In 1997, DoDDS students performed well on a worldwide assessment of eight different writing modes. Good partnerships avoid shortcuts, use proven models, and reject uniform approaches. (MLH)

Looks at the notion of the democratic public sphere as a useful construct for collaborative practices in portfolio classrooms. Describes the author's efforts to foster democratic participation by situating portfolio talk and assessment within the public space of one developmental writing classroom. Describes conflicts unseen until the end of the…

Constructs a model for successful peer involvement for assessing writing produced by classmates with learning disabilities. Discusses six effective outcome building blocks: (1) cooperative learning from a student perspective; (2) peer as a learning assistant; (3) orchestrating purposeful peer interactions; (4) valuing peer assessment; (5)…

Examines the relationships among instructors' course goals, instructional activities, and students' assessment of their learning of content and writing in writing-intensive undergraduate natural and applied science courses. Finds that instructors are described along a continuum anchored by instructor-as-corrector on one end and…

Three fifth graders with learning disabilities received instruction designed to help them incorporate three common planning strategies into their current approach to writing. Students learned to set goals, brainstorm ideas, and sequence their ideas while writing stories and completing assignments. The schematic structure of stories improved, and…

Describes plagiarism as it is commonly understood in the United States and is defined for young researchers by the U.S. National Academy of Sciences. Applies these ideas to three cases of plagiarism by Chinese scientists reported in the journal "Science." Discusses implications for English-as-a-Second-Language instruction. (Author/JL)

Presents a strategy that helps English-as-a-second-language students improve their writing by developing a culturally based self-monitoring strategy that guides them through the revision process. Describes how the students enhance their metacognitive cross-cultural knowledge by comparing various rhetorical patterns and improve their metacognitive…

Discusses the ways in which technology has changed the author's literacy teaching. Discusses the many technology projects she now uses with her students, and the lessons she has learned through integrating technology, especially the Internet, into her teaching. Raises questions that she has pondered as technology has become so prevalent in her…

Describes a specific structured procedure for peer assisted learning in writing, Paired Writing, and its effects on the quality of writing and attitudes toward writing in primary school children. Reports on three action research projects. Finds the Paired Writing method proved practical and robust, adaptable to different classroom contexts, and…

Presents 36 annotations of journal articles (published between January and June, 2001) dealing with assessment, bilingual/foreign language education, literacy, professional development, reading, teaching and learning of literature, teaching and learning of writing, and technology and literacy. (SG)

Notes that the author/educator noticed that his efforts at teaching poetry were failing. Describes how he decided to make poets out of his students--to start by showing how they can be affected by language. Notes that students started with just a word, then wrote poems, and then began to demand forms, which the teacher then introduced to the…

Describes a successful unit on poetry, characterized by collaborative planning, creation of the collection of poems used as the text, variation of the approaches and types of assignments, use of recorded music and poetry collected, use of local poets who read and performed for the students, online sharing and critiquing of students' poetry, and a…

Describes the current nature of the English education(EE)/rhetoric and composition (RC) split (as evidenced in two discussion threads on two different listservs). Notes that many listserv participants fell into the trap of labeling EE faculty as practitioners and RC faculty as theorists. Suggests ways that this gap might be narrowed to allow for…