Assessing literacy strategies through collected works, reading logs, journal writings, other language activities, and informal testing, this book provides preservice teachers a firm grounding in the theory of literacy portfolios as part of authentic assessment strategies and provides guidelines of creating and using literacy portfolios…

The proliferation and subsequent devaluation of electronic symbols necessitate a rethinking of classroom discourse. In recent years, "visual literacy" has become an issue among those who feel that the increasingly symbolic orientation of communications compels the writing instructor to address the dynamics of both visual and written…

As part of the research for a dissertation on composition at Bryn Mawr College during the late 19th and early 20th centuries, hundreds of student essays and daily themes were read. Over and over students affirmed the essential worth and significance of events in their daily lives and of their college education in general. More often than not,…

This collection of writings is the culmination of students' study in the Worker Education Program's (WEP) workplace literacy classes. The WEP is a joint labor/management project of the Service Employees International Union Local 285 and unionized health care employers in Massachusetts that offers a range of education, job training, and career…

This study investigated how writing groups function in a multilingual university classroom, the kinds of responses students in such groups give one another, and how students respond to peers' suggestions about writing. Subjects were 11 students of varied linguistic background in a freshman composition class. Data were gathered over 10 weeks…

Since her Certificates in General Education for Adults class had not achieved the required competencies at writing for self-expression, a teacher felt it would be an appropriate genre for her to model. She drafted, edited, and completed the text on a large-screen computer. When trying to decide whether each text achieved the competencies required…

In Japanese colleges and universities, native speaker teachers in English departments are sometimes called on to teach courses that furnish English majors with the necessary tools to write their graduation theses in English. This study was undertaken at one university to determine what constitutes a graduation thesis, what aspects of the thesis…

This project provided adult educators in Pennsylvania with information about adults with learning differences and training in the use of alternative instructional techniques. Although the majority of training was conducted through presentations, many more adult educators were affected by the project through the information provided in the Learning…

Developed by classroom teachers during the development phase of Minnesota's Graduation Standards, this performance package is made up of locally designed assignments that, taken together, show whether a student has learned and can apply the knowledge and skills related to writing for a variety of academic and technical purposes, situations, and…

Based on Charles Dickens' novel "Great Expectations," this lesson plan presents activities designed to help students understand the differences between totalitarianism and democracy; and a that a writer of a story considers theme, plot, characters, setting, and point of view. The main activity of the lesson involves students working in groups to…

Many of the students at Olive-Harvey College, a community college on Chicago's south side, are struggling to balance their education with low income, service sector jobs and family needs while living in communities plagued by drugs and violence. The question is how teachers can help these students to attain their educational goals, despite their…

This checklist is designed to help develop writing strategies for English language learners (ELLs), focusing on a variety of linguistic strategies inherent in the writing process. It provides them with a graphical representation of the cognitive process involved in complex writing, promoting self-assessment strategies and integrating oral…

This monograph presents a collection of methods, materials, and techniques for assessing and teaching students with mild to moderate mental retardation to become successfully literate. Part 1 offers a foundation for literacy instruction and considers whether students with mental retardation can learn to read and write, the existence of multiple…

This two-volume notebook is part of a three-volume set containing strategies developed by experienced adult basic education (ABE) teachers in response to learning problems observed in their classrooms. Instructions on how to use the notebook with students with learning disabilities (LD) begin each volume. Volume 1 consists of these seven sections:…

A classroom study investigated the extent of rhetorical transfer in the writing of four Japanese students in a college-level sheltered English-as-a-Second-Language course. Most of the writing assignments from the first 10 weeks of class were analyzed for the number of sentences and clauses in each paragraph (other than introductory, concluding,…