This study--a hybrid project that blends empirical research traditions from the social sciences and composition studies--examines how discourses of Christianity and composition operate in college writing classrooms. Conducted at a large, public, Midwestern university, this qualitative study analyzes surveys and interviews of writing instructors…

This publication seeks to offer educators and policy-makers guidance on strategies that have been effective in instructing English language learners (ELLs). The authors begin by outlining key contextual factors that decision-makers should take into account when making instructional choices for English language learners, then follow with a brief…

The merits and shortcomings of formalized assessments of student writing have been debated by critics who maintain they are not valid measures of writing proficiency, often result in a narrowing effect on the local school curriculum and elicit predictable or formulaic writing by students and by proponents who argue they help to inform teacher…

Students' interpretations of their academic writing tasks has been a central concern in the cognitive-based writing research due to the prominent role such decision-making plays in determining students' subsequent thinking and composing strategies and ultimately in shaping their textual quality. Without a comprehensive understanding of how L2…

This action research combined qualitative and quantitative techniques to investigate two different types of writing assignments in an introductory undergraduate statistics course. The assignments were written in response to the same set of prompts but in two different ways: homework journal assignments or initial posts to a computer discussion…

In this article we provide a "portrait" of an exemplary writing teacher and the social construction of authority he established with students in two courses. The portrait demonstrates that teacher authority is most essentially a form of professional authority granted by students who affirm the teacher's expertise, self-confidence, and…

A literature review reveals limited information regarding the modeling of authentic writing practices by teacher educators for their students. This study examines the effect of the author's modeling processes as evidenced by education students' assessments of his courses. The author analyzed data using a grounded approach to document their…

This article examines the challenges of teaching basic writing today as students come to the classroom with the basic fluency of digital natives but have the same need for learning writing and critical thinking skills that has traditionally marked basic writers. While most basic writers are adept at accessing information digitally, they are not as…

Providing feedback is one of the foreign language writing teacher's most important tasks (Ferris, 2007). However there is less certainty about the techniques that should be used (K. Hyland & F. Hyland, 2006). This article reports on research that investigated the effects of two types of teacher feedback, on-tape and written, and of the absence…

This paper concerns teacher learning. It describes the impact on teacher knowledge and reported practice of working with diagnostic assessment tools for writing. These tools were specifically designed with a dual purpose: to provide diagnostic information about students to guide teaching for enhanced learning outcomes and also to develop teacher…

Since the AACSB mandates that students demonstrate effective oral and written communication skills, it is imperative that business professors do what is necessary to improve such skills. The authors investigate whether the use of using multiple progress reports in an Advertising class project improves the final product. The data results show that…

While evidence shows that grammar study focused on identification, description, and definition (IDD) fails to enhance writing performance, the grammar most students study remains focused on the IDD tradition. We taught a functional grammar that featured what words do in sentences, rather than what words are called and how they are defined, to two…

The early stratification among what one might now label the primary, secondary, and postsecondary levels of education persists. There are pertinent developmental and cognitive considerations that account for many of the distinctions among what is taught at each level. Yet within the discipline of English, always tentatively, provisionally defined…

The stereotype of the poet or novelist working in unappreciated solitude got a workout recently at the Carbondale campus of Southern Illinois University. The 9th annual Young Writer's Workshop brought 30 high-school students onto the campus for four intense days of poetry and fiction writing, critiques, panels and readings. The workshop is one of…

The purpose of this study was to determine the effectiveness of the model, lead, and test procedure, as well as a fading procedure with prompts and Direct Instruction with two preschool developmentally delayed students. These procedures were implemented to teach a class of preschoolers to write their names in preparation for their kindergarten…