The demands of the academic field and the constraints students have while learning how to write appropriately call for better approaches to teach academic writing. This research study examines the effect of a multifaceted academic writing module on pre-service teachers' composition skills in an English teacher preparation program at a medium sized…

In this chapter, we describe several intelligent tutoring systems (ITSs) designed to support student literacy through reading comprehension and writing instruction and practice. Although adaptive instruction can be a powerful tool in the literacy domain, developing these technologies poses significant challenges. For example, evaluating the…

Today's teachers, especially the many who work with students with special needs, are pressed to know a little something about everything. Expertise is needed in different content and pedagogical areas, but knowledge of different types of disabilities is required as well. Wendy Murawski and Kathy Lynn Scott have assembled another reader-friendly…

In this paper, I will report qualitative research findings on how undergraduate students at a small-sized university in Thailand perceive Facebook group usage in a writing class. The findings suggest that the Facebook group can be used as blended learning (a hybrid instructional model) and learning management system (posting announcements and…

In this application brief I share a case study assignment I used in my "Leadership in Complex Organizations" classes to promote creativity in problem solving. I sorted Ph.D. students into two teams and trained them to use creative writing techniques to "encode" theory into their own cases. A sense of competition emerged. Later,…

Helping students achieve advanced critical thinking and writing skills in large undergraduate classes is a challenge faced by many university faculty members. We addressed this challenge in a three-year project using team course design, built around a cognitive apprenticeship model, to enhance undergraduates' writing, critical thinking, and…

Intertextuality is the relation of each text with the texts surrounding it. Any word or phrase we are writing or saying has relationship with what we have heard or seen before. This shared language makes others understand us. On the other hand, critical thinking is the ability to think reasonably, reflectively and skillfully. Since it is believed…

This paper was intended to examine teacher's corrective feedback and student's preferences in an advanced writing course. The study was conducted using a questionnaire as the instrument and 15 MA TEFL students from Ilam state university in Iran as the participants. The students were asked to prioritize among a list of ten aspects of error…

I believe that there should be a focus on problematic language issues such as prepositions in the language classroom in order to provide continuous exposure to such features. Consequently I provided my students with supplementary activities on prepositions, and also promoted learner autonomy by highlighting urls which deal with collocation.…

Herbert Marcuse's concept of repressive tolerance argues that behind the justification of tolerance lies the possibility of ideological domination. Tolerance allows intolerable practices to go unchallenged and flattens discussion to assume all viewpoints have equal validity. When alternative, dissenting views are inserted into the curriculum…

Many students with disabilities have written language production deficits. As a result, these students are failing to meet the demands of government-initiated standards, higher education, and employment. In this review, quantitative experimental intervention studies for improving persuasive, narrative, and expository compositions for adolescents,…

English 106: Introductory Composition is a mandatory four credit hour course offered at Purdue University. English 106 is offered by the English department through the Introductory Composition at Purdue program (ICaP), supervised by the Writing Program Administrator (WPA) of first-year composition (FYC). Students enrolled in English 106 gain…

The present study reports the results of a process of peer feedback through anonymous peer review in an EFL writing class. Numerous studies have reported on the benefits of peer review (PR) in the ESL/EFL writing classroom. However, the literature also identifies social issues that can negatively affect the outcome of face-to-face PR. In this…

Twenty-first century organizations are increasingly becoming global information networks where the emphasis on written communication is growing exponentially. Effective writing skills are becoming more essential to workplace success and thus a central focus in business programs across the country. This article addresses writing issues in business…

The ability to build arguments is a crucial skill and a central educational goal in all school subjects including science as it enables students to formulate reasoned opinions and thus to cope with the increasing complexity of knowledge. In the present cross-sectional study, we examined the domain-specificity of argumentative writing in science by…