This handbook, developed in a Goodwill literacy program, leads tutors through the process of teaching reading and provides suggestions for learning activities, content, and reading materials. Introductory material includes literacy definition and statistics, commonly asked questions, quotations from students, and statistics on Goodwill Literacy…

This report describes the development of a learning community in a fifth-grade writers' workshop across one school year and two girls' participation in the learning community. The report examines ways in which teacher-researchers' and students' notions and actions regarding collaboration changed; it also describes the curriculum in the writers'…

Writing teachers should draw on their own use of collaborative techniques in attempting to develop similar support systems within the writing classrooms and in the larger university community. Teacher awareness of the problems that faced them in their past attempts at collaboration should inform them concerning their propensity to oversimplify the…

A study determined how exposure to learning writing as process through writing workshops would affect the attitudes of fifth grade students. Subjects had no experience with writing as process. At the outset of the school year, the participants, 23 fifth-grade students in a northeastern New Jersey school, were administered the "Emig-King…

To incorporate Robert Pirsig's "Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance" into a course on writing may be to subvert the author's purpose. Pirsig meant for his book to be read aimlessly--like a Zen experience whose goal is only realized after it is achieved. Pirsig might even object to the "teaching" of "Zen and the…

This paper explores the nature of a fifth/sixth grade New York City teacher's image of good writing, its effect on teacher-student interactions, and its influence on students. These three aspects are interwoven through a discussion of writing from personal experience, selecting a particular form for a specific audience, and including elements of…

Noting that reading and writing in second-grade classrooms have undergone dramatic changes in the past 10 years, this book provides ideas that engage the second grader and transform the classroom into a more meaningful place in which to learn. The book discusses reading and writing from the developmental point of view, how to organize and set up…

Acting as a team, a graduate research methods class at Florida State University studied a first-year imaginative writing course, "Writing from Life," designed to help students write autobiography, fiction, and poetry. In the course of this study, intriguing differences became apparent between the attitudes and approaches in this class…

A practicum was designed to improve the internal and external editing skills of high school students so that their papers would reflect thought and care. The target population was 67 regular level tenth grade English students in a predominantly middle class high school in southeastern Florida. A combination of strategies were used to improve…

This guide is intended for speakers of the Chippewa (Ojibwa) language who read and write in English but would like to develop their reading and writing skills in Chippewa. The writing system used is one developed by Charles Fiero and is only one of many possible standardized writing systems for Chippewa. It was selected by the Chippewa Language…

Based on a two-day presentation workshop on early reading and writing approaches, the 12 essays in this book discuss the development of literacy, natural approaches in developing literacy, and supporting literacy development. Essays in the book are: (1) "Theories of Natural Language" (Carolyn N. Hedley); (2) "Oral Language…

A practicum, in an alternative high school work setting, was designed to deal with the problem of a deficiency in the writing ability students needed to express themselves skillfully and adequately. The goal was to increase writing involvement and writing ability. The objectives included the organization of a writing program, the improvement of…

Colleges are still designed for 18 to 22 year old students, even though that category includes only about 20% of the total population seeking degrees. Because of this fact, the term "andragogy," or how to teach adults, should become a more recognizable concept in education. A study was conducted in which 25 first-year adult women at…

A practicum implemented a program of writing instruction using computers, and measured its effectiveness in helping eleventh-grade remedial students meet the district's ninth-grade writing proficiency requirements, and in improving students' attitudes toward writing. Subjects were 13 eleventh-grade students in a C-track (remedial) English class. A…

A study compared writing scores and attitudes of second grade students in a traditional writing classroom and a writing process classroom. Subjects, 25 second-grade students in a writing process classroom and 26 students in a traditional classroom from the same rural school, were instructed in their respective classrooms for 6 months. Most…