Presents an interview with author Jack Gantos, whose career spans almost 25 years. Notes how he spoke passionately about his craft and about supporting emerging writers. Discusses how avid journaling is one technique that he uses that could benefit anyone. (SG)

Discusses the concept of rhetorical sovereignty as the inherent right and ability of peoples to determine their own communicative needs and desires. Claims rhetorical sovereignty requires writing teachers to rethink how and what they teach as the written word at all levels of schooling. Sketches out some preliminary notes toward the praxis that is…

Autobiographies are useful in teaching middle school reading and writing since middle school students tend to focus on topics about themselves and their place in the world. Autobiographies offer a powerful mechanism for self-reflection. This paper presents activities demonstrating how to use autobiography to motivate students to express their…

Provides fundamental information on learning disabilities relevant to programs preparing students for print media careers. Discusses learning disabilities specific to written expression. Examines legal issues and offers an overview of the types of appropriate accommodations that may be made in the classroom, including assistive technology and…

Argues that composition teachers, rather than dismiss their students' consumption of popular culture, should juxtapose popular culture with scholarly interpretations of popular culture and with traditional texts to draw students in and encourage analysis, interpretation and reevaluation of their assumptions. (SR)

Argues that writing teachers need to expand their conception of the response situation to encompass all the interchanges about evaluation (valuing of writing and writers) that go on in writing classes. Suggests two ways of complicating how the response situation is constructed in research about teacher commentary. Presents a study asking students…

Demonstrates that two fifth-grade avid writers differentiated between flow experiences and non-flow experiences associated with writing, and describes flow experiences in terms similar to those reported in studies in adolescents and adults. Shows that flow experiences occurred when students controlled important aspects of writing, such as…

Shares insights of an English teacher gained through a variety of teaching experiences. Describes how the Bay Area Writing Project provided effective strategies to improve the teaching of writing. (NH)

Analyzes literacy education's discourse conventions on diversity. Calls for advancing a critical democracy within the context of higher education which would disentangle the rhetoric on diversity from a colonizing agenda. (NH)

Examines the effects of word processing and pervasive e-mail on quality of college students' writing. Reports on strategies some instructors are using to improve writing and encourage structure, including having students e-mail drafts of papers to professors, requiring student to rewrite papers, encouraging students to review printed out (rather…

Describes the use of presentation software such as PowerPoint with elementary school students to create electronic books that use a combination of text, audio, and graphics. Discusses introducing the concept, planning the story on paper with the help of a worksheet, creating the story on the computer, and sharing stories. (LRW)

Suggests how the teaching of "you-attitude" (or "you-perspective") in business communication classes can be enhanced by using politeness theories, case grammar, and information structure. Uses a brief written announcement to show how these linguistic theories can inform specific writing strategies. Suggests that a "you-attitude" is gradable…

Notes how students learn to examine multiple elements of a text with critical perspective making analogies between others' writing and their own. Concludes that students may only have one opportunity to workshop their writing, but that intense learning experience, coupled with critical responses to another 20 or so drafts, coaxes writers into…

Presents three teachers' experience with a journal-writing workshop that was successfully implemented in a first-grade classroom, in which the children became an enthusiastic and effective community of writers. Discusses several advantages of a journal-writing workshop. (SG)

Describes the author's experience with Laura, the younger sister of one of her fifth-grade students from the previous year. Notes her preconceived notions concerning Laura's academic potential. Realizes that she was setting expectations for her students without providing the information her students needed to achieve them. Concludes that Laura had…