Good writers don't wing it--they have a plethora of skills. They list, picture, circle, strategize and revise to make language come alive. They know what to use and when. Like ace athletes, they are highly trained, well-versed in the techniques found in this lively book. "Writing Workouts" provides a method for instruction that gives…

This study aimed to describe 1-year changes in students' vocabulary in written narratives. Secondary aims included examination of accuracy and the relationship between lexical diversity and achievement. Participants included 749 students in first through eighth grades. Within-subjects 1-year change in diversity, productivity, and accuracy was…

This article presents a case study on the use of expressivist writing pedagogy as a practice of identity construction for an adolescent Chinese-Speaking English Language Learner (ELL) in a 6-12, college preparatory, international boarding school context. The study implements a narrative inquiry/content analysis framework to analyze themes of…

Middle school social studies teachers are increasingly working on argument writing in their classrooms so that students can successfully write counterarguments that acknowledge competing perspectives about historical and social issues by the end of eighth grade. The authors' prior research indicates that eighth-grade students "can" grow…

Secondary English Language Arts teachers face classrooms with increasing linguistic and cultural diversity, yet privilege an approach to literacy associated with monolingual forms of English. Adherence to this ideological approach to teaching English reinforces conditions of White Supremacy. Simultaneously, the increasing presence of digital…

All mathematics is comprised of three elements: symbols, nominalizations, and images, and the combination of these three elements determine the mathematical meaning. However, adolescents may not be aware of these three elements. When asked to describe mathematical language, they will often name equations and images, two of the three elements. Over…

We examined the contributions of English proficiency, genre, and the use of textual sources to adolescent writing. The sample included 1819 native English speakers and language minority students from 127 seventh- and eighth-grade classes in an urban school district. Students were randomly assigned one of three source-based essay prompts…

Background: South Africa's "Language-in-Education Policy" (LiEP) provides for bi/multilingual education, but schools are only supported to choose monolingual English language policies from Grade 4 and ignore the learners' home language or languages as resources for learning. Many teachers translanguage orally, using the learners' home…

Although educators frequently use assessment to identify who needs supplemental instruction and if that instruction is working, there is a lack of research investigating assessment that informs what instruction students need. The purpose of the current study was to determine if a brief (approximately 20 min) task that reflects a common middle…

The purpose of this action research was to evaluate the impact of writing prompts and graphic organizers on Mona school's 7th and 8th grade students' mathematical academic achievement and their attitudes towards the authentic application of mathematics. Two research questions guided the study: (1) How and to what extent, do writing prompts and…

Literacy is an important result of language teaching. Language skills are like the pieces of a whole. The accurate acquisition of these skills, which are needed to be used effectively by individuals both in their social and educational life, is equally valuable. Writing is a skill that is acquired and developed mostly during the learning process…

At the beginning of the 21st century, computer-assisted instruction dominated most of the fields of language education. Within this frame, writing has evolved in second language education as a result of technological changes. There have been a great number of studies on the benefits of computer-assisted writing. On the other hand, some studies…

Framed by theories of youth, culture, identity studies, and literacy identity formation, this article examines how youth articulate themselves as writers. Using interview transcripts, analysis explored writing identity from the perspective of teens in urban, suburban, and rural settings. Findings from this qualitative study suggest that youth used…

Writing is critical for college and career readiness, yet secondary students in America are not good writers (National Center for Education Statistics, 2012). Unfortunately, researchers know relatively little about secondary students' writing skills, and even less about their digital writing. In this study, we explored prior computer use, keyboard…

The National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), first administered in 1969, is the largest nationally representative and continuing assessment of what the nation's students know and can do in various subjects such as civics, geography, mathematics, reading, science, U.S. history, and writing. The results of NAEP are released as The…