Current research indicates that students often have a difficult time getting started on reaching their course goals. This study examines the impact of an intervention exercise on the final grades and success rates of two groups of community college students in California. At the beginning of the spring semester 2007, students in two English…

This article presents a review of the research on technology integration in the area of literacy for individuals with mild disabilities. It describes relevant legislation, including how special education technology is impacted by the No Child Left Behind Act (2001). Included studies focus on research in the core content areas of reading and…

This paper reports on the development of a website tool aimed at helping Spanish small and medium enterprises (SMEs) staff to write their commercial correspondence in English. It describes the steps involved in the tool system design process, making an emphasis on the methodological criteria and rational that guided us to develop the site. In…

The present study compared the rhetorical strategies for argumentative writing in Chinese and English composition textbooks. The textbooks were selected based on four criteria. The results of the study revealed that there are similarities and differences in Chinese and English argumentative writing. Both Chinese and English agree upon the function…

This historical exploration tracks changes in rules concerning figurative language in nineteenth-century composition-rhetoric textbooks. The century's lessening of millennium-long restriction of the poetic allowed not only creative writing into academia but composition as well, as composition at its beginning was intertwined with creative writing.…

Genre-based approaches to teaching writing have made important strides in heightening students' awareness of audience and purpose but have paid less attention to the ways in which expectations for written performance in school context are embedded in expectations for certain kinds of discipline-based thinking. In this paper we present a study that…

Based on an ethnographic study of a writing course taught by a talented instructor who integrated process and critical pedagogy approaches, I argue that many students actively engage with the concerns of critical pedagogy when the classroom ethos strongly supports their agency--their ownership of their developing ideas and texts. (Contains 10…

This study examined how urban high-school students responded to increased academic expectations. The intervention included increased expectations for reading and writing, collaboration, and the completion of multi-day assignments. Twenty-four students (8 lower, 8 average, and 8 higher performers) from 4 classrooms were interviewed across a 9-week…

Painters, musicians, and writers--among others--often begin as novices by modeling the practices of their best teachers or favorite masters. The purpose of this article is to suggest that the habits of working, published writers can serve students as informal models for how processes happen behind the scene of public work. Students can examine…

This article reports the results of a research project involving "unconventional" pedagogical practices and examines the impact of contemplative practice on teaching and learning in an undergraduate creative writing class and a graduate level methods of teaching writing course. Using student evaluations of the projects, the authors…

Literacy is a complex set of skills that comprise the interrelated processes of reading and writing required within varied socio-cultural contexts. Underdeveloped literacy skills have profound consequences for students, families, and society. These effects are academic, social, emotional, and economic in nature. Students with learning disabilities…

The intertextual nature of workplace writing is well attested, and the efficacy of intertextuality as a tool for investigating the ways in which genres are linked in workplace settings is also recognized (Berkenkotter, 2001; Bhatia, 2004). Intertextuality not only accounts for the links between texts, but is also an important factor influencing…

The preceding two essays focus on the ongoing challenge to engage students in meaningful conversation with the course content, their reading, their instructor, and one another. The authors, Maureen Neal and Ed Jones, have read each other's essays and provided the following brief responses. This cross talk between the writers is an attempt to make…

This study assessed the effects of self-monitoring on the quantity and quality of creative writing of fourth-grade students with learning disabilities. The participants, four fourth-grade students with identified learning disabilities, self-monitored both the quantity and quality of their writing. Results show a statistically significant increase…

Collaborative learning (CL) methods were evaluated by a group of 101 university students in a first-year ESL course on Communication and Study Skills. The principal objective of the new approach was to encourage students to work together, to express their ideas more freely and to learn from each other. Student opinions on a course project…