Research on adult writers has shown that writing proceeds through bursts of transcription activity interspersed by long pauses. Yet few studies have examined how these writing behaviors unfold during early and middle childhood. This study traces the progress of bursts, pauses, transcription, and written composition in Portuguese students from…

This paper investigated a large number of errors found in the topic-based writings of Chinese EFL learners, especially provided an analysis on frequent errors, to find useful pedagogical implications for English grammar teaching and writing instruction in Chinese EFL setting. Students' topic-based writings were examined by the author. The findings…

This paper is set in the context of my experience in advanced ESL writing classes at two Canadian universities. Based on my experience and the research literature, several types of feedback should be administered by teachers to create more effective learning opportunities among advanced ESL writing students. In this paper, I examine the advantages…

The present study originates in an interest in toddlers' spontaneous literacy activities and Swedish preschool practice. The curriculum for Swedish preschool (National Agency for Education, 2011b) clearly states that preschools should work on the basis of a holistic view of the child and that activities should be both enjoyable and based on…

Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) have demonstrated the potential to deliver quality and cost effective course materials to large numbers of students. Approximately 60% of first-year students at community colleges are underprepared for college-level coursework. One reason for low graduation rates is the lack of the overall college readiness.…

The purpose of this article is to provide teachers with tools that they can use to teach written expression to school-age students with intellectual disabilities. These tools are presented around the mnemonic ACCESS: accommodations and assistive technologies, concrete topics, critical skills, explicit instruction, strategy instruction, systematic…

Struck by his students' often hostile and apathetic responses to assignments and instruction and hoping to contribute to the knowledge of motivation, Dan LaSalle began to take an inquiry stance on his own practice. He studied his practice on three fronts with the help of an off-site teacher research group: (1) how his inquiry question changes as a…

This exploratory practice research is a collaborative effort by five university ESL instructors to investigate how students in their program's advanced writing course view, respond to, and make meaning of the feedback they receive. Through semistructured interviews with focus groups, this research aims to provide students with a forum to express…

Rosemary Barilla, a middle-grade language arts teacher, inspired by her own dedication to the arts, describes the ways she integrates the fine arts into her classroom program that is designed to teach reading and writing. Tina Boyer Brown, a founding teacher at The Chicago High School for the Arts (ChiArts®), describes the school as a place where…

This paper reports on a study which investigated the effectiveness of an explicit instruction approach in a Japanese university setting with third-year science and technology students in an English for Specific Purposes (ESP) course. The two aims of this study were: 1) to explore changes in students' attitudes and understanding of summary writing,…

We investigated whether students increased their self-assessment accuracy and essay scores over the course of an intervention with a writing strategy intelligent tutoring system, [Writing Pal] (W-Pal). Results indicate that students were able to learn from W-Pal, and that the combination of strategy instruction, game-based practice, and holistic…

This paper explores how to teach English writing to big classes in China from the task-based perspective. Based on a comparison between the traditional 3Ps approach and the tasked-based approach, the paper proposes a practical linear procedure as to how to teach English writing in the task-based classroom to big classes. An empirical study is…

Writing and photography are composition processes that help develop children's linguistic and visual competencies, respectively. Using photography in teaching writing has been found to enhance students' literacy skills by naturally invoking their interest and motivation, and eventually strengthening the reading-writing relationship. Children can…

This chapter will describe the evolution of a study of graduate education students' needs as writers. Recognizing that many of my students--who would soon be teaching children to write--struggled with various aspects of writing, I began a Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (SoTL) study to examine (a) my students' perceptions of…

In this study, we quantitatively analyze the discourse of experienced writing center tutors in 10 highly satisfactory conferences. Specifically, we analyze tutors' instruction, cognitive scaffolding, and motivational scaffolding, all tutoring strategies identified in prior research from other disciplines as educationally effective. We find that…