Books and online discussion groups encourage youth to develop strong narrative voices. Includes an annotated bibliography of books and Internet sites dealing with discovering the self and others; exploring race, culture, archeology, technology, war, poverty, gender and urban problems; creating and critiquing stories; and publishing industry…

Discusses research conducted in a middle school writing center that showed the necessity of a constructivist philosophy for the curriculum and the teaching process if information-seeking skills or writing is taught as a process. Problems with the teachers' use and understanding of the writing center are described. (Author/LRW)

A study examined how Cognitive Strategy Instruction in Writing (SCIW), helped enable four seventh-graders with learning disabilities to take over responsibility for their own writing performance and to scaffold one another's writing development. Teacher modeling and scaffolding, writing process collaboration, and structuring think-sheets enabled…

Examines the way students in a graduate-level English-as-a-Second-Language course used email on their own initiative to interact with their instructor. Analyzes 120 messages to the instructor and categorizes them into four areas: (1) phatic communication; (2)asking for help; (3) making excuses; (4) making formal requests. (Author/VWL)

Analysis of the use of the skills model to teach basic writing to nontraditional English language learners in community college points out barriers to this approach, including wide variation in linguistic, cultural, and educational background and inability to help students transition to academic discourse. An academic socialization model using…

Two university professors discuss the benefits of shared expertise and e-feedback in the design of an English-as-a-Second-Language (ESL) writing course. (Author/VWL)

This article recounts observations of the use of texts in the preschool, to document the interaction between the child, the teacher, and the environment, and the emergent literacy in the daily practices. Presentation of the findings is a description of two different textual environments: the narrative and the passive. (Author)

Argues that web-based instructors must interrogate the contradictions and ambiguities of cultural narratives about the World Wide Web. Discusses a semester-long articulatory study of web-based composition teaching. Provides an identification, description, and analysis of the cultural narrative of the Web as a global village in relationship to…

Explains the process of implementing a writing workshop for the first time in the authors' third-grade classrooms. Describes the authors' motivations, fears, and concerns in starting these workshops. Outlines components of workshops, such as setting goals, organizing time, peer editing, and conferencing. Concludes that writing workshops change…

Outlines writing theories proposed by researchers that have contributed to current second language teaching and learning classroom methodologies. Drawing on the insights gained from these theories, one English-as-a-Foreign-Language freshman composition classroom learning experience in doing practical research with first language Arabic nonnative…

Proposes that to overcome initial fears of technology, it is important to survey teachers, determine their concerns, and provide training opportunities. Describes the author's experience of working with faculty resistant to technology, and in designing faculty training in Blackboard, an online course platform. (PM)

A theoretically and empirically based intervention, Self-Regulated Strategy Development (SRSD), for students who struggle with academic tasks is described. The instructional implications and evaluation of performance for one student with learning and behavioral difficulties highlights the usefulness of this instructional approach. Six individual…

Revisits an earlier study on English-as-a Second-Language (ESL) children's emergence into literacy, which was conducted with 5- and 6-year olds at a multilingual K-12 school in Casablanca, Morocco. Discusses the notion of "synchronicity"--a dynamic oneness between teacher and child--as the distinguishing feature of three classrooms were…

Looks at the impact government initiatives on classroom practices and the process of writing. Notes that the first year of the project has gathered and analyzed data from a longitudinal study of writing in Ohio, and a series of contrasting case studies in England. Finds that government mandates set up professional dilemmas that teachers had to…

Discussion of the importance of cognitive strategy instruction is followed by consideration of reciprocal teaching as an optimal method for teaching both reading and writing to middle and high school students with reading/writing difficulties. Reciprocal teaching emphasizes teaching learners how to ask questions, clarify issues, summarize text,…