This article reports the findings from a year-long study of 6 writing teachers in an urban elementary school who also received intensive professional development in writing instruction from a nonprofit organization. Repeated observations demonstrated that the teachers displayed consistency in their use of the core instructional elements associated…

In this essay, the author describes her own attempt at incorporating Web 2.0 technology into her teaching: a wiki project that she used in her English as a second language (ESL) composition course. The theme she traces throughout the rest of this essay is the wiki's ability (or inability) to make "connections" of various kinds. Like any text, the…

Truscott's (1996) indictment on error correction in second-language (L2) writing has ignited much discussion and research on the appropriateness of written corrective feedback (WCF) in L2 contexts. Out of this has emerged a body of research that suggests that WCF can positively impact the linguistic accuracy of student writing. However, these…

Writing occupies a key role in doctoral research, because it is the principal channel students use to communicate their ideas, and the basis on which their degree is awarded. Doctoral writing can, therefore, be a source of considerable anxiety. Most doctoral candidates require support and encouragement if they are to develop confidence as writers.…

Writing center tutors play a key role in advancing L2 writers' language learning because the tutorial interaction involves the introduction of new language and vocabulary at the point of need or interest. This tutor-research case study presents a detailed, complex portrait of how a second language writer in a US writing center learned and used…

Composition theorists concerned with students' academic writing ability have long questioned the application of voice as a standard for writing competence, and second language compositionists have suggested that English language learners may be disadvantaged by the practice of emphasizing voice in the evaluation of student writing. Despite these…

Arguing against the emphasis of traditional U.S. composition classes on linguistically homogeneous situations, the authors contend that this focus is at odds with actual language use today. They call for a translingual approach, which they define as seeing difference in language not as a barrier to overcome or as a problem to manage, but as a…

The present study investigates EFL students' perceptions of power differentials and their negotiation strategies when communicating with native English-speaking students via emails. The study involved 28 Taiwanese and American undergraduates who participated in a semester-long cross-national email writing activity. Findings show that students in…

Through a feminist content analysis of young women's writing and reflections, this study gives evidence of how a school-based new literacy project shared knowledge in a public voice about the irreducible and complex world of "becoming" a girl. This project, called "The Pink Voice," was conducted in a large urban centre on the…

This installation is a personal and cathartic engagement with my initial inability to cope with my daughter's cancer. It details events that began in August of 2008 and concluded, in a sense, in February of 2009. I offer it with hopes of helping digitally-oriented rhetoric and composition scholars "determin[e] a should for a we" (Patricia Sullivan…

The benefits of embedding the teaching of writing into the curriculum have been advocated by educators and researchers. However, there is currently little evidence of embedded writing instruction in the UK's higher education context. In this article, we present a case study in which we report the design, implementation and evaluation of an…

This study examined technical features of slopes produced from curriculum-based measures (CBM) of beginning writing. Eighty-five first-graders completed weekly sentence copy, picture-word, and story prompts for 12 weeks. After 12 weeks, testing revealed alternate-form reliability and criterion validity of CBM scores generally similar to those…

This study examined the effectiveness of teaching methods used with a second language reading and writing unit. This investigation addressed discrepancies between assessment scores in the four communicative language skill areas of students in beginning-level Spanish classes at a suburban middle school. Accordingly, the purpose of this study was to…

The current study explores how integrating a social networking website called Facebook with peer feedback in groups supports student learning, investigates the nature of feedback students received on their writing, and examines their attitudes towards the use of Facebook for peer feedback. The study involves 30 undergraduate students who…

This study examined the diversity of teaching practices to illuminate the qualitative variety of instructional teaching practices among preschool teachers. Further, teachers' self-rated educational goals were explored to complement the multifaceted nature of preschool teachers' instructional teaching practices. The study was carried out as a case…