A surprising conversation with her young daughter inspired author Brandie Bohney to incorporate mentor texts to help students make sense of convention rules. Since struggling and reluctant readers tend to also be struggling and reluctant writers, the author designed activities that would concentrate on the conventions students most needed to…

Media literacy education provides a toolbox for helping direct students' attention to the way we shape information for audience and purpose. The National Association for Media Literacy Education defines the core skills of media literacy as the ability to access, analyze, and evaluate information, as well as the ability to create and act on…

This systematic review examines 22 studies (2024-2025) on the use of generative AI, primarily ChatGPT, for providing feedback in English writing instruction for language learners. It identifies the types of feedback AI offers, its effectiveness relative to teacher and peer feedback, and perceptions from students and teachers. Findings show AI…

From foremost authorities, this needed work demonstrates the importance of a science of literacy perspective for teaching and learning beyond the primary grades. Contributors present cutting-edge research on reading and writing development in grades 3-8 and review evidence-based classroom practices and professional learning frameworks. The…

Writing is a complex and difficult skill for many middle-level students. Therefore, teachers must invest considerable time and apply evidence-based instructional approaches when teaching writing. This article describes the self-regulated strategy development (SRSD) approach to teaching writing and provides examples of each step of the approach…

The purpose of this article is to share how the authors supported kindergartners' and first graders' developing creativity through stories they composed in writing and art. Over eight years, the authors explored ways to use picturebooks as mentor texts to help students explore how the authors and artists create meaning multimodally. This article…

Conferences provide teachers a valuable context for giving both positive and constructive feedback that is tailored to individual students. Students who struggle with writing, however, are less apt to receive positive feedback on the craft of their writing, which is an important part of literacy development in the elementary and middle grades.…

How do native Chinese-speaking (CS) and non-Chinese-speaking (NCS) children learn to read and write in Chinese? In the present study, 29 CS and 34 NCS second and third graders aged 76 to 122 months (M = 93.65) participated in an experiment where they were taught 16 new Chinese characters in one of four conditions--copy, radical, phonological and…

Observational studies suggest that early writing instruction rarely occurs in early childhood classrooms, despite the importance of supporting young children's writing development. Morning Meeting Time (MMT) routine is a typically occurring large group activity in early childhood classrooms that is interactive and familiar to teachers and…

This article considers our experiences teaching a hybrid literature/creative writing subject called "Life Writing." We consider the value of literature students engaging in creative writing practice--in this instance, the nonfiction subgenre of life writing--as part of their critical literary studies. We argue that in practicing life…

This article applies the perspective of "boundary work," an approach originating in science studies, to relations between the disciplines of Second Language Writing (SLW) and rhetoric and composition (R&C), especially to controversies surrounding the concept of translingualism. Boundaries both separate and connect, a dual potential…

One area of writing that may be particularly problematic, causing both academic and behavioral challenges for writers with learning disabilities, is constructing sentences. Sentences are the building blocks of coherent and effective writing and constructing syntactically correct and complex sentences is a critical skill characterizing expert…

English language arts teacher Zachary Wright describes how he uses "Mad-Lib"-like templates to help his unconfident writers (which is most of his students) see precisely how to do things like write a thesis statement, extract examples from the text, and structure a coherent essay.

Writing, with regards to academic training, has largely been relegated to the territory of primary education. Over the past fifty years, higher education administrators and faculty have become increasingly aware of eroding boundaries between high school and college. The considerable resource investment for the supply of writing courses generates…

As cultural and racial demographics continue to diversify across college campuses, the First Year Composition (FYC) classroom becomes a site wherein faculty can engage in transformative pedagogical strategies to maximize ways in which students' culturally diverse backgrounds can influence their rhetorical strategies in meaningful ways. However, a…