Focusing on reading methods and practices in rural Indian Mexico at the turn of the twentieth century, this article explains why schooling had little impact in terms of literacy in Spanish yet played a successful political and ceremonial role resulting in what I call a ritual literacy. At the time, the emerging educational system did not consider…

This study details the development and results of a campus-based writing assessment plan that was mandated by a state-wide university system in order to explore the ''value-added'' from a writing program curriculum to undergraduate students' competence with written expression. Four writing samples (two timed essays and two conventional essays)…

This article illustrates how faculty and students can use the ACS Journals Search to examine assumptions about writing in chemistry. We examined common writing practices in chemistry including (i) the use of nominalizations, active and passive voice, and personal pronouns, (ii) words to avoid (e.g., researcher, very), (iii) words to use (e.g.,…

Family and community members often look at children's writing from a deficit point of view--seeing only what's "wrong" with it, what needs "fixing." Teachers can take a proactive role as family and community member educators, communicating to them how writing develops in young children and how they can play a positive role in this development.…

This article talks about the "old-school" practice of recopying. For its part in composition, this practice reminds that real literacy is not a technological product, but a cognitive process. In recopying to revise, students learn that almost all good writing is rewriting. Likewise, in recopying, the solitary writer engages in a kind of internal…

Most middle school science teachers are familiar with the idea of reading and writing across the curriculum. We, as science teachers, understand that our students need time, practice, and lots of encouragement in order to learn how to read and write well. What we also need to remember, however, is that learning how to read and write in science is…

This article explores the emotioned dimensions of racist discourses at an all-white public high school. I argue that students' racist assertions do not always or even often originate in students' racist attitudes or belief. Instead, racist language functions metaphorically, connecting common racist ideas to nonracist feelings, values, beliefs, and…

The advantages of peer feedback in business writing classes are clear in that feedback comes from different perspectives and sometimes carries extra credibility coming from fellow students. However, students also hesitate to criticise their friends and prefer praising in a general way rather than suggesting improvements, which requires…

This article reports the findings of balanced and interactive writing instruction used with 16 deaf and hard-of-hearing students. Although the instruction has been used previously, this was the first time it had been modified to suit the specific needs of deaf children and the first time it had been implemented with this subpopulation of students.…

How has the teaching of writing changed in the 21st century? In this innovative guide, real teachers share their stories, successful practices, and vivid examples of their students' creative and expository writing from online and multimedia projects, such as blogs, wikis, podcasts, electronic poetry, and more. The book also addresses assessment:…

Many composition teachers use the writing conference to provide feedback to their students; however, the existing literature on the subject indicates that teachers may unintentionally harm their weaker students by using this strategy. To better understand the effect of the writing conference on developmental writing students, the researcher…

What beginning reading programs have been proven to help students in grades K-1 to succeed? To find out, this review summarizes evidence on four types of programs designed to improve beginning reading achievement: (1) Reading Curricula (Curr), such as "Open Court Reading," "Reading Street," and other standard and alternative textbooks; (2)…

In this article, the author describes her experience of teaching Mandarin Chinese at Stopher Elementary School in Louisville, Kentucky. Through growing and learning with her students, the author has become a firm believer in the importance of early childhood language acquisition and a passionate advocate for world language education.

The study of literature has many important benefits for students, but research shows that students often have difficulty interpreting literary texts, are unable to read critically, and are challenged to write interpretations that go beyond basic plot summary. This article provides a theoretical interpretation of the processes by which students…

Beliefs have often been considered important because of their relation to practice. Little is known about the literacy beliefs of preschool teachers, particularly their print literacy beliefs, even though young children's experiences with print have implications for formal schooling. Therefore, this study explored the print literacy beliefs of…