Discusses ways to help English-as-a-Second-Language learners master the skill of summarizing. Students learn to break down the task of summarizing into small steps that can be mastered one by one. Then, teachers build up students' confidence by practice and encouragement until the students feel confident enough to tackle the task by themselves.…

Describes seven activities for teaching students "researched writing"--activities that offer possibilities for active and interactive researching, writing, and thinking, and that include small group work, discussion, and other activities. (SR)

Describes a writing assignment (useful for junior high through college age students) that seeks to improve students' descriptive writing through a set of class writing assignments using visual and concrete objects. Allows students to gain awareness, gain knowledge and discuss it, and ask questions as a body of learners rather than in isolation.…

Describes eight assorted activities, all based on the use of almanacs, that offer high-interest activities developing skills which students can use in other, later work--activities that can be interspersed throughout the year during those unplannable days that occur at the ends of units, on days before breaks, or when everyone needs a break from…

Describes an assignment in which students read a travelogue excerpt and then must determine specified aspects of the writer's character based on evidence from the text. Notes how this exercise shapes students' awareness of how character influences writing, and how biases and assumptions influence reading. (SR)

Discusses how the author and a colleague made a short videotape of students talking about their writing experiences. Describes first steps, arrangements and questions, the shoot itself, and crafting the video. Discusses uses of this video, noting the impact this infusion of student voices can have in the composition classroom, influencing the way…

Describes how the author used literature with her second-grade students to explicitly demonstrate elements of the writer's craft. Focuses on how writers get their ideas, descriptive language, and character development. Describes how these young students made noticeable improvements in their writing over a fairly short period of time. Draws…

Data concerning perceptions of the Scholarly Writing Project, designed to develop doctoral students' academic writing skills, were gathered from 45 doctoral students through focus groups, observations, and written and oral reflections. Students valued critiques from professors and peers, especially personalized face-to-face feedback and the…

Describes the use of "poemakers," sheets of white paper with special drawings pre-printed on them that have blank lines where words go. Describes using these poemakers as springboards for writing in poetry workshops for students from first grade through twelfth, as well as with college students. Includes one finished example, followed by four…

Argues that silence has a remarkable presence, and that hearing silence is about stopping and not doing, letting the sounds of the world come to you. Describes ways the author has worked with elementary school students, asking them to think about and write about silence. Includes poems about silence. (SR)

Argues that conversations about books should be everyday occurrences in classrooms. Suggests that busy reading teachers try retellings. Includes a sample lesson. (RS)

Suggests that technical writing students need to learn to write effectively online because electronic mail is becoming the preferred mode of communicating in industry. Explores how students can be taught to use the network effectively in group and collaborative projects, especially through the writing of critique memos. (RS)

Notes the perception among students that cultural critique is a privileged, elitist mode of inquiry. Argues that a dialogic, Bakhtinian approach to response could help address this problem. Discusses how two Bakhtinian concepts ("anacrisis" and the "superaddresse") might be applied to writing classrooms. (RS)

Explores how ownership of student writing was represented in the progressivism of the early 1900s and the expressivism of the 1960s and 1970s. Suggests that as vestiges of progressive and expressivist concepts of composition continue into the present, there are hopeful signs that a new, more usable concept of ownership is emerging. (RS)

Provides one account of a "messy," critical research process, drawn from a dissertation project: a study of students' and teachers' responses within three university writing courses which were focused on "The American Experience" and which fulfilled the institution's diversity requirement. Aims to achieve some degree of…