Examines "the ways in which educators have not taken up social and cultural understandings of the teaching and learning of literacy." Concludes that the challenge for educators and policy makers is to make use of what is known about the cognitive, linguistic, and sociocultural processes involved in the education of all children. (SG)

Presents research that demonstrates how local institutional practices can preclude benefits of portfolio evaluation. Finds that communal portfolio assessment shifts the primary site of authority negotiation for new composition teachers (teaching assistants) from their relationships with students to their relationships with their more experienced…

Helps show the journey of a teacher finding the path to good teaching and the ways in which she helped her student. Presents insights into teacher learning as well as some useful assessments and instructional techniques used with a child who struggled in reading and writing. (SG)

Argues that, taught in the context of writing, grammar can enhance and improve students' writing. Offers classroom examples showing how: good preparation for writing fosters good grammar and detail; students can use grammatical and syntactic constructions used by professional authors as models for their own writing; and how to help students learn…

Describes two projects undertaken with the author's high school English classes in which students chose writing they wished to share with their own community, and then published it, in one case selling their class anthology to selected businesses around town. Describes the increase in enthusiasm for writing and care and professionalism caused by…

Investigates the context of writing instruction in a second-year, second-semester German course. Focusing on a children's story project, the researchers describe how writing is taught in the course; the relationship of writing assignments to the rest of the course curriculum; and the perceptions of foreign language writing, including its purpose,…

Locates the tensions of disciplinary turf, professional allegiances, and unexamined teaching practices that intersect in first-year, writing-with-literature courses. Examines confusions that surround these courses for new teachers and for English departments in general. Suggests changes to be made. (TB)

Investigates a gender-related issue raised by a 1990 study of 40 11th-grade writing students. Discusses what problems are posed by and what possible solutions there are to the tendency in young women writers--more pronounced than in their male counterparts--to please the teacher and meet his or her rhetorical expectations at the expense of…

Reports the results of a study for which 25 parents were asked questions about what they believed would constitute the ideal English curriculum. Offers suggestions for how teachers can enhance their relationships with parents and educate them about modern approaches to teaching literature and writing. (TB)

Finds that the program was somewhat more effective than the traditional (basal) curriculum for teaching word attack and letter-word identification, especially for students in low socioeconomic schools in a metropolitan school district, but that the program was not more effective than the conventional curriculum for more complex language skills…

Outlines the following three ways teachers can incorporate art, reading, and writing in the classroom: (1) single- and double-entry journals, for writing about art and drawing; (2) sketch-to-sketch, where students illustrate their interpretation of a selected portion of text; and (3) literature and art, using children's literature to inspire…

This article offers guidelines to help young children who are deaf move through six developmental stages of learning to write: (1) observing writing; (2) scribbling and drawing; (3) communicating writing to others; (4) requesting assistance in writing; (5) copying writing; and (6) beginning to write independently. (DB)

Examined process approaches to writing in fifth-grade classrooms led by teachers using procedural or workshop approaches. Found all teachers engaged students in the recursive steps of process writing, but there was significant variability in other aspects. Epistemological beliefs about teaching and learning were highly predictive of the type of…

Finds that 10 students with experience tutoring at the Writing Center felt that this experience improved their classroom teaching, helping them understand the practical implications of student-centered theory and making them more committed to practicing it in the classroom. Offers two case studies showing how one-to-one teaching in the Writing…

Studied how college students acquire academic literacy through their writing. Findings for six South African students for whom English was a second language show the difficulties students have in using their own words and in distinguishing different voices in writing. Explicit assistance from lecturers was found to assist students in understanding…